Zoe Heller recently attracted attention in the literary world, not for a new novel, but for her scathing review of Salman Rushdie’s much-awaited new memoir, Joseph Anton.
Heller damned Rushdie’s grandiose style and “lordly nonchalance” in a lengthy essay in the New York Review of Books. Yet Rushdie isn’t likely to be overly fazed by this attack. He has been part of a number of high-profile disputes with other novelists and appears used to confrontation. During a 15 year long feud with John Le Carré, Rushdie described him as a “pompous ass” and following another critical review by John Updike he lambasted Updike, saying, “Somewhere in Las Vegas there’s probably a male prostitute called ‘John Updike.’”
But in a rather anti-climactic way, most of these feuds end up in awkward reconciliation at a book festival. Rushdie praised Le Carré at Cheltenham literary festival this year, whilst V.S. Naipaul and Paul Theroux, who also had a 15 year fight, shook hands at Hay festival in 2011. Naipaul had put a copy of one of Theroux’s books that had been personally dedicated to him up for sale, and Theroux later published Sir Vidia’s Shadow, a vindictive memoir describing Naipaul as a racist and an egotist. Naipaul, seemingly spoiling for a more one-sided fight, has since attacked Jane Austen and her “sentimental sense of the world.”
It seems that as far as literary feuds go, they don’t make them like they used to. Wordsworth and Coleridge’s relationship was ruined forever by a mixture of addiction and conflicting poetic ambition, leaving Wordsworth to describe his former best friend as a “rotten drunkard." Rimbaud and Verlaine’s stormy relationship ended with Verlaine shooting Rimbaud in the wrist and a subsequent two year spell in prison. Whilst no violence was involved, Truman Capote’s dismissal of Jack Kerouac’s work as "that’s not writing, that’s typing", was painful. Even worse was Ernest Hemingway’s criticism of William Faulkner’s work — "Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?" — a line far more scathing than anything Heller said of Rushdie.
Perhaps the most dramatic modern day literary feud is between the two giants of Latin American literature, Gabriel Garcia Márquez and Mario Vargas Llosa. The two friends had a falling out that lasted for 30 years, apparently over a dispute concerning Llosa’s wife. Llosa punched Márquez in a Mexican cinema and he appeared in public with a substantial black eye. The fact that the pair never aired their dispute in public served to make it more mysterious. Yet even in this case, the two writers managed to eventually reconcile their differences.
But even if real literary battles are rare these days, those looking for snipes can always turn to the Hatchet Job Award for the most unforgiving book review. The prize is a book-shaped cake with an axe plunged into it. Classicist Mary Beard was a close contender for her cutting review of Robert Hughes’ book on Rome. She rubbished the entire second half of the book, deeming it to be “littered with howlers”. Mark Twain could have been a more worthy recipient of the award for his criticism of Jane Austen, making Naipaul look like an Austen fan in comparison. He said of the literary giantess, "Every time I read Pride and Prejudice I want to dig her up and hit her over the skull with her own shin bone." Literary insults just aren’t the same anymore.
