Talk:John Simon (critic)

WWII?
Dropped this para:


 * Simon was a teenager during World War II, and must have been privy to many horrific things. The city of Subotica lost 7,000 citizens between 1941 and 1944 (including 4,000 Jewish deportees) to the Nazis and Fascists, and more recently became home to Serb refugees from the 1991-1995 breakup of Yugoslavia. Possibly, Simon's acerbic, even vicious, prose can be traced to those times from which many never fully recovered.

In Paradigms Lost Simon wrote that he was in private school in England during the early part of WWII, and in Reverse Angle he mentions that he was in US Army Air Force basic training in Wichita Falls by 1944. This would tend to disprove that he personally witnessed the full range of gruesome depradations committed by the various factions in Yugoslavia during the war. Ellsworth 22:58, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

Ethnicity
In fact the article, which calls John Simon a "Serbian-American" altogether leaves out a crucial piece of information concerning Mr Simon's actual ethnicity.

Subotitza, a city in the Banat, was in Austro-Hungarian Hungary until 1919, in Yugoslavia (not yet called Yugoslavia) thereafter. It found itself in independent Serbia over 50 years after Ivan Simon had left. How is he then a "Serbian- American"? Is he an ethnic Serbian? What is his mother tongue? What is his religious heritage?

He was never, it is certain, a "Serbian" citizen. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.251.171.11 (talk) 15:20, 30 September 2007 (UTC)
 * You're right, in 1925, that country was called "the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes". But - in a number of his essays he has self-identified as a Serbian, and has stated that Serbian is his mother tongue. See Paradigms Lost. Religiously speaking, I'm not sure of his background, but in a film review I've read he describes himself as a "nonbeliever". Ellsworth 21:45, 12 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, Ellsworth. That's informative.

From hearing him talk, I would have thought John Simon's mother tongue to have been     German. Nor is 'Simon' a Serbian-sounding name. But, since you've read Paradigms Lost, I of course accept your contention.Tantris

New prose
So what exactly is going on with this article? Is it being improved by someone unfamiliar with the added Wiki syntax?Manhattan Samurai (talk) 13:56, 7 January 2009 (UTC)

On POV
Wiki user 'MHseattle' insists on reverting my edits back to his own version that flies in the face of Wiki Guidelines: personal research, blatant POV, no sources added. I propose that he read the Guidelines first then simply build up the article using his own pro-Simon stance watered down to Wiki's NPOV - like the rest of us. I'm not all interested in an edit war and will therefore keep a copy of the present version on my hard disc for any immediate revisions in the future. Feedback on this relatively simple yet annoying matter is most welcome. Jumbolino 19:25, 8 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I agree, and have left MHSeattle a welcome-template which should help explain matters. -- Quiddity (talk) 20:35, 12 January 2009 (UTC)

Reaching NPOV
The book which Ellsworth quoted contain no such reference it can be searched on Google Books. Google Books posseses Paradigms Lost, Reflections on Literacy and Its Decline: Reflections on Literacy and Its Decline by John Ivan Simon, published by C. N. Potter, distributed by Crown Publishers, 1980, ISBN 0517540347, ISBN 9780517540343. The word Serbian appeared only twice and not in context with his nationality. The pages were p. 68 and p. 107 where he wrote ... "only an Illyrian gangster [a reference to my origin, or, as Vidal put it a few lines earlier, "a Yugoslav with a proud if somewhat incoherent Serbian style"] and is blessedly free of side; he simply wants to torture and kill in order to be as good an American as" ... (the begining and the end of the sentence is not displayed)

Most results can be obtained from this link http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&q=Simon+John+Subotica

And I must say that Subotica is located in the region of Bačka, at the time of his birth Bačka oblast, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes (now in North Bačka District of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, Serbia).

Most revealing source is.

Imbris (talk) 01:50, 16 January 2009 (UTC)

I would also suggest we move the article under a more precise title, namely John I. Simon (critic) or John Ivan Simon (critic). -- Imbris (talk) 01:53, 16 January 2009 (UTC)
 * I wasn't trying to remove sources, I was trying to remove the OR-overlong-unwikified essay overwritten onto the properly-wikied article in December by an anonymous user. Any other changes undone, I'm sorry, but someone should have undone the essay as soon as it appeared. Chris (クリス • フィッチ) (talk) 04:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)


 * Just a note on the title: See WP:Naming convention and WP:Naming conventions (people) for advice. (I'm not familiar with the subject, so have no advice on title.) -- Quiddity (talk) 04:55, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

As for "someone should have undone the essay as soon as it appeared": the article's history shows that the unwikified POV essay by 'MHseattle' has been undone numerous times since December. Jumbolino (talk) 06:42, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

Simon's Mother Tongue

 * You're right, Imbris, I was making an assumption. In his introduction to the book (page x. of the hardcover 1980 printing - he writes "[b]y the time I was going to elementary school, I was fluent in three languages: Serbo-Croation, Hungarian and German." I took that to mean that Serbian was his mother tongue. I don't know if that's correct at this point. Ellsworth (talk) 03:26, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

racism -- or gross insensitivity, at least
In a New Yorker review of A Midsummer Night's Dream circa 1977, Simon criticized a black actress not only for her performance (which might have been justified), but for her not being appropriate for the role -- as if someone's skin color mattered in a fantasy. I'll try to find this and add it to the article. WilliamSommerwerck (talk) 09:06, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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Quote from article by Jonathan Leaf
At Special:Diff/936322592, (who has claimed this edit was his at Special:Diff/936402884) removed Playwright Jonathan Leaf describes Simon's work as a critic as having been driven by a "dogged belief in artistic standards.", which was cited to this article. Leaf says the article mis-quoted him, though it has a byline of "Jonathan Leaf", the quoted text is in the article, and I don't think it is out of context.

Jonathan, it seems that if you mean the publication mis-printed/mis-edited your submitted text, it seems that there should be a retraction, no? Or have I mis-understood? —[ Alan M 1 (talk) ]— 17:53, 18 January 2020 (UTC)


 * The use of this quote in our article certainly seems out of context to me. The quote from the cited publication is
 * "Yet amidst the plethora of raised glasses and joyous toasts, defenders have come forth, insisting that the animus he engendered was a consequence of his dogged belief in artistic standards."
 * Leaf seems to be saying that Simon's "defenders" insist on Simon's "dogged belief", not that Leaf himself holds this view. CodeTalker (talk) 20:27, 20 January 2020 (UTC)