Monday: The lighter side of the literary life…

Finished a short story (and sent it out!), removed nails from decking on the farm, made a Moroccan-style chickpea stew…ah, the glamor, the romance of being a writer.

As I’ve got ever-more deadlines to meet, and it’s getting late (a thought that often shivers through this writer’s mind), I thought I might share a few quotes from one of my favorite compendiums: The Literary Life & Other Curiosities by Robert Hendrickson. I’ve had it in my library for some twenty-five years, and every once in a while I peruse it for a chuckle.

Here’s my favorite critical revelation:

“I never read a book before I review it; it prejudices a man so.”

–The Reverend Sydney Smith (1771-1845)

And here are some words by great men to give us all who toil in the spiny fields of, er, literature a bit of a backache:

“I hate books; they only teach us to talk about things we know nothing about.”

–Rousseau

“Books are fatal: they are the curse of the human race. Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense. The greatest misfortune that ever befell man was the invention of printing.”

–Benjamin Disraeli

“Literature is the orchestration of platitudes.”

–Thornton Wilder

And here is a standard rejection slip suggested by the author and editor Don Gold. This appeared in the New York Times Magazine:

Dear Writer

Thank you for giving us the opportunity to read your manuscript. It is being returned to you because:

[] This is dreadful, unpublishable and an affront to civilization. Burn it.

[] This is just plain mediocre. Sorry.

[] This carbon is too mess for me to deal with.

[] This Xerox copy is an affront to me.

[] There is too much intelligence inherent in this work for me to comprehend. In self-defense, I am returning it.

[] When I told your agent that I would be happy to read your work, I was not telling the truth. Forgive me.

[] Life is a wearying experience. I am too exhausted to give this manuscript the attention it may deserve.

[] Your information is great; your prose is unreadable.

[] With my problems, I can’t concentrate on your manuscript. Don’t nag me now.

[] I am important and you are not. Call me when you’re famous.

[] I don’t like this, and I don’t know why.

No…I never used the above rejection slip, although there were times…

And one last happy quote:

“It took me fifteen years to discover I had no talent for writing, but I couldn’t give it up because by that time I was famous.”

–Robert Benchley

Happy dreams, all ye readers, writers, anthologists, critics, and reviewers…