Here's a ferociously funny glimpse into the history of literary, theater, art, and general entertainment criticism. Excerpts of reviews are taken from magazines, newspapers, and, in at least one case, from the lips of a powerful European emperor. A complimentary review of most books, music recordings, or plays will often inspire audiences to accept them, but the review is usually forgotten while the work of art goes on to become famous. Readers won't find such reviews in this book, because the emphasis here is on fun. For sheer glee there is nothing like seeing a really venomous critic sharpen his or her claws on somebody's masterpiece. Sometimes the critics are right, but just as often they take journalistic pratfalls. Like many other Hapsburg Emperors who ruled the vast AustroHungarian Empire from its Vienna capital, Joseph II was a generous patron of the arts. But when he dismissed a Mozart symphony as "having too many notes," the rest of the music world could only smile. Henry James and Mark Twain were contemporary novelists, but neither writer understood or appreciated the other's genius. Twain once said of James: "Once you put down one of his books, you simply can't pick it up again." More scathing was the famous New Yorker magazine critic Dorothy Parker, who said of one now-forgotten book: "This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Readers will chuckle as they read damning reviews of books, music, plays, television shows, movies, and even restaurants. It's pure entertainment, with just a drop or two of poison.
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Quotes from the most devastating critical reviews ever probes historical magazines to provide the nastiest—and funniest—reviews ever are expertly compiled by Laura Ward. … Bad Press is enthusiastically recommended and highly entertaining."
—Library Bookwatch, February 2004
"One of the great natural unfairnesses of life is that unkind reviews of books, plays, music—whatever—and especially vicious ones live on in memory and anthologies while favorable ones die young. Here, Ms. Wood, an irrepressible enthusiast for aesthetic savagery, has compiled a magnificent compendium of dismissals. Among my favorites: 'The triumph of sugar over diabetes'—George Jean Nathan on the writing of J.M. Barrie. 'I love Wagner; but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws' —Charles Baudelaire. And 'Farley Granger played Mr. Darcy with all the flexibility of a telegraph pole.' —Brooks Atkinson on a musical version of Pride and Prejudice. But these are just snippets. Some of the most entertaining and even intellectually provocative material comes in pieces far to long to quote here. A delightful romp of critical wickedness."
—Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun, September 15, 2002
"Great, irresistible fun. Ward is hardly the first to compile a 'lexicon of invective' but she's done it better than anyone in quite a while..."
—Buffalo News, November 2002
—Library Bookwatch, February 2004
"One of the great natural unfairnesses of life is that unkind reviews of books, plays, music—whatever—and especially vicious ones live on in memory and anthologies while favorable ones die young. Here, Ms. Wood, an irrepressible enthusiast for aesthetic savagery, has compiled a magnificent compendium of dismissals. Among my favorites: 'The triumph of sugar over diabetes'—George Jean Nathan on the writing of J.M. Barrie. 'I love Wagner; but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws' —Charles Baudelaire. And 'Farley Granger played Mr. Darcy with all the flexibility of a telegraph pole.' —Brooks Atkinson on a musical version of Pride and Prejudice. But these are just snippets. Some of the most entertaining and even intellectually provocative material comes in pieces far to long to quote here. A delightful romp of critical wickedness."
—Michael Pakenham, The Baltimore Sun, September 15, 2002
"Great, irresistible fun. Ward is hardly the first to compile a 'lexicon of invective' but she's done it better than anyone in quite a while..."
—Buffalo News, November 2002
About the Author
Laura Ward has worked for many years as an editor for various book publishers in England. She lives and works in London, and still nurtures a shamefaced, but unflagging enthusiasm for the bad press over the good.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An Experience So Vacuous, It's Almost Frightening...,
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This review is from: Bad Press: The Worst Critical Reviews Ever! (Hardcover)
"An experience so vacuous, it's almost frightening..." is from a review of 'Xanadu' by Ian Birch, and sums up much of the commentary in this amusing little book. The book is a collection of reviews covering several centuries, and featuring many notables (and others you have never heard of) such as George Bernard Shaw, Dorothy Parker, and the wonderfully biting Rick Kushman, who makes reading the 'Sacramento Bee' a singular pleasure. The book is presented in sections on theater, movies, literature, etc., and features some delicious examples of literary witticism. I have my favorites and they are far too numerous to mention, but what follows are just a few examples to illustrate my point."'The Birthday Party' is like a vintage Hitchcock thriller which has been, in the immortal tear-stained words of Orson Wells, 'edited by a cross-eyed studio janitor with a lawn mower.'" -Alan Brien "This is M. Ionesco's first attempt at a social play, and the number of interpretations to which it is susceptible is roughly equal to the number of people in the audience." - Kenneth Tynan on 'Rhinoceros' by Eugene Ionesco, 1960 "They gave us for dinner boiled ant-bear and red monkey; two dishes unknown even at Beauvilliers or Paris.... The monkey was very good indeed, but the ant-bear had been kept beyond its time; it stank as our venison does in England..." -Charles Waterton "What can I do with it? It's like a lot of yaks jumping about." "The music of Wagner imposes mental tortures that only algebra has the right to inflict." -Paul de Saint-Victor on Richard Wagner in 'La Presse' And finally, my all time favorite review in the entire book, and probably of all time: "I love Wagner; but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws." -Charles Baudelaire My only criticism of the book is that its roughly square shape makes holding it a bit of a chore, as it is quite thick, yet dimuitive of height and width. It's good material, just a less than ideal format. If you want a book filled with some of the worlds all time pithiest reviews, this is the book for you.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Not bad but sloppy and lazy,
By
This review is from: Bad Press: The Worst Critical Reviews Ever! (Hardcover)
This isn't a bad collection but:
- The editing is weak: Mark Twain's comment about leaving Jane Austen out of a great library appears twice (with different wording) - Many quotes aren't traced back to their source (the authors frequently used "attrib." or quote from someone else's collection of quotes) - In both the Movie/Television section and the Music section, 20% of the quotes come from a single person - Not all the quotes are, in fact, reviews. The pieces from Robert Bentchley, for instance, are quotes from one of his books
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good Press,
By "ksw802" (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Bad Press: The Worst Critical Reviews Ever! (Hardcover)
This book is hilarious, full of enlightening and amusing nuggets. It's fun, but educational too. The breadth of research (the range of authors, the huge variety of newspapers, books and journals researched) is impressive. There's everything here - from critics of Shakespeare (did you know how much Samuel Pepys hated the bard?) to Mary McCarthy's well-reasoned but damning theatre reviews, to Mark Twain and Dorothy Parker respectively pulling their unsuspecting victims apart (from the latter, there's the pearl 'Theodor Dreiser ought to write nicer'). The restaurant stuff is laugh out loud - I LOVE the bits by Dara Moskowitz. It's also nice to see the 'greats' of yesteryear (eg Henry James, George Eliot, Flaubert) suffering at the hands of unimpressed - or lazy - critics. It certainly makes you think about the vagaries of fashion.
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