I'm not sure where this rant should be, so I'm placing it here.
I just read 'How to read like a Professor' by Thomas C. Foster
What a terrible book. Starting with the confiding hip-tone, but of course maintaining authority by incessant references to 'when I was teaching literature the other day', to the easy-going style which attempts to present academic shallowness as merely hip allusions to a hypothetical mighty intellect behind the stuff being written, the whole text served to set my teeth on edge.
Of course, it is not utterly useless, the man has summarized and categorized information, which it would otherwise take one up to five hours to research in the Internet, maybe even six hours for those easily distracted, but still.
The author knows his formalistic matrix, he uses the appropriate jargon, and dresses is up in baby talk, but in every section are givaways, which show what a stack of cards the whole book is. Which show, that it is a structure made merely of a repetition of buzzwords and buzzconcepts and should be seen and used as such - as a dumbed down collection of buzzwords and buzzconepts. If anyone is interested - there it is. Get it while it's hot.
Any man who claims to be a scholar of literary analysis, dealing with 'eternal', and 'immortal' topics about the human condition, and yet drops the moronic inferno bomb that the slavs have become familiar with Snow White and Sleeping Beauty from Disney (it is as if he picked on purpose the two classical Pushkin fairytales from the early 19th century); any man who while discussing the significance of death and the insignificance of human life in a cruel indifferent world cites cartoon violence, especially the road runner cartoons, as an example of philosophically meaningless violence... Words fail me.
But then again, to be fair, the title of the book is not 'how to meaningfully analyze literature', it is 'how to read like a professor'. And I suppose that says it all about very many things.
Not recommended, unless he is your professor.
Gender:
Points: 1040
Reviews: 117