The 30 Harshest Author-on-Author Insults In History

1:00 pm Sunday Jun 19, 2011 by Emily Temple

Sigh. Authors just don’t insult each other like they used to. Sure, Martin Amis raised some eyebrows when he claimed he would need brain damage to write children’s books, and recent Pulitzer Prize winner Jennifer Egan made waves when she disparaged the work that someone had plagiarized, but those kinds of accidental, lukewarm zingers are nothing when compared to the sick burns of yore. It stands to reason, of course, that writers would be able to come up with some of the best insults around, given their natural affinity for a certain turn of phrase and all. And it also makes sense that the people they would choose to unleash their verbal battle-axes upon would be each other, since watching someone doing the same thing you’re doing — only badly — is one of the most frustrating feelings we know. So we forgive our dear authors for their spite. Plus, their insults are just so fun to read. Click through for our countdown of the thirty harshest author-on-author burns in history, and let us know if we’ve missed any of your favorites in the comments!

30. Gustave Flaubert on George Sand

“A great cow full of ink.”

29. Robert Louis Stevenson on Walt Whitman

“…like a large shaggy dog just unchained scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon.”

28. Friedrich Nietzsche on Dante Alighieri

“A hyena that wrote poetry on tombs.”

27. Harold Bloom on J.K. Rowling (2000)

“How to read ‘Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone’? Why, very quickly, to begin with, and perhaps also to make an end. Why read it? Presumably, if you cannot be persuaded to read anything better, Rowling will have to do.”

26. Vladimir Nabokov on Fyodor Dostoevsky

“Dostoevky’s lack of taste, his monotonous dealings with persons suffering with pre-Freudian complexes, the way he has of wallowing in the tragic misadventures of human dignity — all this is difficult to admire.”

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Don't forget to add this one to your reading list!

I can't wait to start reading it myself.

Plot Summary (as written by lovely Wikipedia)

Written from the standpoint of the narrator, the book holds strong reflections to Wisters' earlier visit to Wyoming. Starting with the authors' arrival in Medicine Bow, WY, the novel describe his encounters with the wild west. He makes friends with the strong minded foreman of the Shiloh Ranch, and discovers the west to be very different from what he had thought. From that point onward, the novel revolves around the foreman, known only as the Virginian, and his life as he lives it. As well as describing the Virginian's conflict with his enemy, Trampas, and his romance with the pretty schoolteacher, Wister weaves an excellent tale of action, violence, hate, revenge, love and friendship. Wister succeeds in making the Virginian a stern man with a soft side to his personality. The book contains many different stories throughout. In one scene, the Virginian must participate in the hanging of an admitted cattle thief, who had been his close friend. The hanging is represented as a necessary response to the government's corruption and lack of action, but the Virginian feels it to be a horrible duty. He is especially stricken by the bravery with which the thief faces his fate and the heavy burden that it places on his heart forms the emotional core of the story. The ongoing conflict with Trampas, his never ending enemy, is resolved at the end, when after five years of hate, there is a fatal shootout. Trampas is shot by the Virginian, and the foreman leaves to marry his young bride. The next day, he and she ride off together into the mountains. The book ends with a short description of their later life, and the fact the Virginian eventually became a great man with several children.

What's on repeat this week...

Here it is, it's been stuck in my head. I love it's perfect amount of chill, cool, simple beauty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KbJy1zeoDn4

There'll never be a cup of tea big enough nor a book long enough to suit me. ~ C.S. Lewis

Without further adieu, here are the illustrious books of Brilliance, Wisdom, Hilarity, Beauty, Charm, Truth, Tall Tales, and History:

• E.L. Koningsburg:
  • From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
  • The View From Saturday
• Leif Enger :
• So Brave Young and Handsome
• C.S.Lewis:
  
• The Narnia Code
• The Discarded Image
• The Dark Tower (unfinished)
• The Space Trilogy
• Trenton Lee Stewart
• The Mysterious Benedict Society
• G.K. Chesterton
• The Man Who Was Thursday - (I will make a movie someday, I will, I will, I will...)
• The Complete Father Brown Mysteries
• The Ball and the Cross
• Check out his poetry
• Alexandre Dumas
• The Count of Monte Cristo
• The Last Cavalier
• Sir Arthur Cannon Doyle
• Sherlock Holmes
• Frank Peretti
• This Present Darkness
• The Cooper Kids Adventure Series
• N.D. Wilson
• The 100 Cupboards Series
• Elizabeth Gaskell
• North & South

Movies that make your heart feel like a rumble, tumble, mumble, awe, raw, ache, quake, break, baffle, wonder, laughy-taffy shake.

• "The Maltese Falcon" - just watch it, it's the king of character development
• "The Goonies" = my childhood and yours
• "What's Up Doc"
• "Momento" - see it twice
• "Dear Frankie" - Gerard Butler

Please add any that I may have inevitably forgotten, but not forsaken.

It was thrilling, inspiring, intriguing, exhilarating. refreshing, whimsical, laughable, and stirring to see you.

I will miss our witty, clever, brainy. wistful, tinguling, comical, and yet brilliantly brooding and distinguished conversations.

Here's to knowledge and how we use it.

Here's to humor and what we choose to laugh at.

Here's to beauty and how we see it.

And here's to life and the willing acceptance to walk the road we're on, no matter how much our feet hurt.

Cheers. I love you!

p.s. did you know:

C.S. Lewis', Mere Christianity, has a chapter titled “Right and Wrong as a Clue to the Meaning of the Universe,”

Hmmm....makes me want to re-read everything of his...looking for code clues...

In that chapter, Lewis claims that until people repent and want forgiveness, Christianity will not make sense. Christianity explains how God can be the impersonal mind behind the Natural Law and also be a person. It declares that, since we cannot meet the demands of the law, God actually became a human being to save us from our failure....

p.s.s. I'm going to be thinking in code from now on out...

p.s.s.s. I can't wait to start reading, I feel like I'm starving and about to dig into the best dinner ever.

p.s.s.s.s. You know you're a nerd when: you compare books to eating.

xxoo

C.M. Daniel