Customer Reviews

You Might As Well Live: The Life and Times of Dorothy Parker

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John Keats is belittlingly sexist in his treatment of Dorothy Parker in his biography, saying hideous things like, "what they [Parker's friends] failed to realize was that Dorothy Parker was like all other women in one terrifyingly simple respect," without further explanation, and calling his subject "little Miss Parker" throughout. To make matters worse, Keats did not properly check sources, and as a consequence committed grave factual errors in the work. For example, he talks about Dorothy's four years at Miss Dana's finishing school, when Parker only attended the school for a year. The list of mistakes continues.

Horribly partial male-chauvanistic telling of Dorothy Parker's life - embarrassingly dated. As Dorothy would have said, this is not a biography to be cast aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force!

I'm glad my father had a copy of this book in his library - I'm sorry to see that it's gone out of print. It's a really good biography of Mrs. Parker - and, one of the best features, has an extensive bibliography at the end, rife with other titles that simply beg to be read.

We learn in this book that Dorothy Parker's great talent was the ability to see both the tragic and comic in any situation simultaneously. She abhorred pretense and skewered pretenders mercilessly, herself included.

During the good times, she fell into bouts of despair and tried to commit suicide a couple of times. During the bad times, later, she drank too much and allied herself with progressive causes, facing the McCarthy inquisition with courage and grace.

This book is at its best when it allows us to feel the constant strain of contradictions in Ms. Parker's life, at its worst when it occasionally strays into preachiness at her excesses, hardly necessary, as the excesses carried with them their own punishments.

All in all, an enlightening glimpse of a thoroughly unique lady.

In this book it is possible to learn much more about Dorothy Parker than most people I believe will ever want to know. Somewhere in the middle I began to feel that I was just giving too much time to a personality which certainly was worthy of some interest, but perhaps not that much.
Keats does a very good job of explaining where Parker (nee Rothschild) came from , and why she hungered for dialogue with others yet was always quite alone. She was the daughter of a wealthy Jewish industrialist and a non- Jewish mother of Scottish background who passed away before Parker ever came to know her. Parker was not liked by her step-mother and her father too farmed her out most of the time.She was given a strict Catholic education which she deplored and rebelled against. Emotional warmth real love was not part of her childhood. She had no Jewish education and apparently no real knowledge of much Jewish. Later in life however she became active in anti- Nazi causes.
Parker was married or rather connected with for twenty- nine years with her second husband Allan Campbell who was also like her half- Scottish and half- Jewish.
Parker became famous for her Algonquin Round Table wit,for her witty and often acidly pessimistic verses, for her short stories, for her book- reviews in the "New Yorker" in which she displayed a special excellence at demolishing the pretentions of others. She was like many small town people who come to the Big City , a fiercely loyal New Yorker who suffered in the years she and Campbell were on the Coast writing mediocre screenplays for Hollywood.At one point she was one of the most famous writers in America, and there is no denying her very tough and quick wit, her ability to condense in a line or two the definition of a situation, a mood.
A small woman only five feet tall with piercingly beautiful dark eyes she was much pursued, much admired, and much lover-ed , if that is the word. She deeply loved Charles MacArthur later the husband of Helen Hayes, but for him she was just one of many. Her disappointments in many ways led her to at least two suicide attempts, and one of her best known poems from which the title of this book is taken.
All the fun, the wit, the good times, the drinking, the effort at pretending that they were not taking themselves too seriously of the Round- Tablers seems quite meretricious now. Keats often compares Parker with Hemingway and seems to feel they have something like equal weight as short- story writers. Though Hemingway was not a very nice person in general, and was a bit cruel to Parker at one point the truth he is a great short story- writer a major figure in the American Literary Tradition. Parker is much less than that.
There is something however touchingly, painfully sad about her life. The loneliness was always with her even when the crowd was applauding and her witticisms were being celebrated everywhere.

Here and there throughout my days I would catch either a quote, or a poem, or some reference to Dorothy Parker. It was Parker who wrote, "Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses." My reply would be "Because girls wear glasses of men make asses." That would put me in the Vicious Circle at the Algonquin Club, for my 15 seconds of fame.

I guess I could read more about her life from other books, but my hat's off to John Keats. He writes a probing work, an account of her life from differing perspectives. There are quotes without notes--quite refreshing--throughout the book about Parker. But there are sources in the back pages of the work. Keats does a thorough job describing a woman, to borrow a quote from Churchill, who was "a riddle, wrapped in an enigma, inside a mystery". Parker comes across as talented, yet lethargic, bitter, yet sensitive, humorous, yet depressing. She has more aspects than a diamond.

I recommend the book. The drawback is that there is not much of her poetry, and reviews, and only passing descriptions of her stories. These would magnify the contrast between who this woman was and who this woman was.

The Hobo Philosopher

"You Might as Well Live" - Dorothy Parker

Prior to reading this biography most of what I knew of Dorothy Parker came from reading quotations attributed to her in one book or another. While reading this biography, I have also been reading selections from "The Portable Dorothy Parker" trying to get a first hand taste of what she sounded like.
As always seems to be the case with people noted for humor, Dorothy's life is not very funny.
She was often financially prosperous and somehow always seemed to have money - or patrons. When she was wealthy, she spent her money, more often than not, foolishly. It seems that the consensus is that she was an attractive and fascinating woman. There is a picture on the cover of the book that testifies to that fact.
But as I lay the book down completed, I can't help thinking of Marilyn Monroe. Dorothy was certainly Marilyin-ish in her confusion and insecurity with men. She was obviously lucky enough to find a loving man in the person of Alan Campbell. But it seems that she was not very deserving of his loyalty. She treated him horribly but yet he stuck with her. They separated off and on but eventually spent their last years together.
She was an anti-Nazi. She lived through the McCarthy Era and was labeled a PAF - a premature anti-Fascist. She, like many other intellectuals of her day, hated Adolf Hitler before the U.S. government declared such an attitude to be appropriate. She had difficulty getting work for a period but she was already established and had income from her royalties. At one point she was refused a passport due to her Leftist attitudes, writings and associations.
It is very clear that she was an alcoholic.
In reading a few of her short stories and some of her poems there is no doubt that she was intelligent. Her writing is thoughtful and I think that her stories and poetry will turn out to be more enjoyable than reading about her life. Her reviews of plays and other writers are much like all the others in that profession - they are accurate some of the time and totally inaccurate at other times. They are simply opinions.
I will continue reading her anthology - giving special attention to the poetry and the short stories.
As a male I feel that I have met Dorothy Parker type women. She loves you - she loves you not, is the problem. Women like her are so insecure in themselves that it permeates all their relationship. When they have you, they don't want you; and when you leave, they long and whimper for the day that you will return. They are like the old Punch and Judy game.
For myself, I am very happy that at some point, I outgrew this type woman. They can't be happy themselves. There is no right way to treat them. And to be a part of their life is to be continually involved in an emotional calamity. They can never make themselves happy and they can't make their men happy either. Dorothy was extremely fortunate to have found Alan Campbell from what I have read in this biography. Nevertheless for some strange reason Dorothy Parker still manages to draw my pity and my curiosity.

Richard Edward Noble - The Hobo Philosopher - Author of:

"Noble Notes on Famous Folks" Humor - satire - facts.

The book arrived promptly and in good shape. Shipping charges were too high to send a small book within state lines. I knew ahead of time about the charges but needed the book for Christmas.