July 25, 2024

Everyone’s a Critic

I thought this entry from the excellent Letters of Note newsletter was funny:

[After reading her son’s debut novel, The Sun Also Rises]

It is a doubtful honor to produce one of the filthiest books of the year. What is the matter? Have you ceased to be interested in loyalty, nobility, honor and fineness in life? Surely you have other words in your vocabulary besides damn” and bitch”—Every page fills me with a sick loathing—if I should pick up a book by any other writer with such words in it, I should read no more—but pitch it in the fire.

Ernest Hemingway’s mother, Grace in a Letter to Ernest Hemingway