Metaphysical Wit

Book Description

English metaphysical poetry, from Donne to Marvell, is conspicuously witty. A. J. Smith seeks the central importance of wit in the thinking of the metaphysical poets, and argues that metaphysical wit is essentially different from other modes of wit current in Renaissance Europe. Formal theories and rhetorics of wit are considered both for their theoretical import and their appraisals of wit in practice. Prevailing fashions of witty invention are scrutinized in Italian, French, and Spanish writings, so as to bring out the nature and effect of various forms of wit: conceited, hieroglyphic, transformational, and others from which the metaphysical mode is distinguished. He locates the basis of Renaissance wit in the received conception of the created order and a theory of literary innovation inherent in Humanist belief, which led to novel couplings of time and eternity, body and soul, man and God. Yet, he finds that metaphysical wit distinctively works to discover a spiritual presence in sensible events; and he traces its demise in the 1660s to changes in the understanding of the natural world associated with the rise of empirical science.

Austen's Unbecoming Conjunctions: Subversive Laughter, Embodied History

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Persuasion Game

Austen's Unbecoming Conjunctions: Subversive Laughter, Embodied History
Jill Heydt-Stevenson
Manufacturer: Palgrave Macmillan
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Love, Sex & Marriage | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 1403964106
Release Date: 2005-05-12

Book Description

This new work investigates the role that dissident comedy plays in Austen's writings. Using sexuality as a lens upon circa-1800 literary culture, this book emphasizes the physical life of Austen's heroines, and contributes to recent analyses of popular culture and material history. Heydt-Stevenson argues that Austen's novels explore the physical, erotic, humorous, and sometimes tragically funny connotations of popular literature and commonplace books; of clothing, jewelry, and crafts; of travel and tourism. Through an examination of Austen's humor and linguistic patterns, this book interrogates the stereotypes of women authors as culturally inhibited, and shows how Austen addressed as sophisticated and worldly an audience as Byron's. Through her careful reading of all the Austen texts in light of the language of eroticism, both traditional and contemporary, Heydt-Stevenson re-evaluates Austen's audience, the novels, and her role as a writer.

Customer Reviews:

Persuasion Game.......2007-06-18

As a former student of Heydt-Stevenson's I was most pleasantly surprised to find this - - it was a rather long time in preparation. Anyone, whether a student or a casual reader of Austen's work (say, are there any of those around?), should find this eminently readable book a delight. Heydt-Stevenson's close readings offer observations that are both comical and wry, two qualities not always immediately apparent in Austen's own work. Along with Daniel Pool's historical What Jane Austen Ate And Charles Dickens Knew, it's a very enlightening supplement. Yes, Heydt-Stevenson stretches some of her points pretty far in order to persuade. But what would a work of literary criticism be without stretched points? After reading this book, Sense And Sensibility will never be the same for you. And you can decapitalize both of those S's, by the way.

Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedy (Norton Critical Editions)

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Restoration and Eighteenth-Century Comedy (Norton Critical Editions)

Manufacturer: W. W. Norton & Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

History | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Drama | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books

Literature & Fiction | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
Similar Items:

The Beggar's Opera (Penguin Classics)
Roxana, Or The Fortunate Mistress (Penguin Classics)
Three Major Plays (Oxford World's Classics)
Medieval and Tudor Drama: Twenty-Four Plays
Faust: A Tragedy (Norton Critical Editions)

ASIN: 0393963349

The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel

Average customer rating:

Sense and Sensibility
a fine critical work by one of the best critics today
One part stimulating, one part predictable
Improving
Good; skip the sermonizing

The Irresponsible Self: On Laughter and the Novel
James Wood
Manufacturer: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

General | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Essays | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

The Broken Estate: Essays on Literature and Belief (Modern Library Paperbacks)
The Book Against God: A Novel
The Curtain: An Essay in Seven Parts
Metaphor & Memory
Inner Workings: Literary Essays 2000-2005

ASIN: 0374177376

Book Description

James Wood's first book of essays, The Broken Estate, established him as the leading critic of his generation, one whose judgments "are distinguished by their originality and precision, the depth of reading that informs them, and the metaphorical richness of their language" (Harper's). Its successor, The Irresponsible Self, confirms Wood's preeminence, not only as a discerning judge but also as an appreciator of novels, with a special interest in the ways they make us laugh. In twenty-three passionate, sparkling dispatches, he defends what he calls "secular comedy"-human, tragicomic, forgiving, bound up with the very origins of the novel -against the narrower "religious comedy" of satire and farce, which is corrective, punitive, and theatrical. Ranging over such crucial comic writers as Cervantes, Shakespeare, Dostoevsky, Waugh, Bellow, and Naipaul, Wood offers a broad history of comedy while examining each chosen writer with his customary care and intense focus. This collection (which includes Wood's much-discussed attack on "hysterical realism") is indispensable reading for anyone who cares about modern fiction or criticism today.

Customer Reviews:

Sense and Sensibility.......2005-07-10

It is a truth universally acknowledged that there is no current literary critic who writes as brilliantly as James Wood. His metaphoric precision, his moral rigor, his exacting standards of literary excellence, his humanistic compassion dwarfs all competitors for the title. One would have to revert to Lionel Trilling, Edmund Wilson and Alfred Kazin to find comparable peers and, except perhaps for Trilling, I feel he outshines them all. Luckily we are not reduced to reading only one writer for insight and thoughtful exploration of literature's richness and follies. But in this, his newest volume of essays, he demonstrates once again why his writing remains indispensible.

a fine critical work by one of the best critics today.......2005-01-14

The surest way of killing a joke is to analyse it. Not true, when the analysis is being done by one of the greatest critics alive today. James Wood examines humour in literature and analyses why we like characters who make us laugh, and what about them makes us laugh in the first place. James Wood is never one to voice his opinions, informed and erudite as they are. He turns his scathing pen loose on, among others, Salman Rushdie, Tom Wolfe & J.M.Coetzee. he makes you wondered where, as a reader, your loyalties lie, as you find yourself nodding in agreement. In all, James Wood is a great companion who makes his readers think about their reading

One part stimulating, one part predictable.......2004-09-28

There are a few problems with The Irresponsible Self, but the main one is that it so clearly reflects its origins in journalism. None of the essays have been crafted with a full length work in mind, so Wood frequently repeats himself and often has to throw in something that is clearly a later addition to make the essay fit in with the putative theme of this work, which is a certain kind of comic novel. It is clear that this umbrella of "laughter and the novel" is an afterthought, because many of the books Wood writes about - Anna Karenina jumps out, so does Coetzee's Disgrace - won't inspire the slightest grin, as great or good as they are.

Wood repeats himself in two ways: the obvious one involves just telling the same anecdote repeatedly, in the manner of a newspaper columnist who is not sure to have the same audience from one week to the next. From the essays in The Broken Estate to this book I think I have read the same couple of anecdotes about Chekhov five times. Not a big deal, but sort of annoying to come across in a book one hopes would be more carefully edited. The second sort of repetition is harder to avoid: in his first book, Wood was so exciting because he brought a set of critical standards that were not only sensible but seemed to have been disappearing from a great deal of reviews. He asked basic questions like Would the character really think this way? - What is the point of this fancy language? - Is the author being true to the world he or she has created or just playing games? - and put his finger on things that had probably been bothering people who wondered why so many of the books that critics encouraged them to read were finally so unsatisfying.

The problem is that Wood argued for certain standards so cogently and consistently that it's easy to know what he's going to say about many books before reading the reviews. Anyone that has read the essay on Thomas Pynchon will pretty much know what Wood is going to say about Zadie Smith and Rushdie. Anyone who's read the essay on Updike from the last book is going to know what Wood is going to say about Updike - again - in this book. He's right, I think, but I wish that he might have expanded his critical range a little more over the period, or not bothered to re-publish essays where he knew he was repeating himself.

But there are still marvels here. Wood seems to be a voracious discoverer, from Knut Hamsun in the last book to Verga and Hrabal in this book (Svevo might be a discovery to many people as well, and such a worthwhile one). These essays may not stand up to re-reading, like truly great criticism (see Randall Jarrell), but they will certainly lead you to books that will. The essay I loved the most, strangely, is the one that shows that Wood's talents may have moved in the direction of fiction. The essay on V.S. Naipaul's relationship with his father is pretty much just a summary of a book of letters, but it's also an incredibly subtle and moving character study that shows how fully Wood has entered into their relationship. He doesn't pull out his usual set of critical tools, but inhabits the book like a writer entering into the minds of his characters.

Finally, for someone writing about comic novels, Wood has the singular disadvantage of not being funny at all. The dry way he describes even the best jokes succeeds in making them boring. The only time I laughed in this book on laughter is when Wood quoted parts of the novels. But even with all of these problems, Wood makes me want to run out and read a book immediately more than any other critic. And unlike the compulsive enthusiasms of most newspaper reviewers, Wood's subjects justify his praise, and that is reason enough to read any book.

Improving.......2004-08-28

James Wood's latest collection of essays is an improvement over his previous volume "The Broken Estate." For a start it shows off his cosmopolitanism to greater use. Whereas the only great but underappreciated novelist to appear in his first volume was the Norweigian Hamsun, here we see Giovanni Verga, Henry Green, Joseph Roth and Bohumil Hrabal. We are also provided with a usefully critical discussion of Isaac Babel. Even better, in my view, are reviews of Italo Svevo and the introduction he wrote to Saltykov-Shchedrin's "The Golovlyov Family." Reminding readers of the existence of this brilliant, deeply pessimistic, lacerating and criminally under-read novel is alone worth the price of purchase. Secondly, there is nothing in this volume that is as tendentious as his essay on Flaubert. Instead, what we have here are critical but intelligently appreciative reviews of "White Teeth" and "The Corrections," praise of Monica Ali, quite justified disappointment with Salman Rusdhie's "Fury," and quite caustic criticisms of Tom Wolfe's "A Man in Full." We are also blessed with the generous introduction that Wood produced for a collection of Saul Bellow's short stories. Thirdly, we also get solid appreciations of truly great novels. Wood starts off with "Don Quixote," which is relatively simple because in point of fact even well educated readers rarely actually read it. Any essay which scores Miguel de Unamuno as "relentlessly idealizing" and includes an amusing and mildly blasphemous analogy to summarize Part II has its uses. Later on, we see him discuss "The Brothers Karamazov" and "Anna Karenina."

If there is a common theme through this collection it is only partly about comedy. It is, one might think, about people who are fundamentally comic, which is why Wood devotes so much attention to Saltykov-Shchedrin's "Little Judas," in what is otherwise a horrifying satire. Over and over again we read about the deluded, the self-deceived, and the willfully irrational, whether it is the failed priests of J.F. Powers, the little emphasized callousness of Don Quixote, or the warped humility of Fyodor Karamazov. As a critic Wood delights in pointing out incidents that are precisely typical of the author in question, whether it is a hypocritical priest in Chekhov who berates a parishioner while pointing a food-laden fork at her, or the way "Little Judas," brushes aside his son's desperate need for help by invoking Job's acceptance of his children's death, or the way Karenin practices, like the good bureaucrat he is, the conversation he hopes to start on his wife's infidelity. He is adept at pointing out Bellow's striking imagery, or the way Rushdie gets it wrong in "Fury." He can see Zadie Smith's virtues, such as the way she points out the politically-correct gardening tips of a bien-pensant family, and the ultimately meretricious way she chose to end the novel (involving sex with twins and a fashionable comment about family).

Perhaps the most useful essay is his criticism of Tom Wolfe. Wolfe has been called a "Dickensian" writer, and Wood shows how false that is. Where Wolfe's imagery is obvious, Dickens is subtle and clever, like Joe Gargery's eyes or saying Uriah Heep has a mouth like a post office. Wood points out that Wolfe's characters only feel one emotion at a time, like British water faucets that gush either hot or cold water. He points out that Wolfe's millionaire lacks the complexity of his real-life model Robert Maxwell, the millionaire who published Communist propaganda, the family tyrant with the loyal sons. Over and over again Wolfe describes his characters as typical or broadly representative. Moreover his physical description of them resembles fashion journalism, the concentration on their physical appearance and clothing, as if they were being judged on their appropriateness for a "Vanity Fair" shoot. Nothing is as damning as the comparison Wood makes with a passage with "Anna Karenina." A bit unfair one might think? Not so. In discussing the Doctor who delivers Levin's first child, Tolstoy does not follow Wolfe in discussing the cut of his clothes, or the cologne he uses. Instead it is the "thick cigarettes" that he insists of smoking before going while Levin panics as he thinks, like all first-time fathers, his wife will give birth at any moment. That is the sort of detail Wolfe never grasps.

Reservations? Well, Wood writes nothing on Latin American literature (nor Japanese literature come to think of it), and so the third world is represented by V.S. Naipaul. And as a lapsed evangelical Anglican the theme of religion appears just a bit too much and a bit too often. And one may suspect a certain blind spot with Catholicism in his review of J.F. Powers. Nevertheless this is a book of criticism with substantial virtues: it is cosmopolitan, acute, thoughtful, amusing, intelligent, serious, sensible. Most important, it reminds the reader of the moral necessity for reading and appreciating great literature.

Good; skip the sermonizing.......2004-08-02

Looks like I'm the first one to get up on his soapbox here.

Wood has the best judgment of most any critic going, as well as the all-too-uncommon ability to explain why this or that passage works or does not work. He is right, and quite funny, in his
impatience at hysterical realism (surely we can take the quotes off that one by now). And how many readers would have heard
of Giovanni Verga, or Brohumil Hrabal, without having read these reviews?

But it is where he steps back from the work at hand, to pronounce on fiction generally, that Wood gets into trouble.
He goes from praising the exuberant style of one author(Bellow is a favorite) to sainting Chekhov for his aversion to verbal "splendour," and for never speaking over his characters. Elsewhere he upbraids American novelists for giving us novels with "no selves," saying that Jonathan Franzen and company fail at the increasingly difficult job of rendering fully human characters. His review of Brick Lane gives some idea of why this is so; in Monica Ali's novel, with its ghetto scenes and impoverished Bangladeshis, nineteenth-century realism is made contemporary again. This is not imperial nostalgia, but it does work out to something uncomfortably like Georg Lukacs' utopian vision of a restored bourgeois novel, or even George Steiner's creepy fascination with the literature of oppressed peoples. I'm left with the feeling that the man takes fiction much too seriously.

Which prompts the question: where is the comedy in all this? Admittedly, he doesn't mean belly laughs; these presumably would
belong to the genre of "corrective" comedy, territory covered by the "religious" Moliere, Rabelais, etc. Wood's favored
brand is "secular" comedy (read: "good" comedy. Do you want to be accused of being religious?). It's anyone's guess where
he finds such comedy in Anna Karenina; the epigraph alone establishes that Tolstoy is quite willing to judge his heroine,
and to do so in unmistakeably religious terms. Wood himself seems to regard comedy as a sort of holiday from his usual Puritan brooding over a lost Inner Light. But shouldn't it be funnier than that? Couldn't we do with a bit less mooning about "selves?"

A word on the style: the metaphors are sometimes very apt, sometimes just too precious; ditto the annoying tic of pluralizing abstractions(just how many "clarities" are there in the average Coetzee novel?).

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme

Average customer rating:

Great, but not quite what I was expecting...
Light on Reason
Sounds Fascinating! But it's not.
Charles, Cromwell, Henry, and Jack
You'll never look at Mother Goose quite the same way

Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind the Rhyme
Chris Roberts
Manufacturer: Gotham
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Essays | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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The Shakespeare Miscellany

ASIN: 1592401309
Release Date: 2005-08-22

Book Description

Was Little Jack Horner a squatter? “Baa Baa Black Sheep” a bleat about taxation? What did Jack and Jill really do on that hill? Chris Roberts reveals the seamy and quirky stories behind our favorite nursery rhymes.

Nursery rhymes are rarely as innocent as they seem—there is a wealth of concealed meaning in our familiar childhood verse. More than a century after Queen Victoria decided that children were better off without the full story, London librarian Chris Roberts brings the truth to light. He traces the origins of the subtle phrases and antiquated references, revealing religious hatred, political subversion, and sexual innuendo.

Roberts reveals that when Jack, nimble and quick, jumped over a candlestick, he was reenacting a popular sport that tested whether a person was lean and healthy. Humpty Dumpty was actually a cannon mounted on the walls of a church in Colchester, blown up during the English Civil War. Few know that the cockles in “Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary” actually refer to cuckolds in the promiscuous court of Mary Queen of Scots. Or that “Rub-a-dub-dub, three maids in a tub” was inspired by a fairground peepshow.

A fascinating history lesson that makes astonishing connections to contemporary popular culture, Heavy Words Lightly Thrown is for Anglophiles, parents, history buffs, and anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of rhymes. The book features a glossary of slang and historical terms, and spooky silhouettes of nursery-rhyme characters to accompany the rhymes. Mother Goose will never look the same again.

Praise:

“Boisterous and fascinating.”
--Daily Telegraph

“Robert's entertainingly mischievous readings of these traditional songs grab symbolic readings from any available sources and stir them in a big pot.”
--Steven Poole, The Guardian

“Roberts is a lucid and funny writer - his ability to provide a historical overview as he focuses on bygone detail makes fascinating reading”
--Sainsbury's Magazine

“Very meticulous with his research and doesn't try to fool you with waffle or overstatement. Fun and easily digestible wander through history. Though don't be surprised if by the end, much like Jack after he'd broken his ` crown', you feel like you've lost your innocence.”
--Leeds Guide

“An irreverent romp through the received wisdom of the nursery rhymes with which we all think we are so familiar.”
--Sunday Herald

“Entertaining exposé of the surprising stories behind well-known nursery rhymes revealing a seething subtext of sexual innuendo, religious hatred and political subversion.”
--Bookseller

Customer Reviews:

Great, but not quite what I was expecting..........2007-08-13

Those looking for an insightful peek into the origins of those enigmatic nursery rhymes will probably not be disappointed by Chris Roberts' Heavy Words Thrown Lightly: The Reason Behind the Rhyme. Taking many of the best (and lesser) known nursery rhymes, Roberts puts them in historical context and dissects them (in an entertaining fashion) in order to reveal how these seemingly harmless rhymes often commented on the social and political climates of their day, as well as on subjects less couth. This book's chief failing is that it is sometimes difficult to discern where Roberts' sarcasm and conjecture ends and the actual facts begin, making this book, perhaps, a doubtful resource and more of an entertainment. Worth reading, nonetheless.

Light on Reason.......2007-07-19

This book depended too much on supposition. Rather than telling us the reason behind the rhyme, too frequently he told us several ways it might have been. This was musing more than fact finding.

Sounds Fascinating! But it's not........2007-01-29

Who wouldn't love to know the history behind those beloved nursery rhymes? Me, it turns out, when the story deals with the Fourth Earl of Cheesebury and his feud with Lord Snot over something that wasn't even very important at the time it happened - a tale that is lovingly told in the driest language possible in an effort to completely avoid the possibility of entertaining the reader.

Charles, Cromwell, Henry, and Jack.......2006-01-28

What an interesting way to study history. Who knew how so many familiar rhymes came out of specific periods of history? Well, I guess Chris Roberts did. HEAVY WORDS was a useful tool in my English classes to help them create simple rhymes to highlight current political events and themes.

You'll never look at Mother Goose quite the same way.......2006-01-04

Was Jack Horner a squatter? Why was Mary so contrary? And what made Gorgy Porgy run? The history beyond common nursery rhymes is covered in a lively survey of rhyme meaning and origins in Heavy Words Lightly Thrown: The Reason Behind The Rhyme. Here are quirky tales and realities: once you read Heavy Words, you'll never look at Mother Goose quite the same way!

Average customer rating:

First-rate satire
Brilliant and funny
The Pooh Perplex
Wonderfully funny stuff
How dare this book ever be out of print?

The Pooh Perplex : A Freshman Casebook
Frederick C. Crews
Manufacturer: University of Chicago Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

History of Books | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Children's Literature Guides | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books
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Postmodern Pooh
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Pooh and the Psychologists

Accessories:

philosophy hope in a jar daily moisturizer

ASIN: 0226120589

Book Description

In this devastatingly funny classic, Frederick Crews skewers the ego-inflated pretensions of the schools and practitioners of literary criticism popular in the 1960s, including Freudians, Aristotelians, and New Critics. Modeled on the "casebooks" often used in freshman English classes at the time, The Pooh Perplex contains twelve essays written in different critical voices, complete with ridiculous footnotes, tongue-in-cheek "questions and study projects," and hilarious biographical notes on the contributors. This edition contains a new preface by the author that compares literary theory then and now and identifies some of the real-life critics who were spoofed in certain chapters.

Customer Reviews:

First-rate satire.......2006-06-15

If I ever read Winnie the Pooh, it was decades ago and I have long since forgotten it. An ignorance of WtP, however, is no obstacle to reading TPP. As others note, below, TPP is a terrific sendup of literary theories (and theorists) current in the mid-sixties academy. (It is often laugh-out-loud funny.) The critical intention that underlies this slim volume is also very much on the mark. TPP would be a satisfying read for critical thinkers everywhere, and an instructive read for anyone lacking in critical faculties. (Hmm...A mandatory read for rising college freshmen...?)

Brilliant and funny.......2006-01-30

It was probably the publication of Postmodern Pooh, Frederick Crews's second venture into Pooh studies, that explains the renewed availability of The Pooh Perplex more than 40 years after its first appearance. But whatever the reason, it is an excellent thing that modern readers can get hold of it, both because it is a brilliant and witty book in itself and also because it makes a natural companion for Postmodern Pooh.

For those who have not met the book before it should be explained that it is a series of parodies of different styles of literary criticism (those that were fashionable in the 1960s) applied to Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, collected together as a "case book" of the kind that was then popular for elementary English courses, and accompanied by Questions and Study Projects prepared by the editor, ostensibly Crews himself, but in reality as much of a parody as the articles themselves.

No doubt one would need to be familiar already with the parodied styles to get the most from the book, but no matter; one can get a great deal of amusement from it without any specialist knowledge, and some of the sources are fairly obvious even to non-specialists, the Freudian analysis by "Karl Anschauung", for example, or the proletarian analysis by "Martin Tempralis". On the other hand, readers born since the book was written may not easily recognize F. R. Leavis thinly disguised as "Simon Lacerous".

The non-specialist reader will easily be tempted to believe that Crews is exaggerating. Surely no serious expert on English literature could really express some of the sillier ideas expressed in this book? Alas, he amply demonstrates with real quotations from real (and apparently serious) publications that they could and they did.

The Pooh Perplex.......2005-12-05

I first read The Pooh Perplex in the summer before my freshman year of college; my father presented it to me as an encapsulation of the reasons why he had abandoned his English major. I had not yet encountered Leavis, Crane, and the other critics so marvelously parodied in Crews's book, but I spent a good few hours shrieking with laughter at Myron Masterson's vision of Kanga as castrating "'Mom' figure" and Simon Lacerous's characterization of the bear himself as a flabby old Tory with a string of knightly titles and an overfondness for condensed milk.

Then I came to college and took a Literary Criticism and Theory class; with wonder, I recognized in my casebook more and more of the bizarre characters inhabiting Crews's topsy-turvy hermeneutic milieu. Oddest of all, I found that my reading of The Pooh Perplex had actually provided me with a fairly solid overview of structuralism, Marxist theory, and other critical concoctions my professor obliged me to imbibe. And when I gave Crews's work a second reading, I discovered a myriad of hilarities that had previously passed me by.

Though it is depressing that Crews's zany satire can help a student of literature grasp the principal critical theories of the past fifty years, I disagree with my father's justification for forsaking his major. Many critics unintentionally self-parody; to endure their bombast, the reader must absorb the good, dismiss the inane, and find in the ludicrous a scrap or two of humor. Fortunately, we have Crews to assist us with that last task. Satire is a dying art; read The Pooh Perplex to understand why it is still necessary.

Wonderfully funny stuff.......2003-04-09

I ran across a reference to Postmodern Pooh about a week ago, and I decided to read Crews' first Pooh satire before reading the latest. What a gas! Crews takes the prevalent methods of literary criticism leading up to the 1960s and apes them with a deft touch. One of my favorite moments was when "C. J. L. Culpepper, D.Litt., Oxon.," after determining the Christic nature of Eeyore, declares that Christopher Robin is a stand-in for God the Father. He proves this simply: "Christopher Robin" is an anagram for "I HOPE CHRIST BORN. R." ("I take this to be a decree in the hortatory imperative, dispatched to the Heavenly Host, urging the speedy fulfillment of the Incarnation and signed 'R' for REX.")

Admittedly, the book does drag at times, but only rarely, and probably due to Crews' too perfect mimicry of the rather dry literary personae being roasted over the flames. Not many books make me laugh out loud on every page -- this is one of them.

How dare this book ever be out of print?.......1999-02-14

This is a brilliant send-up of the pretentious critiques that has masqueraded as literary criticism since pseudo-intellectualism was first invented by which mental-nonentities could parade as our moral superiors. Just read it. Absolutely convincing, and a breath of fresh air. You will love it - unless you are one of the poseurs, of course. But it will still be devastatingly funny.

Pooh and the Millennium : In Which the Bear of Very Little Brain Explores the Ancient Mysteries at the Turn of the Century

Average customer rating:

Pooh and the Millennium : In Which the Bear of Very Little Brain Explores the Ancient Mysteries at the Turn of the Century
John A. Williams , A. A. Milne , and Ernest H. Shepard
Manufacturer: Dutton Juvenile
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Children's Literature Guides | Literature | Children's Books | Subjects | Books

Essays | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

History of Books | Books & Reading | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

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ASIN: 0525459502

Book Description

It is a universal truth that Winnie-the-Pooh is among the most important beings of the twentieth century. His influence on Western philosophy and on Eastern thought has been well documented. In this witty, scholarly book, John Tyerman Williams sees the dawning of the new millennium as a moment for a major revelation: At the heart of the Ancient Mysteries sits Winnie-the-Pooh. In astrology, alchemy, the interpretation of the tarot—even Arthurian legend—the scope of Pooh's influence far exceeds what even his most ardent admirers have heretofore believed. The arguments are amusing and irrefutable. This entertaining volume makes it clear that the World of Pooh is spiritually and mentally infinite, equal in stature to the great mythical worlds. It is a Very Comforting Thought to have as we meander through the Hundred Acre Wood, right into the twenty-first century.

Calcium Made Interesting: Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas

Average customer rating:

If You Can Imagine The Size Of Nelson's Column, Then This Book Is Much, Much Smaller
A genious at play

Calcium Made Interesting: Sketches, Letters, Essays & Gondolas
Graham Chapman
Manufacturer: Macmillan UK
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

Satire, Classic | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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A Liar's Autobiography Volume VI
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The Greedy Bastard Diary : A Comic Tour of America

ASIN: 0330435434

Book Description

Graham Chapman is said to have been Monty Pythons one true anarchist. Like his mentors Spike Milligan and Peter Cook, the man who portrayed the mistaken messiah in Life of Brian lived his life on and off stage with a sheer delight in madness for its own sake. I want to be a loony, he said, its quite an important thing. Calcium Made Interesting contains everything from Graham Chapmans unpublished sketches and transcripts of his lecture tours to letters to his bank manager and reflections on his fellow Pythons. As a result the book offers a unique insight into the real Graham Chapman. Previously unpublished essays and notes help chart the life and times of a comic legend and include such gems as his reflections on how it feels to be crucified and his nostalgic memories of blowing up hotel rooms with his good friend Keith Moon. Funny and surreal, this collection captures the eclectic spirit of a true genius and confirms Graham Chapmans lasting impact on British comedy.

Customer Reviews:

If You Can Imagine The Size Of Nelson's Column, Then This Book Is Much, Much Smaller.......2006-11-14

Of all the Pythons, Graham Chapman was the most anarchic in his comedy. He excelled at stream-of-consciousness humor and non sequitirs, and made a permanent mark on the comedy landscape with a stature rivaling anyone in the last fifty years. This book can be viewed as a companion to Graham's earlier work, "A Liar's Autobiography," as it contains a lot of material that didn't make it into that book, as well as many diverse pieces such as screenplays and correspondence, most of which appear here for the first time.

Graham was a complex person, and this book gives an outstanding view into the workings of his mind. His struggles are well detailed here, yet he always made the most of any situation, especially if wild parties with the likes of Keith Moon and Ringo Starr were involved. I was pleased that the bulk of this book dealt with Graham's life outside of Python, as that has been very well documented elsewhere.

The book itself has the feel of a mixed-media contemporary art piece as it is from so many diverse sources. I must admit that the title drew me in: it is taken from a piece on page 88 in the essays section. The essay does, in fact, make calcium much more interesting than in any chemistry class I have had, to wit: "Calcium...occurs naturally as the carbonate CaCO3 in limestone, chalk, marble, and in brothels...." Graham's medical training (he was a doctor, after all) comes through in other places as well, as on page 189 where he discusses disorders of the trachea and bronchial tree in a musical adaptation called "The Ciliary-Mucus-Escalator Dance." Of course, the weirdness doesn't stop with scientific and medical humor, but dwells in both the mundane (a pompous man who brags about his "fleet of atomic-powered Silko-Glyde lawn mowers - each with a sauna bath, a cocktail lounge with three adjoining cinemas, and a discotheque", page 235) and the surreal (an insurance salesman selling a man a "special Being Nibbled To Death by Okapia Policy," with correspondingly odd terms on page 245.)

My two favorite parts of the book are the monologues and the personal letters. My favorite monologue concerns riding down a black diamond ski slope in a "wretched wooden gondola" with the Dangerous Sports Club, a piece that opens and sets the tone for the book. (I recommend the DVD, "Looks Like a Brown Trouser Job" which recalls this among other strange occurrences.) The letters are all fairly deranged, but my favorites are the letter reproduced in the dedication, which is an apology to a pub owner ("Words alone will have to express my profoundly abject apology for my behavior in your pub last night. I will have the shelf repaired, and I have already bought a half pound fillet steak for Dennis's eye...") and the condensed letters of E.P. Snibbet, Esq., which conclude the book.

Graham was a genius and a loony, and I miss him. This is a brilliant book and is not to be missed by anyone fond of insane humor; I recommend it highly.

A genious at play.......2005-09-24

Even though he died almost 2 decades ago, Graham Chapman's comic genious continues to awe and inspire in this wonderful volume of letters, essays and skits. Chapman was always the most Pythonic of the team, a wild man who was the re-incarnated spirit of Oscar Wilde. Both were touched with erratic brilliance and a lust for living and in this book we get to see the inner workings of Chapman's "wild(e)" side at work and at play. Not everyhting in here is hilarious, some things might raise only a smile, but taken as a whole this book is an amazing collection of items that fans of Python will want to treasure--and laugh at--for years to come. "Calcium" is a welcome addition to the Python legacy and a wonderful way to spend a few more minutes with
Chapman.

An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (Oxford World's Classics)

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An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting (Oxford World's Classics)
Jane Collier
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0192805525

Book Description

'Now the sport begins!' An Essay on the Art of Ingeniously Tormenting is the first English book on the craft of nagging. A bitingly funny social satire, it is also an advice book, a handbook of anti-etiquette, and a comedy of manners. Collier describes methods for 'teasing and mortifying' one's intimates and acquaintances in a variety of social situations by taking advantage of their affections and goodwill. Written primarily for wives, mothers, and the mistresses of servants, The Art suggests the difficulties women experienced exerting their influence in private and public life - and the ways they got round them. In anatomizing the art of emotional abuse Collier piques readers into acknowledging their own faults, and persuades them that tormenting is a useful skill, even as she censures its effects. The Art provides a fascinating glimpse into eighteenth-century daily life, the treatment of servants and dependants and the bringing up of children, and is a thrilling precursor to the art of Jane Austen.

The Heinemann Book of African Poetry in English (African Writers Series)

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