Literary Abuse
Amusement, Bad Reviews, Book Reviews, Books, Famous Authors, Literature
Katherine Mansfield
Michelle Kerns, in the Telegraph, collects 50 colorful examples of abuse of fellow authors by well-known writers.
Examples:
William Faulkner, according to Ernest Hemingway
Have you ever heard of anyone who drank while he worked? You’re thinking of Faulkner. He does sometimes — and I can tell right in the middle of a page when he’s had his first one.
E.M. Forster’s Howards End, according to Katherine Mansfield (1915)
Putting my weakest books to the wall last night I came across a copy of ‘Howards End’ and had a look into it. Not good enough. E.M. Forster never gets any further than warming the teapot. He’s a rare fine hand at that. Feel this teapot. Is it not beautifully warm? Yes, but there ain’t going to be no tea.
And I can never be perfectly certain whether Helen was got with child by Leonard Bast or by his fatal forgotten umbrella. All things considered, I think it must have been the umbrella.
Hat tip to Walter Olson.
E.M. Forster