Jane Tompkins (1)Besprekingen

Tompkins has chronic illness (ME) and subsequently, can't do much but read. She writes here about her interaction with a handful of books, most by Naipaul and Theroux. I really enjoyed the first third or so, but became tired of hearing about these two writers - neither of them seemed like people I would ever want to know in real life - and I wanted Tompkins to start talking about the other writers that were mentioned in the ad-copy!

I did appreciate the author's self-reflection and her thoughts on chronic illness, since I have Lyme disease and could relate to the fatigue and limitations. I could also relate to envy and pride, a few themes in the book. There are some nuggets here, to be sure. Plus, I walked away with several book recommendations!

Normally this kind of a book would be like an excellent, strong cheese and a dark beer for a book nerd like me. Yet, I felt a distance to her writing from cover to cover. As it’s been some time since I read the book, and my notes about it have been scattered to the winds, I will write no more.

Hawthorne's scribbling women

This was a very important book when it came out in the 1980s. It is now quite dated however and it is more obvious than ever how weakly reasoned much of it is. For critiques, see Brook Thomas's The New Historicism and Other Old-Fashioned Topics and Paul Guillory's Cultural Capital.

Here one of our leading literary scholars looks back on her own life in the classroom, and discovers how much of what she learned there needs to be unlearned.