as you know Sherlock Holmes is one of
the most admired and critiqued and
recreated series in the history of
detective fiction which is wild because
I think in the actual canon there are
only four full-length novels, it's like a
bunch of short stories and things that
he's written but Doyle himself you know
only wrote four novels and each of
those novels is considered a classic of
British literature. obviously when you
write something that influential people
are going to react and one of the
writers who reacted to it was a French
one called Maurice LeBlanc who created
this gentleman thief called Arsene Lupin
I don't know if I'm pronouncing that
correctly but let's hope so and
obviously he needed you know some sort
of nemesis for the character because
it's a burglar and he decided you know
who better than the Great British
Detective Sherlock Holmes so he started
writing all these novels with Sherlock
Holmes as a character in it and
obviously Doyle got the wind up and he
filed a complaint, a legal complaint and
he said you know like Leblanc isn't
allowed to use my character which is
still under copyright.
so leblanc thought about it and he got
back to Doyle with the most French
reaction ever: he said fine you don't
want me to use the name of your
character? I won't do it. I have now
renamed that character to Herlock Sholmes.
I love that so much, it is so brilliantly
petty and it kind of got me thinking
about literary feuds and how
they just behaved really badly with each
other when they're in the same
profession and so I thought I would talk
about four of my favorite literary feuds.
so first up is a perennial favorite,
Salman Rushdie. I don't know any other
person who has expanded this amount of
energy in feuds with other people. I'm
not going to make a joke about Iran
because I get it like that was deadly
serious but think about it like he
pissed off entire governments! that's
some rare talent. and then you know it's
kind of like giving matches to an
arsonist, somebody told him to get on
Twitter. I like to think of his
publicist sort of like gnashing their
teeth and stabbing themselves repeatedly
in the thigh with a fork when they found
out because my god if there is ever a
man who should not be on social media
it's Salman Rushdie. I think he spends
most of his time on Twitter you know
getting into fights with his critics and
with the New York Times you know I think
I don't think there's a single reviewer
for the New York Times with whom he
hasn't gotten into a blood feud, but my
favorite is the feud that he got into
with John Updike when Updike reviewed
one of his books for The New Yorker and
it wasn't a very good review. so the
review opened with Updike questioning
Rushdie's decision to name his lead
character Maximilian Ophüls after i
assume the German director even though
the character had nothing to do with the
real life Ophüls. so i think the first
line of the review was "why oh why" you
know is this character named such and a
couple of months later somebody went up
to Rushdie and you know that journalist
knew exactly what he was doing or he or
she was doing when they went up to
Rushdie and asked him you know like what
does he think
of Updike's review of his work in The
New Yorker and Rushdie said "why oh why
did I name my character that? I don't
know, a name is just a name sometimes!
somewhere in Las Vegas there's probably
a male prostitute called John Updike!" and
men like to say women are catty.
Next up is the rivalry between John Keats and
Lord Byron from the 19th century. now I
don't really have a team here because
you know I actually don't have a team in
like any of these feuds because they're
all pretty terrible people
but Keats and Byron were both poets and
they wrote around the same time but they
were from very different social stratas
and were either very jealous of each
other's work or like very dismissive.
nobody really knows why they took such a
hate to each other but they really did
and Byron to be honest like he did have
a lot of drama in his life, I think he's
one of those people who just lived for
drama you know and that's what sort of
fueled his muse. so Keats apparently
thought that Byron's success was mostly
because he was rich and privileged, I
mean he was Lord Byron you know he was a Lord, he was a hereditary peer. 
When one of Byron's
books did really well he apparently
remarked to a friend you see what it does
to be 6-foot tall and a Lord because
Byron was also very
famously handsome.
Byron was also childishly petty and
Keats unfortunately died at age 25 of
consumption or tuberculosis or something
very 19th century and right before he
died one of his books was very badly reviewed
and a lot of his friends including
Shelley thought that he basically died
of a broken heart because he couldn't
stand how badly his books were
reviewed. now Shelley was also friends
with Byron so obviously they you know I
guess Shelley must have mentioned it to
him once
and Byron thought that was hilarious so
he wrote this poem, it was incredibly
bitchy: Poor John Keats who was killed
off by one critique just as he really
promised something great if not
intelligible without Greek contrived to
talk about the gods of late much as they
might have been supposed to speak. Poor
fellow! his was an untoward fate, too
strange the mind that very fiert
particle should let itself be snuffed
out by an article." He's such a little
bitch! Now I obviously can't make a video
about literary feuds and not mention
Ernest Hemingway! dude was like the
original Papa Bear, he was just in fights
with everybody,
he was drunk all the time, he was just
drama! one of the funniest things that
happened was that he and Wallace Stevens
who is like this other author got into
this very public spat and you know they
would say things about each other to
other people and they would very
clearly make it known that they didn't
care for each other and then at one
point Hemingway had enough and he
learned that Stevens was somewhere in
the neighborhood and at that very moment
Stevens was at this party and he told
his hostess that "oh I wish that
Hemingway was here because if he was
here I just punch him in the nose" and at
that straight second Hemingway showed up
and told him to take his best shot and
it was insane because like he's a huge
dude you know Hemingway, and he
really ascribed to the cult of
masculinity so he was just like super
like into brawling and stuff so you
can't imagine that you'll go up into a
fight with Hemingway and then give him
like one little punch and then that
would be it, no it would be a proper
brawl.
so Stevens to his credit you know tried to
punch him and I think he landed a few
blows but Hemingway just punched him
back and hit him so hard
that Stevens just passed out cold and
then poor Stevens had to like go into
hiding for a while because his face was
black and blue and then eventually you
know Hemingway was like you know what
let's just put it all behind us because
this is you know this is what happens
between men and he told Stevens he'd
never tell anybody and that they could
all put it behind them and then
proceeded to write letters to pretty
much everyone he knew that he fought Stevens
and laid him out because men are gossips!
and if we're talking about
legendary feuds and we have to talk
about Gore Vidal. I thought about talking
about his feud with Truman Capote
because it's one for the ages you know
Truman Capote once said "I'm always very
sad about Gore Vidal. Very sad that he
has to breathe every day." I mean that is
some hatred! I mean it didn't even end
with his death
I mean after Capote died Vidal said
Capote's death was a brilliant career
move I mean that is something that you
really would only say about your worst
enemy so those two men really hated each
other but the thing with Vidal is that
he just hated a lot of people and he was
very vocal about all of them and one of
my favorites is the one that he had with
Norman Mailer. Vidal really did not like
Norman Mailer and the sentiment
was fully returned and they fought all
the time you know they sniped back and
forth and they said horrible things
about each other and at one point Mailer
just had enough and so when both of them
were at this party together Mailer just
went up to Vidal and just hit him, just
flat-out slugged him in the mouth!
Vidal picked himself up and he didn't
attempt to attack Mailer at all. he just
looked up at Mailer and said "once again
words have failed Norman Mailer." you
can't fight that kind of absolutely
devastating wot with your fists! like if
Gore Vidal had a hate on for me I would
just be like you know what I probably
deserve it, I know when I'm beat! so
you'll notice that I haven't mentioned
any women in this and that's because I
just wanted just drama and when it comes
to drama,
honestly like male writers? women writers
have nothing on them! for more videos
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