Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker [Paperback]

Dorothy Parker (Author), Stuart Y. Silverstein (Compiler)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 10, 2001

During the early years of her career, while struggling to "keep body and soul apart" (as she ruefully put it later), Dorothy Parker wrote more than three hundred poems and verses for a variety of popular magazines and newspapers. Between 1926 and 1933 she collected most of these pieces in three volumes of poetry: Enough Rope, Sunset Gun, and Death and Taxes. The remaining poems and verses from America's most renowned cynic make up this volume. Eclectic and exuberant, these 122 once-forgotten gems display Parker's distinctive wit, irony, and precision, as she dissects early-twentieth-century American urban life and gleefully skewers a rich array of targets that range from personal foible to popular culture. With an authoritative, immensely entertaining, and critically acclaimed introduction by Stuart Y. Silverstein, Not Much Fun is an essential addition to the Dorothy Parker library and a welcome gift to her many admirers and devoted fans.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

A succinct, yet enlightening introduction and footnotes with quintessential Dorothy Parker anecdotes and quotes serve as brilliant foundation for this collection of "lost" poems. In fact, they are pieces that Parker discarded as not fit for publication, and Parker enthusiasts will notice that many foreshadow more-polished later versions. Though Parker once described her verse as "horribly outdated--anything once fashionable is dreadful now," it's clear that even her "unfit" works are far from dreadful. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

These poems are not "lost" in the way that we have come to expect from TV specials that celebrate never-seen episodes of, say, The Honeymooners. Rather, as Silverstein points out, these 122 poems appeared in popular magazines and newspapers of 1915-1938 yet have not previously been collected between hard covers. This does not bode well, nor does Silverstein, a journalist, attempt to build our hopes?his very lengthy introduction hits hard on Parker's alcoholism. But to engage the reader, he offers, via 113 footnotes, scores of "Dottie's" best witticisms. (The book's title is her response to a bartender's query: "What are you having?"). He succinctly observes that Parker's problem was a lack of artistic vision: "She needed ideas, not craft, and she failed." Indeed, this collection of light verse is built basically on two blunt ideas, which fortunately are not without their entertainment value: romance bad ("The most wonderful thing/ Is how well I get on without you"); money good ("Immortality ask I not/ All I want is a lot of jack").
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Scribner (July 10, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743211480
• ISBN-13: 978-0743211482
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #247,945 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Dottie Didn't Like Them, But I Sure Do!, July 22, 2004

By 

Kelly Langston-Smith (Atomic City, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: NOT MUCH FUN: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (Hardcover)

How we live in a world where this book was at one time remaindered and now out of print is simply beyond me. Dorothy Parker is not only one of the finest poets who ever ran pen across page, but a wit and a charm as well. This collection of works that fell through the cracks (mostly because Dottie didn't like them) is a gem fit for anyone's library. The obligatory biography is peppered with footnotes of a more informal and personal nature, giving many of her scathing witticisms in given situations. The verses collected are also quite good, even though viewed as rejects by the author. Scathing, sarcastic, brilliant and at times, very personal, your Dorothy Parker collection isn't complete without them. The conclusion of the book are the "Hymns of Hate" not collected anywhere else and are wildly funny and pertinent even in our modern world. Don't miss this fun and fine book which has, hopefully, not seen its last visit to the printing press.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars She called them 'verses' -- but they're more potent than verse, September 4, 2007

By 

Jesse Kornbluth "Head Butler" (New York) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (Paperback)

She was a Rothschild --- just not the right kind. Her mother died a month before her fifth birthday, her hated stepmother died when she was nine, her father died when she was 20.

Born lucky, you might say.

It should be no surprise that Dorothy Parker had a close relationship with alcohol (great quantities, taken in small sips, so she was always drinking but never completely smashed). Or that she had bad luck in love (two husbands committed suicide). Or that she'd fail at suicide on four separate occasions (once she slashed her wrists, but only after ordering dinner to be delivered, thus guaranteeing that she'd be found alive).

Dorothy Parker was one of the most celebrated writers of her time, but she's much better remembered for her big mouth. Day after day, she sat with America's greatest wits at the Round Table in the bar of New York's Algonquin Hotel and quietly devastated the all-male group with her one-liners. She was as much a symbol of the 1920s as the flapper, the flivver and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

Or so the legend has it.

The fact is, Dorothy Parker had no trust fund. She was a working writer. And much of her work involved --- try imagining a career like this now --- poetry. She sold her first poem to Vanity Fair in 1915 for $12, a tidy sum back then. And she wrote about 330 more during her life; over thirty years, that's a poem every other week.

She downplayed her poetry. She said she wrote "verses" --- not poems. And they weren't, she noted, original: "I was following in the exquisite footsteps of Miss Edna St. Vincent Millay, unhappily in my own horrible sneakers."

Her poetry was collected at the peak of her fame. It has since languished. A decade ago, "Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker" appeared. As with many things Parker, don't believe the title.

Is Parker a great poet? By no means. But she was one of the first American women to speak her mind --- her smart, contrarian, troubled mind --- openly on the page, and that gives her a certain historical import. And, setting aside all serious considerations, she's just plain fun. Fun and funny.

The book opens with a poem about...bridge. ("Didn't you hear what I bid?") It moves on to "Any Porch," a pastiche of overheard conversations. ("I really look thinner, you say?") She decries "the lady in back," who invariably ruins her night at the theater. She touches on every popular subject, even psychotherapy: "Where a Freud in need is a Freud indeed/we'll always be Jung together."

Parker's stock in trade is the last line that dramatically reverses the energy of the poem --- and slaps the reader in the face. Thus, a poem about Hollywood ends: "The streets are paved with Goldwyn." Well, how else?

And there are many poems that are just droll jokes:

Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong;
And I am Marie of Romania.

And:

Razors pain you; Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you; And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful; Nooses give;
Gas smells awful; You might as well live

If Parker were only cleverness and verve, she'd be worth a paragraph in a chapter on the `20s. What makes her poems interesting is that her pain shows through the wit. In a great poet, this is no big deal; when the poet in question is paying her rent with her poems, it means something that she goes beyond froth. As, here:

When all the world was younger.
When petals lay as snow.
What recked I of the hunger
An empty heart can know?
For love was young and cheery,
And love was quick and free;
Tomorrow might be weary,
But when was that to me?

But now the world is older,
And now tomorrow's come.
The winds are rushing colder,
And all the birds are dumb.
And icy shackles fetter
The brooklet's sunny blue--
And I was never better;
But what is that to you?

"I don't care what is written about me so long as it isn't true," Parker once said. But in addition to poems that tell more than she may have intended, "Not Much Fun" includes an introduction, by Stuart Y. Silverstein, that's so amusingly annotated it's almost a biography. Together, they give a rollicking and touching picture of a woman you'd never want to be --- but would surely want to know.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Too much fun . .., December 30, 2002

By 

ShayShay (Warner Robins, GA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Not Much Fun: The Lost Poems of Dorothy Parker (Paperback)

A friend allowed me to borrow this book as he happened to buy it the same day I happened to be reading a short story written by Dorothy Parker. This book of Dorothy Parker's lost poems is completely amazing. Her wit is remarkable and I love the unexpected turns that hit you right at the end of her poems. The footnotes are fantastic and as I read about her life I became even more fascinated by her. I would recommend this amazingly witty and fun book to anyone.