I love your description of your parents' dinner parties. My mom also threw famous dinner parties: raucous, loud, and filled with great food. I remember threading my way through a sea of legs as a little girl. When an adult would lean down and present her face to my in this netherworld below, I'd be terrified. Ah, the dinner party. They are a lot of work. And incredibly satisfying. Making memories.
It’s interesting that the dinner party is the province of writers. I have never heard of similar events involving rock stars, famous actors, or visual artists like painters. In fact, the New York Times Book Review’s final question to the author being interviewed in “By the Book” is always, “You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?” I would lean towards humorists, especially now during these times. Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and Nora Ephron.
That's an interesting observation about writers. But from reading another massive tome, Barbra Streisand's, I learned movie stars also have dinner parties. Probably fewer sparkling conversations. Roth was, apparently, hilarious in person, especially when younger.
Standout quotes: "How many more dinners would be shared if we had the space to host guests?" and "In an age when Americans are spending less and less time with one another, a table and some chairs could be just what we need."
A friend has privately pointed out that the Philip Roth bio was not penned by Blake Lively, an actress, but was written by Blake Bailey, a literary biographer. I stand corrected!
If it is hard to host a dinner party now surely it was hard then too, unless you were well off enough to have a maid. Dinner parties are less frequent than before but the reason must be that they are valued less so people don’t host them. I love dinner parties and believe that if I want more then I have to host more. Actually it doesn’t work that way: a lot of people who attend our dinner parties don’t reciprocate. Maybe people want to live more boring lives because they can’t be bothered to live interesting ones.
It might have been less hard then because people expected less. One of my mom's friends made "liver Stroganoff" for her guests. They didn't expect gourmet meals or fine wines. They just liked to get together, eat whatever, drink a little, and have fun. Now, we are all more upscale, or aspire to be. So there's greater tension in being the host.
I love your description of your parents' dinner parties. My mom also threw famous dinner parties: raucous, loud, and filled with great food. I remember threading my way through a sea of legs as a little girl. When an adult would lean down and present her face to my in this netherworld below, I'd be terrified. Ah, the dinner party. They are a lot of work. And incredibly satisfying. Making memories.
We have lost a great form of socializing, but we can also try to bring it back!
It’s interesting that the dinner party is the province of writers. I have never heard of similar events involving rock stars, famous actors, or visual artists like painters. In fact, the New York Times Book Review’s final question to the author being interviewed in “By the Book” is always, “You’re organizing a literary dinner party. Which three writers, dead or alive, do you invite?” I would lean towards humorists, especially now during these times. Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde and Nora Ephron.
That's an interesting observation about writers. But from reading another massive tome, Barbra Streisand's, I learned movie stars also have dinner parties. Probably fewer sparkling conversations. Roth was, apparently, hilarious in person, especially when younger.
And here's the Atlantic earlier this year, linking the decline of the "dining room" to the decline of dinner parties...and the rise in loneliness: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2024/06/dining-rooms-us-homes-apartments/678633/
Standout quotes: "How many more dinners would be shared if we had the space to host guests?" and "In an age when Americans are spending less and less time with one another, a table and some chairs could be just what we need."
Thanks for this, Zach! Torn between annoyance that someone wrote about this before me and pleasure at a concurring view!
A friend has privately pointed out that the Philip Roth bio was not penned by Blake Lively, an actress, but was written by Blake Bailey, a literary biographer. I stand corrected!
If it is hard to host a dinner party now surely it was hard then too, unless you were well off enough to have a maid. Dinner parties are less frequent than before but the reason must be that they are valued less so people don’t host them. I love dinner parties and believe that if I want more then I have to host more. Actually it doesn’t work that way: a lot of people who attend our dinner parties don’t reciprocate. Maybe people want to live more boring lives because they can’t be bothered to live interesting ones.
It might have been less hard then because people expected less. One of my mom's friends made "liver Stroganoff" for her guests. They didn't expect gourmet meals or fine wines. They just liked to get together, eat whatever, drink a little, and have fun. Now, we are all more upscale, or aspire to be. So there's greater tension in being the host.
That was fun, Cathy...hugs...t and gang
We would have more dinner parties with you if you didn't live so far away!
We feel the same Cathy...time and distance...they can be more or less friendly. Hugs...t and h