Read Online Dorothy Parker: What Fresh Hell Is This? by Marion Meade - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Marion Meade
Tags: United States, Fiction, Literary, General, Historical, History, Biography & Autobiography, Literary Criticism, 20th Century, Women Authors, Authors, American, Biography, Women, Women and Literature, American - 20th century - Biography, Parker, Dorothy, Women and literature - United States - History - 20th century
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in mind; for what he did not say.
Her stratagem unsuccessful, she continued to work at the dance school. A few months later, Crownie informed her that there was a position open on the staff of Vogue, Vanity Fair’ s sister magazine, at a salary of ten dollars a week. It was her chance and she took it.
Her father had once written a poem that told her of a brightly lit place.
If to your Papa you are good
You shall have both clothes and food
You shall live on milk and honey
And never know the need of money
Hadn’t she been good to Papa? And now see what had happened: His fantastical paradise of milk and honey was going to be hers. She tentatively inaugurated her new freedom by moving into a boardinghouse at 103rd Street and Broadway, a location that lay precisely equidistant between Bert’s apartment and Helen’s. For eight dollars a week, she received a room the size of a pantry and two meals—and the idea that perhaps she could become a famous writer.
“I thought,” she said, “I was Edith Sitwell.”
This was her turning point. With the sale of “Any Porch” to Vanity Fair , she passed out of her father’s refracted world and stepped onto the stage of the real Vanity Fair, where all wares seemed to be for sale, all trophies inevitable, all her silvered daydreams made real.
Chapter 3
VANITY FAIR
1915-1919
It was easier for a camel to navigate a needle’s eye than for an ambitious woman to achieve literary grandeur on Vogue , which had precious little interest in nurturing another Edith Sitwell. All the magazine needed for its copy department was a person sufficiently familiar with the English language to spell decently and write picture captions. Since Vogue’s fortnightly issues were overstuffed with photos and pattern illustrations, there was always a stack of art waiting for captions.
At first Dorothy felt thrilled to be working there. For a page of underwear she chose a line from Shakespeare, “Brevity is the soul of wit,” to which she applied a fashionable twist: “From these foundations of the autumn wardrobe, one may learn that brevity is the soul of lingerie.” Producing this drivel proved to be a tedious, thankless task. Before long she lost her determination to sound literary and tried to relieve her frustration as best she could. She took one look at a photograph of a model wearing a tarted-up but very expensive nightgown that seemed meant for a courtesan and decided to tweak the noses of both Vogue and its readers. This time she borrowed from a nursery rhyme: “There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she wore this divine nightdress of rose-colored mousseline de soie, trimmed with frothy Valenciennes lace.” To presume that Vogue readers might be having sex was surely an idea to set Palm Beach and Newport reeling. Dorothy was able to breeze her prose past the copy desk. Only at the last moment, in proofs, did someone catch and exterminate the subversive caption.
Edna Woolman Chase, the editor of Vogue , remembered Dorothy as “a small, dark-haired pixie, treacle-sweet of tongue but vinegar witted,” whose carryings-on created disturbances in the office. Mrs. Chase reigned over her staff in much the same way as Catherine the Great ruled Russia. An autocrat, she insisted that employees appear for work in hats, white gloves, and black silk stockings, even though she was the world’s biggest tightwad when it came to salaries. Idleness, and that included personal conversations during business hours, was forbidden. Her standards for conduct were rigorous. When an editor once tried to kill herself by diving in front of a subway train, Edna Chase was pained by her vulgarity. If a Vogue editor was forced to resort to suicide, she should have enough sense to swallow sleeping powders instead of leaving messes for the city sanitation department.
Since Dorothy always
Her stratagem unsuccessful, she continued to work at the dance school. A few months later, Crownie informed her that there was a position open on the staff of Vogue, Vanity Fair’ s sister magazine, at a salary of ten dollars a week. It was her chance and she took it.
Her father had once written a poem that told her of a brightly lit place.
If to your Papa you are good
You shall have both clothes and food
You shall live on milk and honey
And never know the need of money
Hadn’t she been good to Papa? And now see what had happened: His fantastical paradise of milk and honey was going to be hers. She tentatively inaugurated her new freedom by moving into a boardinghouse at 103rd Street and Broadway, a location that lay precisely equidistant between Bert’s apartment and Helen’s. For eight dollars a week, she received a room the size of a pantry and two meals—and the idea that perhaps she could become a famous writer.
“I thought,” she said, “I was Edith Sitwell.”
This was her turning point. With the sale of “Any Porch” to Vanity Fair , she passed out of her father’s refracted world and stepped onto the stage of the real Vanity Fair, where all wares seemed to be for sale, all trophies inevitable, all her silvered daydreams made real.
Chapter 3
VANITY FAIR
1915-1919
It was easier for a camel to navigate a needle’s eye than for an ambitious woman to achieve literary grandeur on Vogue , which had precious little interest in nurturing another Edith Sitwell. All the magazine needed for its copy department was a person sufficiently familiar with the English language to spell decently and write picture captions. Since Vogue’s fortnightly issues were overstuffed with photos and pattern illustrations, there was always a stack of art waiting for captions.
At first Dorothy felt thrilled to be working there. For a page of underwear she chose a line from Shakespeare, “Brevity is the soul of wit,” to which she applied a fashionable twist: “From these foundations of the autumn wardrobe, one may learn that brevity is the soul of lingerie.” Producing this drivel proved to be a tedious, thankless task. Before long she lost her determination to sound literary and tried to relieve her frustration as best she could. She took one look at a photograph of a model wearing a tarted-up but very expensive nightgown that seemed meant for a courtesan and decided to tweak the noses of both Vogue and its readers. This time she borrowed from a nursery rhyme: “There was a little girl who had a little curl, right in the middle of her forehead. When she was good she was very very good, and when she was bad she wore this divine nightdress of rose-colored mousseline de soie, trimmed with frothy Valenciennes lace.” To presume that Vogue readers might be having sex was surely an idea to set Palm Beach and Newport reeling. Dorothy was able to breeze her prose past the copy desk. Only at the last moment, in proofs, did someone catch and exterminate the subversive caption.
Edna Woolman Chase, the editor of Vogue , remembered Dorothy as “a small, dark-haired pixie, treacle-sweet of tongue but vinegar witted,” whose carryings-on created disturbances in the office. Mrs. Chase reigned over her staff in much the same way as Catherine the Great ruled Russia. An autocrat, she insisted that employees appear for work in hats, white gloves, and black silk stockings, even though she was the world’s biggest tightwad when it came to salaries. Idleness, and that included personal conversations during business hours, was forbidden. Her standards for conduct were rigorous. When an editor once tried to kill herself by diving in front of a subway train, Edna Chase was pained by her vulgarity. If a Vogue editor was forced to resort to suicide, she should have enough sense to swallow sleeping powders instead of leaving messes for the city sanitation department.
Since Dorothy always
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