Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels - From Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe

by Anthony Arthur

A submarine's deadliest antagonist is another sub. Some of our most illustrious writers have tried their best to sink their enemies, using all the weapons at their command-wit, humor, sarcasm, invective, and the occasional right cross to the jaw. In these eight profiles of quarrels between famous authors, Anthony Arthur draws on a lifetime of reading and teaching their works to describe the feuds as lively duels of strong personalities. Going beyond mere gossip, he provides insights into the issues that provoked the quarrels-Soviet communism, World War II, and the natural tension between the critical and the creative temperaments among them. The result reads like a collection of short stories, with the featured authors as their own best characters and having the best lines. For

--Ernest Hemingway on his one-time friend and "Gertrude Stein was never crazy/Gertrude Stein was very lazy."

--Sinclair Lewis to Theodore Dreiser "I still say you are a liar and a thief."

--Mary McCarthy on Lillian Hellman " . . . every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the. ' "

These great writers are a quarrelsome bunch indeed, and these true tales of bookish bickering are guaranteed to enlighten and entertain even the most discriminating literature lovers.

Genres: Nonfiction, Books About Books, History, Writing, Humor, Literary Criticism, Biography

224 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2002

Reviews

[Dennis Littrell · Rating 5 out of 5]

Arthur, Anthony. Literary Feuds: A Century of Celebrated Quarrels–from Mark Twain to Tom Wolfe (2000) *****
Literary lights behaving badly

--That is, resplendently at their conniving, back-stabbing, vainglorious best.

Anthony Arthur's polished and scholarly accounts of eight famous literary feuds beginning with Mark Twain and Bret Harte, and ending with Tom Wolfe and John Updike, come across as fairly expressed and finely observed. True, with my fabled ability to read between the lines, I can see in places where perhaps the good professor favors one side or the other. Indeed, part of the fun of reading a book like this is discerning where the author's sympathies lie. (You might want to discern for yourself.) But for the most part Professor Arthur lets the chips fall where they may and keeps a balanced keel through the straits of the tempest-tossed tussles while knavishly enjoying himself like an after-the-fact provocateur.

Notable are Arthur's physical descriptions of the gladiators, usually quoting contemporary sources. Thus the young Truman Capote, who is squared off against Gore Vidal, is "unnaturally pretty, with wide, arresting blue eyes and blond bangs" (p. 161) while Vidal is "Tall and slender, Byronically handsome...luminous and manly" (p. 159). (Uh...nevermind.) Sinclair Lewis, who fights with Theodore Dreiser (physically on one occasion--or at least Dreiser is reported to have slapped Lewis), has a "hawkish nose" and a "massive frontal skull...reddish but almost colorless eyebrows above round, cavernously set, remarkably brilliant eyes..." (p. 49) Dreiser, self-described, has "a semi-Roman nose, a high forehead and an Austrian lip, with the edges of my teeth always showing...." (p. 56) The effect of these descriptions along with Arthur's bright and lively (and very careful) style is to make the literary warriors especially vivid and to impress upon us just how human they are.

Arthur however is at his best in coming up with really juicy quotes to illustrate the matters of contention. Thus Lillian Hellman dismissed Mary McCarthy (Chapter 6) as merely "a lady magazine writer" (p. 141) while McCarthy charged in an interview with Dick Cavett that Hellman "is tremendously overrated, a bad writer, and a dishonest writer..." whose every written word "is a lie, including AND and THE" [my capitalization, p. 143], causing the fur to fly. More civilized was the exchange between Edmund Wilson and Vladimir Nabokov where Wilson expresses his disappointment with Nabokov's novel, Bend Sinister: "You aren't good at...questions of politics and social change, because you are totally uninterested in these matters and have never taken the trouble to understand them." Nabokov replies: "In historical and political matters you are partisan of a certain interpretation which you regard as absolute." (pp. 90-91) (They're just sparring: it heats up later on.)

One of the most interesting bits in the book is from page 32 in which it is asserted that Ernest Hemingway learned part of his style from Gertrude Stein (feud number two) by copying her gerund-driven, run-on sentence constructions. What is especially amusing is that Arthur gives a sentence from Stein and then a similar one from Hemingway--"ing's" flying. The effect was bad in Gertrude Stein, and, although improved in Hemingway, it was still bad. Arthur's book is full of these delightfully sly bits of satire.

He also likes to slip in a few literary jokes. For example, British Don F. R. Leavis, who is in combat with C.P. Snow over the famous "Two Cultures," is characterized as saying of his "fellow Fellows": "They can all go to hell. Of course, some should go before the others. One has a responsibility to make discriminations." (Quoted from Frederick Crews, p. 116) Also: "J.B. Priestley...called Leavis a sort of Calvinist theologian...who makes one feel that he hates books and authors...not...from exceptional fastidiousness but...[as a] result of some strange neurosis, as if he had been frightened by a librarian in early childhood." (p. 118)

All in all, a most entertaining and informative read from a fine prose stylist.

--Dennis Littrell, author of “Novels and other Fictions”

[Joseph J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

A walk through the English department of my university (class of long ago!) presented a treasure trove of free books. This looked interesting, and I devoured it finding it engrossing and hysterical, literate and petty and bitchy. The authors studied here, that is. Gore Vidal and Truman Capote. In the mud. Lillian Hellman and Mary McCarthy, only slightly above that previous level of much. Sinclair Lewis and Theodore Dreiser, a bit more refined but uniquely physical. These are some of the chapters/authors. And the viper tongues and poisoned dipped pens of our literary minds embrace others along the way. Vidal and Capote left no one standing, see the tiny terror Truman on Jack Kerouac. Informative. Delightful. and just plain fun.

[Juliana · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you like books about writers and also like a good old-fashioned feud then you'll like this one. The book is well-researched and presented. Could use a few ladies.
Read here if you like any of the following writers:
Mark Twain*
Bret Harte*
Ernest Hemingway*
Gertrude Stein*
Sinclair Lewis
Theodore Dreiser*
Edmund Wilson
Vladimir Nabokov
C. P. Snow
F R. Leavis
Lillian Hellman
Mary McCarthy
Truman Capote*
Gore Vidal
Thomas Wolfe
Norman Mailer
John Irving*
Sherwood Anderson
*Authors I've read

[Becca Rehberger · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like walking into a boxing match and taking a ringside seat next to someone knowledgeable about the sport. Not enough to make you an expert, but a great introduction to how the game is played.

[Dan Murphy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book a great deal. Each chapter is only about 20 pages, so it's a very easy read for a somewhat academic book. Exceptionally researched and remarkably balanced in its retelling of these literary grudge matches.

[Monica · Rating 4 out of 5]

There were some people I haven't heard of. But overall, this is pretty entertaining. My favorite chapter was Vidal/Capote.

[Stephanie · Rating 4 out of 5]

It directly targeted my interests. I highly enjoyed it.

[Jeff Russo · Rating 4 out of 5]

entertaining enough, and can serve as a jumping-off point to find a new (for you) author or two to read

[Dr Goon Taco Supreme · Rating 3 out of 5]

After reading this enjoyable book, I am now in possession of some fabulous gossipy details about a few of my favorite writers. Reading "Literary Feuds" was fun as it made several great writers seem like regular human beings who just happen to write books. It was like very upscale celebrity gossip, really.
While it was a fun read, I did think that at times the writing of the book was a little pretentious. I spotted quite a few unnecessary big words that were only used for show, and to appear "scholarly" and "academic."
Another complaint I have is that a few of the "feuds" written about in the book were not really exciting enough to warrant reporting. The book sometimes made mountains out of molehills, and it was a little dull in some places.
However, there are times that this book does report juicy gossip. Hot gossip that you can bring up at parties if there are any smart people there who you want to impress.
There are times however, that the gossip is unpleasant and you might have been better off maintaining your ignorance of some of the rotten things that have been said and done by writers who you thought you knew.
For instance, I am sad to report that I am disappointed in Mark Twain and the mean spirited feud he engaged in with one of his (former) friends and fellow writers. I really thought Twain would be above that kind of behavior. I should also mention that this book made me dislike Hemingway as a person. His treatment of Sherwood Anderson is nothing short of foul and disgusting. It's true also that Lillian Hellman comes across as a total fraud and an unpleasant hack--she even stole her "life story" from someone else. Who does that?
I know it's wrong to maintain an aversion to a given book based on a negative view of the book's author, however, "Literary Feuds" does makes some writers seem unpleasant, and then later on it's hard to read their work with any sort of objectivity. As such, only read this book if you can still enjoy books written by writers who turn out to be a***h****.

[Kathleen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned about plenty of feuds I'd not known about at all, and learned more about each author's general context for feuding. I noticed that in almost every case there was a more ambitious writer and a less driven one, just plugging along. The ambitious writer, or more insecure writer, would often start the feud, or tip some awkwardness into the...well, ring. As in boxing.

The author stayed reasonable, compassionate, and mostly did not take sides. I was glad he ended with writers sort of handling their ongoing "feud."

A good read. I guess my only reservation is that I came to expect the author's pattern, ending with redemption or something upbeat. I was glad of it...but...

[Countess of Frogmere · Rating 4 out of 5]

I quite enjoyed this overview of some of the more famous feuds in American literature, from Twain's argument with Bret Harte to Gore Vidal and Truman Capote's vitriolic exchanges. Interesting without being catty. I kept wishing there were pictures of each of the authors.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gore Vidal, among other authors, didn't like Truman Capote, although they had much in common.

[Joe Faust · Rating 3 out of 5]

A chronicle of writers behaving badly toward one another – sometimes with reason, but mostly sound and fury signifying… nothing.