Word: reader
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KUNG BEGINS his argument by dismissing every serious competing strain in Western thought to Christianity as sophistry. Sometimes his arguments are effective, particularly his critiques of Descartes and Wittgenstein. But eventually he buries the reader beneath a mound of philosophical jargon. As Kung's arguments become more and more complex, the philosophical debris grows to such heights that one cannot help laughing at serious remarks such as, "Obviously, Kierkegaard did not know Pascal's work firsthand; he quotes him only once, and then indirectly, through Feuerbach." Obviously...
Though Gifford works it all into a tense, private nightmare using a narration derived in part from Hemingway, the reader never feels that his fixed state and slightly withdrawn I've-been-through-hell voice are chic affectations adopted to suit the role of Tough Young American Novelist. He avoids the stylized macho disillusionment that characterizes much Hemingway imitation--and for that matter, much of Hemingway. His voice, with its tightlipped, overwrought intensity, is a voice terse enough for the end of the world. He and his characters, uptight and dream-ridden, have stared into the intolerable darkness...
...complexities are irrelevant. But among his self-styled "basic" explanations is the airy statement that the "bell-normal" curve used to calibrate percentile rankings is a shape chosen by testmakers at random, without any theoretical relation to distributions. Elsewhere, in a similar attempt to scale down concepts for the reader, he misdefines social Darwinism...
...book's last section, "What Can We Do?" brings more confusion. Having "proved" his points to his own explicitly-stated satisfaction, Strenio changes source and provides the reader first with a fairly comprehensive series of test taking tips--including the unexpected recommendation of the Kaplan service--and then some straightforward campaign literature: books to read, newletters to contact and support, and, the book's final line, "You help in that venture would surely be appreciated...
Though such a declaration of interest is unexpected, at least it is forthright--much more so than the publisher's less-evident ploy of adorning the back cover with a glowing comment from someone quoted copiously in the text, it also obliquely relieves the misgivings of a reader who may have expected a balanced discussion...