I often think we spend so much of our time wishing we lived in a kindler, gentler time -- a time past when things were simpler. Dorothy Parker's stories made me realize that life is life and it ain't easy, no matter what the year. The reader's smoky voice is perfect for the collection. As she told each tale, I felt as if she were reaching right into my chest and clenching my heart in her brightly-manicured grip. The stories are revealing. I found myself haunted by "Mr. Durant" days afterward. I can say that I came away from this collection changed in some way. How, precisely, I cannot say. It is too soon to tell, since I just finished the last story yesterday. I do recommend them, however, if only to show readers of this day how very different life in Dorothy Parker's day.

This is a clever way to present 2 great short stories by Mrs. Parker. The "book" is more like a roadmap, it folds out for easy reading. Perfect for the "6" train ride downtown to the Algonquin. These are 2 of my favorite Parker stories, both about love. If you're looking for an inexpensive gift book, this is it. It even comes with a mailing envelope too.

I have been a fan of Mrs.Parker's work for my entire adult life. This tape allowed me to hear her stories in her voice. The dry humor that is constant in her work is all the more appealing having heard the sarcastic tone of the author. No other writer compares to Mrs.Parker's intelligent and quick wit. This tape is an amazing treasure.

Its fascinating to read interesting book about quitte anoying character: supposedly sharp and witty Dorothy Parker was not one of the most loved persons between her contemporaries and at the end she was left alone because nobody had energy to deal with her.Leslie Frewin wrotte very interesting biography: he is clearly fascinated with his subject but he is not covering her weknesses under the rug and althought its said that nobody ever knew real Dorothy Parker,somehow the picture of insecure woman who had protect herself with sarcasm and menacing jokes eventually emerges from these pages.Parker could be funny occasionally but it gets tiresome after some time - people who are loved and find their satisfaction in life dont have a need to critisize everything under the sun,and Parker had her share of "issues" - yes,she was life & soul of the party,but nobody really wanted her around after the party was finished.Frewin gives clear picture of jet-set in 1920's and some of the characters in the background (Lillian Helman,Hemingway,F.Scott Fitzgerald) are as fascinating and important as the main subject.

I don't think there is another decent review of Dorothy Parker's life in print.

I could go on and on about the individual bits of interesting data the book highlights: her relationship with Benchley, the Algonquin Round Table, Vanity Fair, the New Yorker, plus her socio-political views, her misguided love life, her bitterness/love toward men. I suppose I could tell you a lot about what this book says in these regards.

I could lament how I think she is still an underrated fiction writer, as most people get stuck on her quips and witticisms, but her better skill was in unpeeling the subtleties of the everyday moment. I could, couldn't I?

There is plenty I could say about her insecurities, her foolish business mistakes and something bizarre about her dog. Oh yes, that would be interesting, that whole dog thing.

Instead, I'll just tell you this book is what is says, a thorough examination of the life of Dorothy Parker. You will be happy you bought it. It says everything I didn't say and more.

I fully recommend this book.

Anthony Trendl

Meade's book, obviously the result of years of research, takes the reader behind the public image of Dorothy Parker as just the rapier wit of the Algonquin Round Table to show us the complexity of her life. The joy and the tears are both well presented. This is a great read, even for those who are not familiar with Parker. A remarkable book about a remarkable woman.

I was amazed to learn what I didn't know about Dorothy Parker - despite the fact I thought I knew a _lot_ about her. I was wrong and you might be, too. Did she really marry a homosexual man twice? What really was the relationship between Dorthy and Robert Benchley? Was she a Communist? And is Lillian Hellman as wonderful as M's Hellman makes herself out to be? These questions (and of course much more) are answered by this book.
You may think you know Dorthy Parker, with her "Men don't make passes.." and other witticisms that seemed to spring effortlessly from her mouth, but she was a lot more than a "flapper" or perhaps an "early feminist" - she was a true bundle of contradictions.
It's not the "feel good" story of the year, after all, if you've been interested in Dorothy Parker enough to read this far, you already know how the story will end. But it still is a wonderful read.
I suggest reading this with "The Portable Parker" as it definitely gives you an insight into the way her mind worked.
I intend to find out the exact address of her ashes and pay a visit to that esteemed place, since I now know where her ashes are located. And you will, too, if you take my advice and read this book.

This volume is the second of a projected four volume anthology of Twentieth Century American Poetry in the Library of America series. American poetry richly deserves this extensive treatment, and this series may serve to introduce America's poets to a growing number of readers.

This volume begins with E.E.Cummings (born 1894) and concludes with May Swenson (born 1913) The volume has almost an embarrassment of riches. By my count there are 122 separate poets included. The book includes a brief biography of each writer included which is invaluable for reading the book.

As with any anthology of this nature,the selection is a compromise between inclusiveness and quality. Readers may quarrel with the relative weight given to various poets in terms of number of pages, and with the inclusion or exclusion of writers. (I was disappointed that a poet I admire, Horace Gregory, gets only two pages, for example). Overall, it is a wonderful volume and includes some greatpoetry.

There are favorites and familiar names here and names that will be familiar to few. A joy of a book such as this is to see favorites and to learn about poets one hasn't read before.

A major feature of this volume is its emphasis on diversity -- much more so than in volume 1 or in the Library of America's 19th century poetry anthologies. There are many Jewish poets (including Reznikoff, a favorite ofmine, Zukofsky, Alter Brody, Rose Drachler, George Oppen, Karl Shapiro, and others) and even more African-American Poets (Lanston Hughes, Countee Cullen, Richard Wright, Waring Cuney, Sterling Brown, Arna Bontemps, Robert Hayden and many more.) There are also selections from blues and popular songs which to me is overdone.

Of the poets unknown to me, I enjoyed particularly Lorine Niedecker, Laura Riding, and Janet Lewis -- women are well represented in this volume.

I have taken the title of this review from the Cape Hatteras section of "The Bridge" by Hart Crane.(page 229) Crane has more pages devoted to him than any other writer in the volume and deservedly so. "The Bridge" and "Voyages" are presented complete together with some of the shorter poems. This tragic, tormented and gifted writer tried in The Bridge to present a vision of America mystical in character, celebratory of the merican experience, and inclusive in its diversity. The poem is a worthy successor to the poetry of Whitman who is celebrated in it. The title of the review,I think, captures both Crane's poem as well as the goal of the volume as a whole in capturing something of the diversity of experience reflected in 20th Century American Verse.

Although not widely read and appreciated, American poetry underwent a renaissance in the Twentieth Century. At some point, readers will look back at our Twentieth Century poetry as a benchmark of literature and a guide to the thoughts, feelings, and events of our difficult century.

In this, the first of four projected volumes covering the Twentieth Century, the Library of America gives access to a treausre of reading, moving, elevating, and disturbing. The book consists of readings from 85 (by my count) poets. The poets, are arranged chronologically by the poet's birthday. The earliest writer in the volume is Henry Adams (born 1838) and the concluding writer is Dorothy Parker (born 1893). Some writers that flourished later in life, such as Wallace Stevens, thus appear in the volume before works of their peers, such as Pound and Elliot, who became famous earlier.

For me, the major poets in the volume are (not surprising choices here), Robert Frost, Wallace Stevens, W.C. Williams, Ezra Pound, T.S. Elliot, Marianne Moore. They are represented by generous selections,including Elliot's Waste Land, Steven's Notes Towards a Supreme Fiction, and several Pound Canto's given in their entirety.

It is the mark of a great literary period that there are many writers almost equally meriting attention together with the great names. There are many outstanding writers here, some known, some unknown. To name only a few, I would includeE.A Robinson, James Weldon Johnson, Adelaide Crapsey, Vachel Lindsay, Sara Teasdale, H.D. Robinson Jeffers, John Crowe Ransom, Conrad Aiken, Samuel Greenberg. It would be easy to go on.

There are different ways to read an anthology such as this. One way is to browse reading poems as they catch the reader's eye. Another way is to read favorite poems the reader already knows.

I would suggest making the effort to read the volume through from cover to cover. Before beginning the paricular poet, I would suggest reading the biographical summary at the end of the volume. These are short but excellent and illuminate the authors and the poetry. The notes are sparse, but foreign terms in Pound and Elliot's poetry are translated, and we have selections from Elliot's and Marianne Moore's own notes.

By reading the volume through,one gets a sense of continuity and context. Then, the reader can devote attention to individual poems. Some twentieth century works, such as those by Pound, Elliott,Moore Stevens are notoriously difficult. Read the works through,if you are coming to them for the first time, and return to them later.

I was familiar with many of the poems in the book before reading the anthology but much was new to me. I learned a great deal. My favorite poet remains Wallace Stevens, partly because he comibined the life of a man of affairs, as an attorney and insurance executive, with deep art. This remains an ideal for me. It is true as well for W.C. Williams, although I am less fond of his poetry.

The title to this review is taken from "Libretto" by Ezra Pound,
(page 371). It is the best single sentence summation I can think of for the contents of this volume.

The real job of the anthologist is not, of course, to assemble anthologies but to anger and annoy readers. Only census takers have more doors slammed in their innocent faces. That said, a few words in defense of this excellent volume. Yes, there's plenty of second-tier or third-tier verse here, and those in search of pure poetry (no rocks, no soda, shaken not stirred) should probably save their pennies and buy the LOA volumes devoted to Frost, Stevens, etc etc. But a book like this one does give a splendid sense of cultural context. Sometimes the giants loom only larger when they're stuck in a line-up with their diminutive peers. And some of those lesser lights are actually quite talented, too. So unless you're truly fixated on iambic quality control, you should find much to love, and even more to like, in the capacious and paper-thin pages of APTTCV1.

I first became familiar with D'Arcy McNickle through his two novels-The Surrounded and Wind from an Enemy Sky. I did not know that despite his lack of a college degree, he was also a respected anthropologist; he was the right-hand-man to John Collier during his tenure as head of the BIA; he was asked to chair the new Anthropology Dept. at a University; and he was instrumental in organizing some of the programs which led to the pan-Indian movement and activism of the seventies.

Dorothy Parker does a very good job of covering the life of this fascinating and highly respected man. While she had ample information to draw from regarding his professional life, there was scant information regarding his personal life. Even though McNickle kept a diary and wrote many letters during his lifetime, he made little reference to his personal relationships. Happily Parker respects this. Certainly a life that included two failed marriages and a possible affair, not to mention estrangement from his nuclear family, might have led other authors to go "digging for dirt." Instead Parker engages in some slight speculation, simply to flesh things out, but she does not dwell on these aspects.

If there is a fault here, however, it is that Parker perhaps focuses too much on the positive. For example, one would wonder why a person who tried to represent Indians in a White world would not have had some doubts regarding the Indian Reorganiztion Act, or some questions as to the way it was implemented. Also, while McNickle became known as an authority on Indian issues, he actually spent very little time living as an Indian. He basically went from the boarding school into a life of government work, and spent very little time on the reservation. While this does not necessarily detract from his accomplishments, I would have liked Parker to address these issues more.

Over all,however, this is a book worth reading, both for the way it is written, and the person it is about.

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.