The Kingdom of Absurdities (Audible Audio Edition) Bruce Gatenby Ross Pendleton Books
Download As PDF : The Kingdom of Absurdities (Audible Audio Edition) Bruce Gatenby Ross Pendleton Books
America 2013 All the madness, insanity and absurdity we witness every day in politics, journalism and personal life began in the laboratories of humanities departments in academia, when English professors, based upon their ability to read, decided they were experts in EVERYTHING and unleashed the virus of Political Correctness on an unsuspecting nation. Wielding the unholy trinity of race, class and gender, academics seized power not only in academia but in journalism and politics as well, creating our current dystopia, The Kingdom Of Absurdities. Return with us now to those days with Chase, a grad student in English at The University of Southern Arizona (U of SA), as he attempts to lead a one-person revolution against the triple-headed hydra of Political Correctness as it crawls its way out of academia into the USA. Savagely funny, indignant and politically incorrect, The Kingdom of Absurdities is an all-too-timely warning against not only letting the lunatics take over the asylum, but letting them loose to run the rest of the world as well.
The Kingdom of Absurdities (Audible Audio Edition) Bruce Gatenby Ross Pendleton Books
I delight in send-ups of academic life, from Amis's "Lucky Jim" to Russo's incomparable "Straight Man," and I find this book execrable. First off, the text is very badly edited; one can find simple errors on nearly every other page. Most importantly, though, the author lapses into unending diatribes against what he perceives to be the abuses of contemporary feminism and multiculturalism. I've struggled with this, for I don't want to pan the book simply because I dislike its politics. But that's not it. The book fails because it's badly written and ineffectual *as satire*. Satire works when it contrasts a "rational" protagonist with institutional absurdities. Gatenby is so concerned with documenting alleged (and, in my experience, non-existent) horrors of feminism and multiculturalism that he loses the claim of neutrality that makes satire work. This is a polemic, not satire. Giving feminist professors names like "Frenulum" smacks more of sophomoric inanity than clever witticism, and the "absurdities" he constructs are paranoid fictions. This is the academy -- it's not like there's a shortage of grist for the mill, so why invent such nonsense? Gatenby so occupies himself with depicting horrors against reason that do not exist (as modern right-wing culture warriors so) that his protagonist loses his critical position in the rational center. He winds up coming across not as a wizened learner, but a self-pitying victim. Yuck. Someone may indeed be able to write an interesting novel about graduate school. Gatenby, apparently, cannot.Product details
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The Kingdom of Absurdities (Audible Audio Edition) Bruce Gatenby Ross Pendleton Books Reviews
Those who have gone to grad school in the humanities, who have thought about going to grad school or who have taken a humanities class in college, will scream in delight at the way Bruce Gatenby's "Kingdom of Absurdities" sacrilegiously rails against the extravagant nonsense vomited forth by literary theorist professors, the very intolerant advocates of tolerance and their dictatorial promotion of diversity, and especially the notion that the good life can be experienced through reading rather than risky living. The protagonist Chase must decide continue to try to harmonize with the discordant professorial choir (who would love to expel Chase for "eye rape"), or find his own melody to live by.
I urge future fans of Bruce Gatenby to read the "Kingdom of Absurdities" and to realize that his absurd portrayal of the kingdom of doctoral education is not too far off from reality.
--Fred Daniels, musician, writer, independent.
I never went to grad school with Bruce Gatenby, but after reading this novel, I wasn't so sure. It seemed as if he was describing the very professors, academic controversies and fellow students that I remembered from my own days in "the program." Unlike other academic novels, this is not a loving send-up of graduate humanities programs. Instead, it's a laugh-out-loud, drop-your-jaw peek into the "kingdom of absurdities" that frequently passes for intellectual discourse. You don't have to be a veteran of a graduate program to enjoy this book, though if you haven't done the classes, the comprehensives and the committees, you may think that Gatenby's embroidering the truth a little. He isn't. If anything, he's downplaying the craziness. Yep, this is the life as I remember it. If I'd read this book (and believed it) 25 years ago, I could have saved myself a lot of time.
Apart from the long passages in French and German, it was an entertaining read. As true a representation of political correctness gone crazy as I have ever read.
I went into this read with high hopes, yet overall I was let down. The text's lampooning of graduate study is betrayed by the author's own pedantic writing style, continuously bogged down by semi-obscure cultural references. Although the book is indeed funny, and amusing, its overall tone and style seems to revere that which it seeks to critique. The strongest moments occur when the author writes simply, and wryly, without sinking into the muck of overworked devices.
The structure and characters reminded me a bit of "A Confederacy of Dunces," which I would recommend if you enjoyed this book. The subject matter is entirely different, however.
Overall, I do not recommend this book, though it did have its moments.
While it is an overly heavy and sophomoric satire it triggered flashbacks. The characters are, at best only mildly overblown and obvious. This is definitely not great literature, but the action described is pretty much what I remember. One reviewer described the style as "pedantic," and I agree, but I found myself wondering if the style itself was a satire on the mandated style of academic writing. If you are considering a doctoral program in anything but hard science or engineering related disciplines, take this seriously.
I delight in send-ups of academic life, from Amis's "Lucky Jim" to Russo's incomparable "Straight Man," and I find this book execrable. First off, the text is very badly edited; one can find simple errors on nearly every other page. Most importantly, though, the author lapses into unending diatribes against what he perceives to be the abuses of contemporary feminism and multiculturalism. I've struggled with this, for I don't want to pan the book simply because I dislike its politics. But that's not it. The book fails because it's badly written and ineffectual *as satire*. Satire works when it contrasts a "rational" protagonist with institutional absurdities. Gatenby is so concerned with documenting alleged (and, in my experience, non-existent) horrors of feminism and multiculturalism that he loses the claim of neutrality that makes satire work. This is a polemic, not satire. Giving feminist professors names like "Frenulum" smacks more of sophomoric inanity than clever witticism, and the "absurdities" he constructs are paranoid fictions. This is the academy -- it's not like there's a shortage of grist for the mill, so why invent such nonsense? Gatenby so occupies himself with depicting horrors against reason that do not exist (as modern right-wing culture warriors so) that his protagonist loses his critical position in the rational center. He winds up coming across not as a wizened learner, but a self-pitying victim. Yuck. Someone may indeed be able to write an interesting novel about graduate school. Gatenby, apparently, cannot.
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