Word: evening
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Dates: during 1990-1990
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...have, I must confess, serious doubts about the efficacy--or even the integrity--of the "classic" exam period editorial, "Beating the System" you reprinted recently. I almost suspect this so-called "Donald Carswell '50" of being rather one of Us--the Bad Guys--than one of you. If your readers have been following Mr. Carswell's advice for the last 11 years, then your readers have been going down the tubes. It is time to disillusion...
Artful equivocations are even worse; lynx-eyed sly little rascals that we are, we see right through them. (Up to exam 40. Then our lynz eyes droop, and grading habits relax. Try to get on the bottom of the pile.) Again, it is not that A.E.'s are vicious or ludicrous as such; but in quantity they become sheer madness. Or induce it. "The 20th century has never recovered from the effects of Marx and Freud" (V.G.); "but whether this is a good thing or a bad thing is difficult to say." (A.E.) Now one such might be droll enough...
...more than obvious to one entangled in the petty quibbles of contemporary Medievalists--at times, indeed, approaching the ludicrous--that smile as we may at its follies, or denounce its barbarities, the truly monumental achievements of the Middle Ages have become too vast for us to cope with, or even understand; we are too small and too afraid." Let me offer this as an ideal opening sentence to any question even tangentially nudging on the Middle Ages. And now you see, having dazzled me, won me by your personal, involved, independently-minded assertion, your only job is to keep...
...characters. He is a gifted man with anti-elitist sympathies. Like some fairly big names in innovative fiction, including Flaubert, Joyce and Faulkner, Pynchon writes about people who would not be able to read the books in which they appear. As a contemporary bonus, Pynchon's folks would not even be interested in trying. That is part of the sadness and the hilarity of this exhilarating novel...
...ESSAY: Even Darwin could not explain life's origin...