Customer Reviews

The Portable Dorothy Parker (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition)

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Penguin Classics has honored the "Portable Dorothy Parker" with the attention it deserves. A new editor: Marion Meade, author of the bestselling Parker biography, "What Fresh Hell is This?" (Villard, 1988). She tossed out the old Brendan Gill introduction and crafted a new one: "We do not care that she failed to write the Great American novel," Meade wrote, "Or the Great American Poem because we value her writing for its uniqueness. Her work has never been out of print, an extraordinary accomplishment in itself. Readers of all ages, including those who have no particular interest in the 1920s, continue to find her stories irresistible."

Meade also carefully pared down the back third of the book, excising numerous superfluous bits and adding in new Parker material. Gone are book reviews of tomes even ardent bibliophiles never heard of; gone are drama reviews that seemed a bit dust-covered.

But Penguin Classics has gone a step further. They tapped one of the best illustrators in the business, the single-moniker cartoonist Seth, to create a knock-out jacket. This brilliant jacket art goes beyond the cover, it encompasses an illustrated spine, back cover, and flaps on the inside (front and rear). He packs in witty, charming and humorous comic strip panels starring Dottie Parker. Imagine if Charles Schulz had let Lucy and Peppermint Patty walk into the Algonquin Hotel, this is how they would turn out. Readers will want to own the book just to enjoy Seth's artwork. If they give out prizes for best book jackets -- and certainly they must in the book industry -- Penguin better nominate Seth. And if he doesn't win, I'll come looking for the panel of judges.

This is the edition that Parker fans will want to own. They will want to buy it and press it on friends they are eager to convert to the Parker Faithful. The book looks gorgeous and the editing decisions have shaped a much-improved edition. In addition, hats off to the publisher for resetting the entire book in a fresh-looking typeface.

It isn't often that one can write about a beloved book and say that a publisher has made it better. But in this instance, the newly revised "Portable Dorothy Parker" is a book that all Parker fans simply must own, must give to friends, and must display in the front windows of their homes and apartments.

Before I bought this book, I admit that I (like most people) knew of Dorothy Parker only through her pithy one-liners and wisecracks (i.e. "men don't make passes at girls who wear glasses", or commenting that a performance of Katherine Hepburn "runs the gamut of emotions from A to B"). However, this wonderful compendium shows a much more versatile, prolific Dorothy Parker - she truly is much more than the bitter joker most people think.

Although her short stories (including the oft-anthologized 'Big Blonde', as well as lesser-known gems such as 'Too Bad') formed the main part of the original 'Portable Dorothy Parker', this newly revised version includes those stories but also a wide variety of dramatic and literary criticisms (including a very enjoyable, incisive review of a performance of Oscar Wilde's play 'An Ideal Husband'), poetry, and letters. I found the letters to be especially fascinating - even when Parker was writing to her family and closest friends, she was still remarkably witty and erudite.

In addition to the content by Parker herself, I thoroughly enjoyed the introduction by Marion Meade, the author of the Dorothy Parker biography "Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This?" Although I have not read the previous edition of 'The Portable Dorothy Parker', I have heard that the introduction was very unpleasant because the writer seemed to not like Ms. Parker. Luckily, that is certainly not the case with Marion Meade's introduction - she obviously greatly respects Ms. Parker's body of work, and the introduction (which is really a 15-page biographical sketch of Parker) gives an positive impression of Ms. Parker overall, without glossing over the more unsavoury aspects of her life (such as her alcohol and sedative addictions).

One inclusion in this version of the 'Portable' which I found especially intriguing as a transcript of an interview Dorothy Parker did with 'The Paris Review' in 1956. It really gives a sense of Ms. Parker's personality, and shows her views on a number of topics (including her own description of the famed 'Algonquin Round Table', of which she was a member).

Lastly, the cover art for this version of the 'Portable' is absolutely fantastic. The cover is fanciful withough being needlessly silly, and the inner flaps and the back cover use whimsically retro line-drawings to illustrate, among other things, the major happenings in Dorothy Parker's life. The illustrator (Seth) has really done a great job making sure the work of Ms. Parker doesn't look too stodgy to the casual eye.

I urge everyone to pick up a copy of this book, and discover the genius of Dorothy Parker for themselves - my words simply cannot do it justice.

I'm one of those who, like some other reviewers, has worn out at least three copies of the earlier edition and found this one to be the only new one available. It's not as good as the earlier one.

Although some of the new materials are welcome, many of the insightful and very funny reviews from the last third of the book are missing in this version. What happened to the review of Sinclair Lewis's _The Man Who Knew Coolidge_, "Mr. Lewis Lays It on with a Trowel," which gives a portrait of the age as well as an accurate, if savage, picture of the book? Or the hilarious review of Lou Tellegen's _Women Have Been Kind_? ("Mr. Tellegen is one who kisses, among other things, and tells.")

Those aren't reviews of "dusty tomes," as one reviewer put it, but significant articles for those interested in Parker or twentieth-century literature.

In short, some of the strongest material has been deleted. Those who want to see the real genius of Parker's work need to purchase the earlier edition, too.

Edited to correct an error: The statement attributed to Tellegen above, which I'd included from memory, is actually from "An American Du Barry," a review of Warren G. Harding's mistress Nan Britton's account of her affair with Harding.

From the review: "The book bears the subtitle _Revealing the Love-Secret of President Harding_, which is but a mild statement. For when Miss Britton gets around to revealing, Lord, how she does reveal. She is one who kisses, among other things, and tells. An attempt was made to suppress the book. The author states, in one of her prefaces, that 'six burly policemen' (on the day that that man bites that dog, another front-age item is going to concern a policeman who is not burly) 'and John S. Sumner, agent for the Society for the Suppression of Vice, armed with a 'Warrant of Search and Seizure,' entered the printing plant where the making of the book was in process. They seized and carried off the plates and printed sheets.' 'Lady,' you want to say to the author, 'those weren't policemen; they were critics of literature dressed up.'"

This edition is gorgeous, with creamy (and yes, uneven, making it easier to flip through) pages, humorous illustrations of the fiction humorist, and before-unpublished correspondence between Parker and other literati. I would think that Parker would approve of the tongue-in-cheek descriptions and comic strips of her life story. This book is a pleasure to curl up with at night and pick out stories and poems at random to enjoy again and again. Highly, highly recommended.

I've been a major fan of Dorothy Parker for a very long time. In fact, my copy of the previous edition of _The Portable Dorothy Parker_ is falling apart at the binding with several loose pages. That version was close to perfect. This latest revision, edited by Marion Meade, is a poor replacement for the one that preceded it. Too many good things that Parker wrote are absent from the Meade edition.

For example, book reviews. Meade decided that Parker reviewed too many books that are of no importance nowadays, books that are long forgotten and long out of print. She is probably right about those books, but that's not the point of reading a Dorothy Parker book review. It's Parker's writing itself that's worth reading. Even if the book reviewed is one that was of little importance in its day and hasn't been read in 70 years, it's still worth reading Dorothy Parker's witty review of it. When a book was horrible, no one could convey just how bad it was as well as Parker, and if it was a good book, her praise was just as entertaining, though by its very nature not quite as juicy. Thanks to Marion Meade, too many of those reviews are no longer available.

That's just one criticism of this new version of the work. If the book had been a bit thicker, it could have included it all and it bloody well should have.

Take my advice. If you can find a used copy of the previous edition (the one with the introduction by Brendan Gill), get yourself a copy of that and skip this new "improved" version edited by Marion Meade.

[Update Feb. 14,2011 -- if you buy a copy of _The Collected Dorothy Parker_ as of today from amazon.com for $20 and change, you'll be getting the previous edition of _The Portable Dorothy Parker_ with the Brendan Gill intro. They published it in the U.K. with a different title, and it's still available -- check the "search inside" function and you'll find the Table of Contents. It costs more, no doubt, because they have to get it from the other side of the Atlantic, but I think it's well worth the extra $7 or so.]

I'm delighted that Mrs. Parker is still in print. I have the old Viking Portable (a gift from a friend some years back), and needed to acquire a copy for a friend who had not read Dorothy Parker's works before. I may need to purchase this edition for myself; I read part of the introduction, which is updated from the earlier edition. The more time goes by, the more appreciation there appears to be for this amazing woman's intelligence and wit. The ragged page edges are somewhat annoying, especially for a book like this that I, at least, like to thumb through, but I've seen this treatment in other books so it appears to be the latest fad in publishing circles. I hope they get over it soon. My favorite poems are Resume, Frustration, and Inventory. The short story The Telephone is a timeless testament to impatience. I have a visit with Mrs. Parker several times a year, just randomly flipping through the book to read stories, poems, and her reviews.

Bless you Penquin Books and Marion Meade for rehabilitating this must-own book, and presenting us with such value and quality. I bought two copies, and gifted the second to a friend...he is a virgin to Mrs. Parker, about which if she were still with us would have done something to fix that. I now call it The No Longer Portable Dorothy Parker, which is merely teasing my dear, old friend. What? Are you still the same size you were in 1973? The new edition is, in truth, eminently portable, no bigger than any modern book. In page count, the book has increased but slightly from 610 to 627 pages. But by weight and size substantially more so than my aged and yellowed, and quite fragile 1973 edition which I must safely tuck away in some acid-free box. The new edition now fits comfortably, feels even warm in the hands. The uncredited book designer's choices of clear typeface, wide leading, and creamy, dense paper stock ease the reading considerably on these old jaunticed eyes. The old paperback had tiny little typeface, dense composition, and paper just about as thin and see-through as pages in the old family bible. (Perhaps "a French negligee" would have been better there, but I don't want to lead you astray.) The nice paper in the new book, a sturdy binding, with a cockled leading edge prove this is a quality book. I only wish the editor would have added a new subtitle while she was at it: My How You've Groan. Mrs. Parker, I'd wager, would have adored this new edition (at least secretly). The incisive cover art by the graphic artist Seth is brilliant. To Marion Meade (a Parker biographer), and to the production team with Penquin Books: Thank you for this beautiful book. Having gifted us with her Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This (Penguin, 1989), Meade's care and attention to this new edition, and the added material in particular, are insight realized. And it's damn funny all around through and through.

Why another Portable Dorothy Parker?

If just for the fabulous cover. The artwork captures the smirky dark side of Parker. The rear cover is reminiscent of mid-twentieth century Sunday funny papers, yet filled with sardonic Parker quotations.

Who but Marion Meade, authoress of the standard biography of Mrs. Parker, holds the credibility to introduce a new portable Dottie. Meade captures the unmistakable genius of Parker's noir talent and relates, using Parker's own words, her proudest moment -- it had nothing to do with writing! The mini biography of Dottie's adventures, successes, and infamous life of unquiet desperation pulls you in --you'll want to read Meade's companion tome, What Fresh Hell Is This?

Meade also defines --for a new generation of readers not familiar with the humor of Benchley, the dramas of Kaufman, and the sarcasm of Woolcott-- the celebrated Algonquin Round Table and their influence on popular culture.

[Note this review was written by my wife, Mary, who asked me to post it for her.]

David Trumbull
Robert Benchley Society

When I was given this new edition of The Portable Dorothy Parker, it stirred a memory from my childhood. I recalled that a book by the same title had a permanent place in the old bookcase at the bottom of the stairs in the house where I grew up. A small pinkish paperback placed between Kinsey' Sexual Behavior in the Human Female and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. After my surreptitious third read of the Kinsey book, I picked up the volume by Parker and leafed through it. I will never forget my sadness upon finishing the short story Big Blonde. Looking back on it, many years later, and many many years since Parker penned it, Big Blonde still has relevance in relation to the wasted lives and potential of many women. The trap of this society has not changed much, alas.

On a lighter note, there was one poem I remember from the collection, pert, direct and evocative, it was a humorous tour through a cemetery. The first bit of it captured the plight of a writer with a big heart, but a small, unrecognized lesser talent.


I. The Minor Poet

His little trills and chirpings were his best.
No music like the nightingale's was born
Within his throat; but he, too, laid his breast
Upon a thorn.

Dorothy shared her aching heart and acid-tongued pen with us and I am so glad a new generation has the opportunity through this new edition, to carry the Portable Parker under their coats with them, next to their hearts.

I bought the 1973 version and wish I had bought the newer 21st version as I would like to read some of her political writings. However, I like her stories and found the one titled, "The Standard of Living" to be my favorite. Dorothy Parker combines her humour with pithy stories that illuminate the reality of life whole poking fun at it and poems that are far more stimulating than your average variety. I have read in some of the lower rated reviews on amazon.com that some readers complain of how dated some of the stories are. I didnt find it even slightly distracting and found it somewhat even more engaging since it created a realistic atmospehere in which these stories take place. One wonders if these people are so fussy about all of their stories, which if so, must be taxing as so many great literature are classics. Perhaps they fuss that the "Illiad" is dated too? I enjoyed reading this great American author and recommend it to anyone who enjoys a stimulating story with a sarcastic laugh to go along with it.