Kirk reading Valley of the Dolls
- Thread starter Mark 2000
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Reference to a comment in Star Trek IV:
Kirk: "You mean the profanity? That's simply the way they talk here. Nobody pays attention to you unless you swear every other word. You'll find it in all the literature of the period."
Spock: "For example?"
Kirk: "Oh, the collected works of Jacqueline Susann. The novels of Harold Robbins...."
Spock: "Ah, the "Giants."
I haven't read Valley of the Dolls. But I'm familiar enough with the body of work of these writers to know that they include a lot of profanity in their works. Maybe Kirk also know it without having read any of them.
Perhaps Kirk found himself strangely drawn to Valley of the Dolls for its title, after the adventure on Holberg 917G. 
It was a neat reversal seeing Kirk deliver the exposition and Spock deliver the joke, but as stated above, it didn't seem like something Kirk would know.
Heck, Picard read pulp detective novels. Paris liked old "Captain Proton" serials.
Kirk can't have a secret weakness for racy 20th century bestsellers?
If there was any doubt that Nicholas Meyer wrote this portion of STIV, this exchange would totally eliminate it. Who else in Hollywood commonly drops literary jokes like these into his screenplays?
That's why they're classics. Books you're forced to read for the "literary" value.That's "literary" in the loosest sense...
Who even remembers those writers now?
That's "literary" in the loosest sense...
Who even remembers those writers now?
I think you'd be surprised.
