When writers fight

One thing I've noticed about the many book fairs, reading festivals and other literary events I have attended is how well authors get along, how quick they are to compliment each other's books and how happy they seem to be in each other's company. Yet writers do quarrel, as Myrick Land tells us in The Fine Art of Literary Mayhem, and when they do their quarrels tend to be both petty and nasty.

Published in 1962 and updated in 1983, the book covers feuds involving such notables as Samuel Johnson, Charles Dickens, Henry James, Ernest Hemingway, Sinclair Lewis and Norman Mailer. Literary quarrels have a lot to do with jealousy, pride, insecurity and pure pettiness. Hemingway eventually turned against those writers, including Gertrude Stein and Sherwood Anderson, who helped him early in his career. Johnson just seemed argumentative, ready to fight with anyone. Sometimes, as when James and H.G. Wells went at it, it was little more than a radical difference in literary styles.

In many cases, feuding writers were once friends. In some cases the friendships rekindled later in life. D.H. Lawrence maintained an on-again/off-again relationship with Katherine Mansfield and John Middleton Murry for many years. He had a messiah complex, according to Land, and expected his followers to follow him anywhere, even to other continents. Mansfield and Murry were willing to accept this arrangement only for so long. They would soon leave with bad feelings, but then eventually return to the Lawrence fold.

Most literary feuds might be avoided if only writers would refrain from reviewing or otherwise commenting negatively on books by other writers. As at literary events, compliments, sincere or not, keep the peace. Yet prominent authors are in demand as critics by literary periodicals, and most authors need the extra income. Critics sometimes do have to criticize if their opinions are to carry the ring of truth, but even mild criticism can create bad feelings. Writers, like everyone else, have tender egos, and it hurts especially to be wounded by a fellow writer.

Sometimes, as with Hemingway and Mailer, creating bad feelings seems to have been the objective. In his book Advertisements for Myself, Mailer made it a point to insult several of his contemporaries (and, in his mind, competitors), including Saul Bellow, J.D. Salinger, Gore Vidal, James Baldwin, James Jones and William Styron. Several of them fired back.

The subtitle of Land's book reads A Lively Account of Famous Writers and Their Feuds. Some of the 13 chapters are, indeed, lively. Others are deadly dull. My advice: Read those chapters about the authors who most interest you; ignore the rest.