After reading a collection of Parker's stories, I fell in love with Parker's writing. Her tone is smart and satirical, a stinging image of New York's high society in the '30s and '40s, that treats her characters with just enough humor to make them seem ridiculous without leaving them completely unlikeable.THE PORTABLE DOROTHY PARKER is an anthology of all her collected stories, poems, book/play reviews and articles. I have to admit that I attempted the poetry, found it a bit melodramatic (though the funny ones are very funny), and skipped right ahead to the next batch of stories, but the play reviews were fun, though not quite as significant as they might have be en had I heard of any of the plays being reviewed. I felt pretty much the same about the book reviews, though I read more of them as an educational venture (a girl's gotta do her homework, right?), and very much enjoyed her review of Hammett's The Glass Key, partly because I had, in fact, heard of that book.
Parker definately stands as one of my favorite short story writers, and plowing through a large volume of short story after short story without ever losing interest is a powerful testament to that, I'd say. This is a great book for summer and for vacations.
RATING: 4
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