Rejected!

An "A" Student

Could it be that I am as gifted a writer as Isaac Beshevis Singer or George Orwell? Is that short story I wrote in the 5th grade about the cowboy with the talking horse on a par with Anne Frank's "Diary of a Young Girl?" ...Even though Argosy Magazine rejected it and my English teacher gave it a "D?"

It could be true, because Anne Frank got rejected, too. (Admittedly, not the worst of her problems.) In fact, all those writers were rejected (in some cases pretty rudely) by the Alfred A. Knopf publishing company. According to this article in the New York Times, they rejected Vladimir Nabokov's "Lolita," (Too naughty!), George Orwell's "Animal Farm," (Nobody will buy a book about animals!) and Pearl S. Buck's "The Good Earth. (Nobody in the U.S. wants to read a book about Chinese peasants...except maybe the Pulitzer Prize Committee.) The article goes on to enumerate several more brilliant, famous authors who were told to tell their stories walking, 'cause Mr. Knopf had no time for losers. See? Same thing happened to me. Maybe I'm a genius, too!

Probably not, though. More likely Alfred A. Knopf just hired some idiots as readers.

But knowing that some geniuses were also considered losers makes it a little easier for us real losers. I guess it's another manifestation of that same phenomenon that makes everybody who ever flunked Math loudly proclaim that Albert Einstein also flunked Math. It is possible, after all, that I am a misunderstood genius. Maybe. It can't be completely ruled out.

(Incidentally... Einstein never flunked Math. He had mastered differential and integral calculus by the time he was 15. He was Albert Einstein, for crying out loud!)