The lord of snark, Lawrence Dorfman, is back! With this treasury of backhanded compliments, sarcastic insults, and catty comebacks, Dorfman gives us transformative wisdom that's sure to change your life or at least induce a light chuckle.
One question plagues us all: How do we survive all the Sturm und Drang of everyday life? The answer is but one word: snark.
"She wears her clothes as if they were thrown on by a pitchfork." Jonathan Swift
"Why don't you get a haircut? You look like a chrysanthemum." P. G. Wodehouse
"He's a mental midget with the IQ of a fence post." Tom Waits
"They hardly make 'em like him anymore but just to be on the safe side, he should be castrated anyway." Hunter S. Thompson
"He has a Teflon brain . . . nothing sticks" Lily Tomlin
"He has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair." Theodore Roosevelt
Snark will keep the wolves at bay (or at least out on the porch). Snark, much like a double scotch, will help you deal with relatives, shopping, and rudeness; it is an outlet for the unleashed vitriolic bile that's saved itself up over the months. Like a shield, it will protect you while you go about your life. Snark is your answer!
Pretty much what it says on the wrapper. I love snark and this random gift from a family member is just the sort of thing that makes me chuckle. It's a great collection, and was heading towards a 5 star rating, but it floundered a bit at the end. I was willing to overlook a couple of quotes - and really it was only a couple - that were repeated in slightly paraphrased form.
It's a thick book and one or two passing through the keeper is not unexpected. But at about the 80% mark, specifically the chapter on Motherhood, the quotes stopped being snarky and were just quotes about motherhood, some of them quite endearing and touching.
Then in the last 2-3 chapters, Dorfman lost that fifth star all together when he stopped quoting the greats and started ad libbing his own brand of snark, or at least what he likely considered snark. It was too acerbic for my tastes; it didn't read snarky nearly as much as it read angry and bitter. Vitriolic, even. The dude does NOT like Christmas. That's fair enough; Christmas can be a trying time for even the most festive feeling of us, but his barbs failed to find that sweet spot of gracious lunacy that can be Christmas. After that chapter, his further attempts at snarky comebacks to enduring cliches just fell flat.
Still, overall it's an excellent compendium of sarcastic and witty quotes that will serve me well as a handy reference when I'm at the end of my rope trying to be polite to the more challenging people in my life. Mostly time well spent.
Reading updates
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Started reading
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9 January, 2019:
Finished reading
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9 January, 2019:
Reviewed