Complete Stories (Penguin twentieth century classics) [Paperback]

Dorothy Parker (Author), Mikki Bresse (Editor), Regina Barreca (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1995 | Series: Penguin twentieth century classics

Dorothy Parker's quips and light verse have become part of the American literary landscape, but, as this new collection of her complete short stories demonstrates, Parker's talents extended far beyond brash one-liners and clever rhymes. Many of the stories, originally written for magazines, have never been collected before.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Perhaps it was a disservice to collect all of Parker's stories in one place. Despite insistence to the contrary in a reasoned but ultimately unconvincing introduction by Regina Barreca, Parker wrote decently about the same things over and over and over. This volume includes 13 stories and nine sketches which were previously uncollected, but they blend right in with the other material on drinking and divorce among those of a certain class. Parker's stories tend to float in the shallow end of the literary pool. It's not that any individual piece is of poor quality, it's just that, collectively, the the sameness becomes unbearable. Her humor, in particular, strikes the same note every time. A quick run-through of several plots exhibits this perfectly: two women insincerely discuss an impending divorce; a couple gets drunk in preparation for becoming teetotalers the next day. The nine sketches included here are more of the same, minus any actual plot. Descriptions such as "Lloyd wears washable neckties," are amusing, but go no further. It is ironic that feminist critics are attempting to resurrect Parker, since her writing makes her disdain for her own sex perfectly clear: she feels free to disparage these women for whom marriage and dinner parties are everything, but she always goes for the easy laugh at their expense rather than explore the larger context that forced them into such rigid roles.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Now remembered almost soley as the lone female member of the New York writers' group known as the Algonquin Round Table, Parker was one of the most popular and published writers of the interwar years whose stories and light verse were eagerly sought by the best magazines. Although widely represented in short story anthologies, Parker's entire corpus of stories has never been collected in a single volume: editor Breese includes 13 stories and nine "sketches" not previously anthologized. Read as a collection, however, the famous sardonic wit becomes too intrusive, and similarities of plot and character are annoyingly apparent. Reliance on heavy social drinking as a staple of her plots is less humorous to Nineties readers, and some of Parker's ideas on the relationship between the sexes are equally dated. Still, many of the stories, such as the often reprinted "Big Blonde," are moving, and the whole volume is an unsettling portrait of the era. For all fiction and research collections.?Shelley Cox, Southern Illinois Univ., Carbondale
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Classics (September 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140189394
• ISBN-13: 978-0140189391
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,830,830 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Lime-Green Look at the Battles of the Sexes, August 23, 2001

By 

Brian Kevin Beck "infovoyeur" (Whitewater, WI USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Complete Stories (Penguin twentieth century classics) (Paperback)

And I thought I knew all of the short story writers who write good social satire, especially about the Battle of the Sexes. Do you like John Updike's dissonant couples the Maples? John Cheever's middle-class suburban sashayings? John O'Hara's accounts of evil-propelled mis-treatments and non-treatments? Ring Lardner's tales of hamfisted bunglings? Katherine Mansfield's dry-point etchings of looming males and tendril-like females?

To these I can now add Dorothy Parker--whom I discovered only last month after enjoying the above social-critics for decades. A sharp-tongued journalist, Parker wrote in New York City in the 1920's through the 1950's. She's a key addition to the "fruit salad" of these writers--call her a lime, perhaps--small, tart, acid but somehow quenching our thirst for the truth however tangy?

Parker precisely pinpoints interpersonal shipwrecks. Marriage is--what happens. Often it's like this:

In "New York to Detroit," on the telephone, a man mechanically shoves a desperate woman out of his life. The bad connection aids his "misunderstandings" of her frantic pleas.

In "Here We Are," a just-married couple travel by train to their New York City honeymoon hotel. But we see already the stress-fractures of immature overreactions, and how out of them starts to ooze the lava of hatred which will surely melt down (or burn out) the marriage soon.

In "Too Bad," women are perplexed, even astonished, that the Weldons separated. Such an ideal couple! Except Parker eavesdrops us into the couple's typical evening at home. Its genteel vacancy, polite non-communication, and quiet distancing tell the tale.

Is Parker too crude a caricaturist? Heavy on the satire, too bitter personally? True, her women seem simplified: helplessly-hysterical, nice-nice faceless patseys or creampuffs, captives of bland routines--and of men. Her men similarly seem generic males-of-the-species, "blunt bluff hearty and...meaningless," conventionally-whiskered and all, chauvinistically-insensitive if not cruel. Okay... But if it's overdone, why do I feel I have known and seen these people, or traces of them, often, and not in New York of the 1920's-1950's either?

36 of 37 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The "Daria" of the 1920's, March 19, 2000

By 

"mr_nasty" - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Stories (Penguin twentieth century classics) (Paperback)

Dorothy Parker had a style of writing all her own, and this book is a perfect introduction to her work. (I also suggest you buy the companion book of her poetry). To me, the best part of the book by far is the second half, which contains essays where she describes people in different settings, and comments on their habits and mannerisms sarcastically and subtly - if you are a big fan of dry humor (such as W. C. Fields and Robert Benchley), as I am, then you will find this book to be worth its weight in gold for these essays alone. The stories, however, are of a different tone; some are witty, some are poignant, some are downright depressing. This collection does, however, show Parker at her best - it shows her range and her depth, her ability to comment on issues which were considered unmentionable at the time (such as suicide, alcoholism, child abuse, abortion, infidelity), and her distaste for the artificial and the egotistical. My favorite essays are probably "A Dinner Party Anthology" and "Our Tuesday Club"; favorite story of all time is "Lolita" (NOT the basis for the movie, in case you don't know; anyone with a romantic bone in his/her body will love it). Wonderful work by an American original who should have been included in all those lists that were circulating at the close of 1999 of "100 most influential / important women of the century" (instead of the likes of Marilyn Monroe or Madonna).

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Smarter than you, not that you'd know it, December 27, 2001

By 

Rob Lightner - See all my reviews

This review is from: Complete Stories (Penguin twentieth century classics) (Paperback)

Mrs. Parker possessed a venom that incapacitated its victims with sheer brainy pleasure. Her stories are tight, sparse, and crunchy with wit--Oscar Wilde looks like Krusty the Klown in comparison. While some would complain that she rarely strays from critiquing the hypocrisies of the wealthy and powerful, it's hard to argue that there isn't enough material therein to fuel a thousand careers. Her work is essential reading for those of us who aren't perfectly at ease with the ways of the world but find ourselves coping with it anyway.

The Elaine Stritch readings of seven of these stories are also tremendously entertaining and worthy of separate purchase. The delight of sitting in a darkened room, listening to a master actress reading Mrs. Parker, sipping from a tumbler of whiskey, must be experienced to be believed.