Coming Soon:

The following books by Robert Paul Wolff are available on Amazon.com as e-books: KANT'S THEORY OF MENTAL ACTIVITY, THE AUTONOMY OF REASON, UNDERSTANDING MARX, UNDERSTANDING RAWLS, THE POVERTY OF LIBERALISM, A LIFE IN THE ACADEMY, MONEYBAGS MUST BE SO LUCKY. Coming soon: Volumes I and II of the Collected Published and Unpublished Papers.

Total Pageviews

Help Support University Scholarships for South African Students! To learn more, visit www.ussas.com

Saturday, June 25, 2011

MARK TWAIN ON JANE AUSTEN

Andrew Sullivan's The Daily Dish, has a link to a list of thirty slams of great authors by great authors. Here is Mark Twain on Jane Austen: “I haven’t any right to criticize books, and I don’t do it except when I hate them. I often want to criticize Jane Austen, but her books madden me so that I can’t conceal my frenzy from the reader; and therefore I have to stop every time I begin. Every time I read ‘Pride and Prejudice,’ I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin-bone."

Note that he says, "Every time I read Pride and Prejudice." There is enough complicated irony in that one phrase to keep a Jane Austen fan happy for a week.

2 comments:

Michael said...

I'm normally good at hunting these things down, but I couldn't find the link on Sullivan's blog. Professor Wolff (or somebody else, if anybody has it), would you mind posting it. I'd love to see the rest of the list.

Robert Paul Wolff said...

Try this:

http://flavorwire.com/188138/the-30-harshest-author-on-author-insults-in-history/2#post_body