What Fresh Hell Is This? A Brief Look at Dorothy Parker.

Razors pain you,
Rivers are damp,
Acids stain you,
and drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren’t lawful,
Nooses give.
Gas smells awful,
You may as well live.
                                   Dorothy Parker – Resume (Enough Rope, 1926)

I first heard Resume when watching one of my favourite movies; Girl Interrupted (Angelina Jolie, 1999) and only recently have I learned it was a Dorothy Parker poem. Parker attempted four times to kill herself,  by means including slitting her wrists and an overdose, however death waited until all her friends were dead and blessed her with a fatal coronary on June 7, 1967.

Still, before her death in ’67, Parker was one of the most accomplished female writers of her time known for her dependency on alcohol (a result of failed marriages, miscarriages and affairs) as well as her sharp tongue and personal quotes still used today in modern culture.  Surely you have heard the phrase “What fresh hell is this?” or one of my personal favourites “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”

In my research for this piece, it would seem Dorothy Parker first said “What fresh hell is this?” to a caller who had interrupted her creative flow one day.  I’m sure we’ve all had moments like that. Having liked it so much, Parker took to answering the phone like this always; another trait to add to her character of sardonic wit and quick thinking.

Her horticulture line came to her in seconds. After her career took off at Vanity Fair, where she wrote theatre criticism temporarily as a stand-in for PG Woodhouse; Parker, her close friend Robert Benchley and Robert E. Sherwood began lunching at The Algonquin Hotel on a daily basis. This spawned the birth of the Algonquin Round Table. A group of witty writers would gather, muse on life, and toss ideas to one another, competing in writing exercises. Reminiscent of many creative writing classes, one idea was that they must use a certain word in a short poem. The chosen word; horticulture. Dorothy Parker’s attempt; “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.”

I’ve chosen to look more into Dorothy Parker’s life more than her works because I supposed there must surely be some emotionally crippled, sarcastic, flippant woman of the 20’s behind her works.  Turns out I was right. Unbeknownst to her suicide attempts when I started this piece, it only intrigued me further. Why I didn’t catch on sooner, I’ll never know; with a book entitled Enough Rope (1926) you’d think that would have struck a chord? Although the chosen title of her book does pose questions, keeping her penchant for suicide in mind – is she searching for enough rope? Does she finally have enough rope? Will there ever be enough rope?