Parker×Twain

full transcript

1. 00:00
   Verashare moment

   From the studio at Reborn Radio — next on ROAST NIGHT, Dorothy Parker and Mark Twain. They take up On a friend's bad work they had to praise in public.
2. 00:10
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   So. You ever read something by someone you loved and realize you'd have to be very drunk to make it through, and even drunker to say something kind afterward?
3. 00:19
   Mark Twainshare moment

   Mrs. Parker, I once sat through a reading by a dear friend in San Francisco. Fellow was convinced he'd written the Great American Novel. Turned out he'd written a great American sleep aid.
4. 00:32
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   What did you tell him?
5. 00:33
   Mark Twainshare moment

   I told him it was exactly the book he set out to write. Which was true. He set out to write something nobody would want to read, and by God, he succeeded admirably.
6. 00:43
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   That's kinder than I've managed. When dear Edna showed me her little book of poems last year, I told her it was very much her voice. Very much indeed. I may have emphasized the 'very' too strongly.
7. 00:56
   Mark Twainshare moment

   The 'very' is where we hide the knife, isn't it? 'Very interesting.' 'Very bold.' 'Very much what I expected.'
8. 01:06
   Dorothy Parkershare moment

   The trick is to look them dead in the eye while you say it. That way they think you're being sincere. I learned that from reviewing plays I hated for magazines that paid me.
9. 01:16
   Mark Twainshare moment

   You got paid to lie? I've been doing it for free at dinner parties for forty years. I could've had a second career.
10. 01:23
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Oh, I don't consider it lying. Lying would be saying 'I loved it.' I just say things that are technically true but profoundly unhelpful.
11. 01:31
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Such as?
12. 01:32
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    'I couldn't put it down.' Meaning I couldn't find the strength to lift it off my lap. 'It stayed with me for days.' Meaning I got it stuck between my radiator and the wall.
13. 01:43
    Mark Twainshare moment

    I once told a poet his work was 'unforgettable.' What I meant was that I'd tried very hard to forget it and failed. The human memory is crueler than we give it credit for.
14. 01:54
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Why do we do it, though? If I write something wretched, I'd want someone to tell me. Wouldn't you?
15. 01:59
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Would I? Yes. Would I thank them for it? Absolutely not. And would I ever speak to them again? Not if I could help it.
16. 02:07
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    So we're cowards.
17. 02:08
    Mark Twainshare moment

    We're realists. There's a difference between cowardice and understanding that some friendships are more valuable than literary honesty. Besides, who appointed us the truth police?
18. 02:20
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Our own standards did. If I'm going to call myself a critic, I ought to be critical. Otherwise I'm just a cheerleader with a typewriter.
19. 02:28
    Mark Twainshare moment

    But you're not being critical when it's a friend. You're being cruel. Criticism requires distance. With friends, there's no distance. Just damage.
20. 02:38
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    You say damage, I say clarity. Hemingway told me my poetry was sentimental once. I wanted to throw my drink at him. But he was right.
21. 02:47
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Hemingway's a special case. He'd tell his own mother her Christmas cards were derivative. The man mistakes rudeness for authenticity.
22. 02:55
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Maybe. But at least he respects me enough to assume I can take it. When people lie to me about my work, I know what they're really saying: they think I'm fragile.
23. 03:05
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Or they think you're a friend. There's more than one kind of respect, Mrs. Parker. I respected my friend in San Francisco enough not to humiliate him in front of the two hundred people who came to hear him read.
24. 03:17
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Two hundred people. Lord. What did you do afterward? At the reception, I mean.
25. 03:23
    Mark Twainshare moment

    I told him his wife must be very proud. Which she was. Proud, and entirely without taste, bless her heart.
26. 03:30
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    You're worse than I am.
27. 03:32
    Mark Twainshare moment

    I prefer to think I'm more practiced. You're still young enough to believe honesty matters more than kindness. Give it time.
28. 03:40
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I'm not that young. I'm forty-one.
29. 03:42
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Exactly. A child. When you're seventy, you'll understand that most people don't want the truth. They want company. They want someone to sit with them in the delusion that they matter.
30. 03:54
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    God, that's bleak.
31. 03:56
    Mark Twainshare moment

    It's not bleak. It's mercy. We're all writing into the dark, Mrs. Parker. Most of it disappears. The least we can do is not tell each other how quickly.
32. 04:07
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    But doesn't that make us complicit? If someone's wasting their time writing badly, aren't we obligated to say so?
33. 04:13
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Who says it's a waste? Maybe it makes them happy. Maybe it's the only thing keeping them from throwing themselves in the river. Not everything has to be good to be worthwhile.
34. 04:25
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Now you're just being sentimental.
35. 04:27
    Mark Twainshare moment

    And you're being a prig. Which I say with affection, because I'm your friend, and friends lie.
36. 04:33
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Fine. Then as your friend, I'll tell you your last book was magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.
37. 04:38
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Which one?
38. 04:39
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Whichever one you'd like me to have read.
39. 04:41
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Ah. So we've established you're a liar too. Good. I was beginning to think you had principles.
40. 04:47
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I have principles. I just keep them where they won't interfere with dinner invitations.
41. 04:51
    Mark Twainshare moment

    That's the spirit. A principle that costs you nothing isn't a principle. It's a hobby.
42. 04:57
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    So what do you actually do? When a friend hands you something dreadful and stands there waiting for your verdict?
43. 05:03
    Mark Twainshare moment

    I take my time. I read it very slowly. Then I find one true thing to say about it. Just one. Even the worst book has a sentence somewhere that didn't actively offend.
44. 05:15
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    And if it doesn't?
45. 05:16
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Then I compliment the typeface. Or the dedication. Once I told a man his footnotes were very thorough. He beamed for a week.
46. 05:25
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    You're diabolical.
47. 05:27
    Mark Twainshare moment

    I'm a professional. There's a difference.
48. 05:29
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I tried that once. Robert wrote a play. It was unspeakable. I told him the second act was much stronger than the first.
49. 05:37
    Mark Twainshare moment

    And was it?
50. 05:38
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Oh, absolutely. It was only half as long.
51. 05:40
    Mark Twainshare moment

    There you are. You found your true thing. That's all friendship requires. Not dishonesty, just selective emphasis.
52. 05:48
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I still felt rotten afterward.
53. 05:50
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Of course you did. That's how you know you're not a sociopath. The discomfort is the point. It means you still care about truth, you're just choosing to care about the person more.
54. 06:01
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    When did you become a philosopher?
55. 06:03
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Around the same time I realized nobody actually wants my opinion. They want my approval. So I give it to them, and we all go home happy.
56. 06:13
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    Except you go home knowing you lied.
57. 06:15
    Mark Twainshare moment

    And they go home knowing someone they admire thinks they're not a complete failure. I'll take that trade.
58. 06:20
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    What if they ask you point-blank, though? 'Be honest, did you really like it?'
59. 06:25
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Then I am honest. I tell them it's not for me to say whether it's good. I tell them every reader brings their own standards. I tell them the only opinion that matters is whether they're proud of it.
60. 06:37
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    That's not honesty. That's cowardice dressed up as philosophy.
61. 06:40
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Maybe. But cowardice dressed as philosophy has gotten me through forty years of literary friendships without a single duel. I consider that a success.
62. 06:50
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    I suppose at a certain point we have to decide what we're in this for. The work or the people.
63. 06:56
    Mark Twainshare moment

    The work dies, Mrs. Parker. Even the good work. But the people, if you're lucky, stay a while longer. I know which I'd rather invest in.
64. 07:05
    Dorothy Parkershare moment

    That's remarkably sweet coming from you.
65. 07:07
    Mark Twainshare moment

    Don't tell anyone. It'll ruin my reputation.