When I was a child, I loved nothing more than curling up on my father's lap and listening to him read The Magic Faraway Tree by Enid Blyton.
At the age of 13, I stumbled across the work of Dorothy Parker, and found myself in her world of New York cafes and speakeasies, razor-sharp wit, tragic love affairs, sassy comebacks, cocktails, and cigarettes.
Who was this brilliant woman? Dorothy Parker (1893-1967) was an American poet, writer, critic and satirist renowned for her wit and wisecracks. Rising from a conflicted and miserable childhood to literary acclaim, Parker was a founding member of the Algonquin Round Table, a group of New York City writers, critics, actors, and wits who met for lunch each day at the Algonquin Hotel from 1919 until 1929.
Parker worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood until her involvement in left-wing politics resulted in her being placed on the Hollywood blacklist.
As much of a wit as Oscar Wilde, Parker is responsible for sayings such as ''Beauty is only skin deep, but ugly goes clean to the bone,'' ''I hate writing, I love having written,'' and ''I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.'' Although these lines seem to roll off the tongue with the rapidity and sweetness of a Werther's original, Parker did not conceal the difficulty of writing, once saying that for every five words she wrote, she'd change seven.
Consider for instance the lines ''Joy stayed with me a night Young and free and fair And in the morning light / He left me there.'' Parker taught me I could turn my own sadness into writerly brilliance; I could use my own chaotic life experiences as fodder for stories and poems. She wrote about sex, bodily autonomy and abortion; taboo subjects even today, let alone in the early twentieth century.
As with most humans on our little planet, Parker was flawed, irascible and deeply complex. Despite being Jewish on her father's side, Parker could be horrendously anti-Semitic. She drank too much, caused too much trouble, and was self-destructive and cantankerous later in life.
But her stories and essays dealt with questions of family, race, war and economic inequality, and in her personal life, she also strove towards justice and equality on many fronts. Parker protested the execution of anarchists Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti and during the Spanish Civil War, she travelled to Europe to further the anti-Franco cause.
The National chairman of the Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee, Parker left the bulk of her estate to the Rev Dr Martin Luther King jun. What are we to make of these contradictions and complexities?
What really gets to me, though, is the fact Parker was so unnecessarily dismissive of her own talents. As a fellow writer, I'm only too aware of the cruelty of self-criticism. It's the small, stinging voice one can never escape, echoing around one's head.
In her middle age, Parker tore down her own achievements and those of her fellow Round Table writers, remarking that none of her friends made the ranks of their generation's greatness: ''These were no giants. Think who was writing in those days - Lardner, Fitzgerald, Faulkner and Hemingway. Those were the real giants. The Round Table was just a lot of people telling jokes and telling each other how good they were. Just a bunch of loudmouths showing off, saving their gags for days, waiting for a chance to spring them.''
It breaks my heart to think of such a talented and insightful writer disparaging herself so. In her final years, Parker descended into alcoholism and spent her time as a veritable recluse in Manhattan's Volney Hotel. Her friend Lillian Hellman spoke at Parker's funeral, saying, ''She was part of nothing and nobody except herself; it was this independence of mind and spirit that was her true distinction.''
Perhaps this complexity; this inherent contradiction, is why I find Dorothy Parker so fascinating. Her role as the queen of the Algonquin Round, and her wit, flair and talent of self-destruction live on.
I often return to the books read in my youth, from Enid Blyton's colourful candyfloss adventures to the awe-inspiring verse of Wordsworth and Tennyson. Yet when faced with misery, the lure of a drink or even the giddy happiness of a requited crush, I find myself returning to Dorothy Parker's Laments for the Living, Enough Rope, and Death and Taxes. I relish her sardonic, brutal and often despairing view of the world, and am comforted by her wit and humour.
-Jean Balchin, a former English student at the University of Otago, is studying at Oxford University after being awarded a Rhodes Scholarship.
