Customer Reviews

With Charity Toward None: A Fond Look At Misanthropy

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I disagree with the NY Times--this book's covers are not too close together. It is of perfect length for a nice antisocial weekend. Kudos to King for introducing the reader to less obvious misanthropes. I learned that Diane Fossey was a savage, Ayn Rand was an obsessive-compulsive Fuhrer-in-waiting, and Ty Cobb was just a bully. People often confuse misanthropy with psychosis. King is sharp enough to make the distinction. I would bump into her and exchange vulgar insults anytime.

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. If you have had too much PC or have had it up to here with cloying sentimentality, or you just had too much "other people", get this book. If you like Dorothy Parker, H.L. Mencken, Ambrose Bierce, Grouch Marx, etc., you will love this book. Miss King spares no one and pulls no punches.

I resubmit my review, to link with my current list.

The "failed Southern lady" sets off into history, searching out other members of her own kind. This results in some intriguing character sketches of people like Ambrose Bierce, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dian Fossey, and other famous people-haters. She verges on preciousness in places, as in the interweaving of Nixon's career with a poem by a French courtier. But the book is full of her acidic well-readness, and is endlessly quotable. The introduction is a great exposition--maybe the only one in popular literature--one what makes and what does not make a misanthrope. Enjoy your bitters!

The "failed Southern lady" sets off into history, searching out other members of her own kind. This results in some intriguing character sketches of people like Ambrose Bierce, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Dian Fossey, and other famous people-haters. She verges on preciousness in places, as in the interweaving of Nixon's career with a poem by a French courtier. But the book is full of her acidic well-readness, and is endlessly quotable. The introduction is a great exposition--maybe the only one in popular literature--one what makes and what does not make a misanthrope. Enjoy your bitters!

How can a book about misanthropy be joyful and life-affirming? Because Florence lets you know you're not alone. It can be pretty discouraging when everyone you know wants you to smile and be optimistic at all costs. Florence's devastations of the incompetent are the very definition of "catharsis." Mencken, whereever he is, must be green with envy.

Florence King is brilliant, she is one of my all time favorite people. It's unjust to characterize her narrowly as an author or commentator or critic... therefore the all inclusive "people." In a perfect world, she would live on one side of me and Camille Paglia on the other, and P. J. O'Rourke would drop by often and I would just sit and listen to them. Like Ms. Paglia, Miss King arrows right past the phoney facades and self justifications too many of us use and lays bare the basic hypocrisy most of us disguise as deep concern and high principle. No self serving politician would dare presume to "feel her pain," she'd snap him off at the ankles and rightly so. In her acerbic prose and painfully accurate observations is a simple creed: leave people alone, don't meddle, and don't claim higher motives than you in fact possess. She is a libertarian in the best possible sense, in the "Mind your own business, keep your hands to yourself" mode proposed by P. J. O'Rourke. Plus, she's funnier than a... oh, I don't know, it would depend on how much you valued whichever particular ox she was goring. Actually, I suppose we can be glad so many of us are pompous, self serving frauds, or else we'd be deprived of the delight in watching Miss King deftly and mercilessly dissect (vivisect?) such humbugs. She's in no danger of running out of material, let's just hope she doesn't get tired of exploiting it.

Miss King's most cogent point about misanthropes might be missed if the reader revels only in the humor of With Charity Toward None: Misanthropes are truly the humanitarian sort. With the exception of Rousseau, most of them mind their own business and leave well enough alone. They also "live and let live" in the truest spirit. What a blessing if the rest of the "altruistic", "people-person" types would only do the same. Miss King presents an unexpected primer on how to treat people by using the inversion of the expected lessons on doing good for others.

It's for me hard to find fault with an author who dares to ask why solitary confinement should be considered punishment. Even better is her gleeful description of the process of removing all the passenger seats from her car to avoid having to give people rides.

Perhaps I enjoy this book for my favorite quote of all time, which I've often used around people unfamiliar with King's work, or those who don't understand my distaste for children:

"What I've never understood about pedophiles is that in order to molest a child, one must be in the same room with a child, and I don't know how the perverts stand it."

I appreciate Miss King's book more and more with each passing year, particularly since reading Anneli Rufus' Party of One. Miss King's fond look at misanthropy is scholarly, witty, and exhilarating. Those who don't "get it" can go join the other watery moles in the corner.

With Charity Toward None is highly recommmended for desert islands or that solitary cabin up near the Canadian border.

This book has more truth in it than almost any other I've ever read. The definitive work on "the damned human race." King is like Kurt Vonnegut, if Vonnegut would lay off the sentimentality and say what he *really* thinks. Absolutely hilarious.