All right, I finally have ordered my own copy of "The Portable Dorothy Parker" (I’m on borrowed reading) because it is something that I would like to have on hand to remind myself of how to reveal character. Although Parker’s opinion of mankind in her society of its time is evident in each story, and that’s pretty much a no-no I would think, to allow such writerly input, she has a clear understanding of human nature. And, although the characters are very much of their era, some of humanity’s traits are enduring, modified but recognizable in any decade or century.
"The Custard Heart" is one of Parker’s rare pretty straight narrator-told stories, lacking much dialogue that often solely drive her plots. It is about a woman who is described well in the opening line: "No living eye, of human being or caged wild beast or dear, domestic animal had beheld Mrs. Lanier when she was not being wistful."
The story continues with examples of our precious Mrs. Lanier, whose friends as well as servants mince around her in protection of her delicate sweetness and pure heart. But this story, perhaps piled into those previously read, has convinced me more than ever why Dorothy Parker had to be a writer; I doubt that she could speak with the ever-present malady of tongue-in-cheek. Here, after a traumatic day of seeing beggars on the city streets:
"Frequently, by the time she returned to her home, Mrs. Lanier would be limp as a freesia. Her maid Gwennie would have to beseech her to lie down, to gain the strength to change her gown for a filmier one and descend to her drawing-room, her eyes darkly mournful, but her exquisite breasts pointed high."
There is a blend of a romantic language used with an updated sarcasm that is intrigueing and delightfully funny. This is more evident in Parker’s poetry, where the prose is pure romance and the last line is current slang, or a reference that is more contemporary. From "Tombstones In the Starlight", Stanza VI, "The Actress":
"Her name, cut clear upon this marble cross,
Shines, as it shone when she was still on earth;
While tenderly the mild, agreeable moss
Obscures the figures of her date of birth."
The Lost Children: A Charity Anthology