Sunday, December 10, 2006

P. I. G. Literature

Kantor, Elizabeth (PhD.)
The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature
Regnery Publishing, Inc. (An Eagle Publishing Company)
Washington, D.C.; 2005

THIS BOOK

This is a very serious book about literature and what has been inflicted to it and as to the empty and meaningless politics substituted for it by the “deconstructionalist” and other like new-wave professors in our degenerate universities. I am sorry (Ashamed?) to write that I do not have the fullness of a truly liberal education as would allow me to fully understand the language of literary analysis and discussion. However, there is enough of value in this book for even a science-based rationalist as myself to better appreciate what the study of literature should be, what it has fallen to and what its traditional values are to a civilized human and humane being.

If I were to find any fault with the author's presentation it is her lack of appreciation for what is generally called “Fantasy And Science Fiction”, from C. S. Lewis (The Chronicles Of Narnia, and the series beginning with Perlandia) and J. R.R. Tolkien (The Hobbit and the ring series) to such very serious American works as A Matter Of Conscience (A now out-of-print science fiction novel, the name of the author lost in my memory; But, involving very serious moral and philosophical questions and problems), Robert Heinlein's Stranger In A Strange Land, Frank Herbert's Dune (And, more specially, its prequels as written by others) and too many others to list here. If Dr. Kantor would be more aware of such works, she would have been less likely to complain about the lack of serious and lengthy American works. (Europeans may look to the past to explain the present and human nature; The best American writers look to possible futures to do the same.) The readers may not like the answers; But, such books do address the important questions of human and humane existence.

However, if you consider yourself to be a civilized and cultured person, you should read Dr. Kantor's work---Even if it causes you to weep over our Universities as the Christ wept over the doomed city of Jerusalem.

COMPANION BOOK

If you read the above, you should also read the complementary volume. Noted below, which provides many examples of the too many professors who are destroying true academic freedom and, in fact, thinking within our universities.

Horowitz, David
The Professors: The 101 Most Dangerous Academics in American
Regnery Publishing, Inc.; Washington, DC; 2006

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