Thursday, June 24, 2010

Quote of the Day (Amanda McKittrick Ros, with Some of the Worst Dialogue of All Time)


“Speak! Irene! Wife! Woman! Do not sit in silence and allow the blood that now boils in my veins to ooze through cavities of unrestrained passion and trickle down to drench me with its crimson hue!”—Amanda McKittrick Ros, Irene Iddlesigh, quoted in Miles Corwin, “The Last Page: Words to Remember,” Smithsonian, June 2009.

Mark Twain called this book “one of the greatest unintentionally humorous novels of all time,” while Nick Page called Amanda McKittrick Ros (1860-1939; yes, there's only one "s" in that last name) “the greatest bad writer who ever lived.”

“Cavities of unrestrained passion” summons up a potential new literary genre: romance novels about dentists, e.g., The Passions of the Wisdom Tooth. Hey, why didn’t Irving Stone think of that title?

No comments: