Word: schine
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1993-1993
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Schine has an ear for authentic dialogue, especially the argot of the intelligentsia. The Washington-New York-Cambridge axis constitutes an arena for combatants to engage in calculated sparring. Schine proves to be a deft chronicler of the idiosyncracies of the tenured classes...
Margaret is currently working on another book, which shares the title of Schine's text, Rameau's Niece. This is the ultimate post-modern text, since it is lifted almost entirely from works of prominent philosophers of the time, such as Helvetius, Kant and naturally, Diderot. The text (within the text) is filled with double entendre about a young woman's sexual coming of age and search for enlightenment...
...Schine continues in a tradition exemplified by Joyce Carol Oates' Black Water and Auberon Waugh's waspish commentary for the Spectator. All attribute numerous undesirable traits to the young people who populate their work. These unfortunates are uniformly slothful, vain, banal, (place your vice here) revealing that while these authors may have read about and taught young people, they may not actually know any young people...
...undergraduates who populate Schine's novel (while admittedly peripheral characters) are stereotypes and crudely drawn, veritable tabulae rasae, empty vessels, waiting to receive wisdom. In this artificial undergraduate universe, all the women have flawless skin, long shiny hair and are transparently in love with their instructors...
Rameau's Niece has some redeeming moments, Schine has a good eye for detail and for capturing the essence of a scene, it is becoming her own aesthetic signature. Ultimately, the work crumbles under the weight of its unwieldy structure and its astonishing social anachronisms...