A reader's guide to the withering insult

by Helen 

It is embarrassing enough to find yourself satirized, but it's something else again to be satirized by someone who's been dead for a hundred years. This sentence has been sitting quietly in The Collected Stories of Henry James, lying in wait for postmodern conservatism:

She had Lord Masham on one side of her and on the other the accomplished Mr. Mulliner, editor of the new high-class lively evening paper which was expected to meet a want felt in circles increasingly conscious that Conservatism must be made amusing, and unconvinced when assured by those of another political colour that it was already amusing enough.

With all due respect to eminent Victorians, conservatism does need to "be made amusing." A really good withering insult ("So-and-so's leftism is a little memorized") is worth a hundred postboad signs. But you don't have to take my word for it:

He played the king as though under momentary apprehension that someone else was about to play the ace. Eugene Field on someone's Lear 

His verses are poetry chiefly because no particle, line, or syllable of them reads like prose. William Hazlitt on Samuel Rogers 

At regular intervals, the painter is seen hanging out with other painters; Willem de Kooning, for instance, is played by Val Kilmer, which suggests that casting, too, can be a form of abstract expressionism. Anthony Lane on Ed Harris's Pollock 

Minutes to see, a lifetime to forget. Michael O'Donoghue on the Knoxville World's Fair 

The word "soulcraft" is apt to grate on an ear accustomed to English words. It is not quite at home in the language; and yet, it is not immediately clear what foreign word it might be a translation of. David Bromwich on George F. Will 

The title Sunday Dinner for a Soldier suggests to me a movie that could be made in a dozen or a thousand versions, all of them good; but the version that has been made is not one of them. James Agee 

It was like a Down's Syndrome Bob Dylan cover band.Will Wilson on something I don't remember

More of this, please, preferably directed at the films of Judd Apatow. A final hint to conservatives who want to be funny: stop being outraged. It isn't just that organizing a boycott of Gossip Girl takes up time you could spend writing your own pilot script; it's that the mentality behind a boycott is necessarily incompatible with being funny.

Comments

[Dan Koffler]

"This book fills a necessary gap in the literature." --- George Bealer on some other philosopher (can't remember)

[Dara]

Is it possible that that wasn't, in fact, Will Wilson on anything, but me on Will Wilson's attempt to sing some Bob Dylan song? (I'm not absolutely convinced of this, but I can't think of any other scenario I find plausible either.)

[Nicola]

"This is not a novel to be tossed aside lightly. It should be thrown with great force." Dorothy Parker, on -- you guessed it -- Atlas Shrugged.

[TKB]

But it would irritate Rand so much more to have it tossed lightly aside!

Is there a /reason/ you haven't included Mr. Buckley at all?

“I won't insult your intelligence by suggesting that you really believe what you just said.”
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"There are several different varieties of snark. Some have feathers and bite, and some have whiskers and scratch. ...

The domain of the snark is an island filled with chasms and crags, many months' sail from England. ... The snark is a peculiar creature that cannot be captured in a commonplace way. Above all, courage is required during a snark hunt. The most common method is to seek it with thimbles, care, forks and hope. One may also 'threaten its life with a railway share' or 'charm it with smiles and soap'."
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~Bonny Purveyor of Snark to the Yale Political Union