Word: author
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Enrique H. Lopez, author of the recently-released "The Harvard Mystique," will teach the first General Education course on the development of Hispanic communities in America, Harvard officials confirmed yesterday...
...Harvard Mystique is one of those books that never should have been written. Lopez does not write well; when he gets in a pinch, he resorts to quoting other authors or citing reams of ridiculous data-- in four months of the New York Times, for example, Harvard was mentioned in connection with its graduates three times more than all other colleges combined. Essentially, the book is a 237-page collection of odd quotes, bizarre statistics, dull ancedotes, and drivel. The author strikes a particularly banal chord when he tries to add some organization to his endless list of alums...
...this, the author concludes, adds up to the Harvard mystique...
...make matters worse, The Harvard Mystique is largely derivative. Lopez lifts stuff from every popular magazine article he can get his hands on. From Esquire, he steals whole descriptive passages about the atmosphere of the Harvard Business School. From The Crimson he steals sensational stuff that no respectable author would steal. Lopez rehashes recent controversies that have plagued Harvard in recent years-- the fight over genetic determination and I.Q., the University's connection with the Central Intelligence Agency, the fight over the relocation of the John F. Kennedy Memorial Library. It's all been said before-- and much better...
Amis deftly exploits the comic possibilities of Jake's ordeal, but the author has more on his mind, perhaps too much more, than comedy alone. Jake is a reactionary curmudgeon, and his view rules the novel. He may have a problem, but society is sick. He rejects his psychiatrist's diagnosis of repressions: "I was doing fine when things really were repressive, if they ever were, it's only since they've become, oh, permissive that I've had trouble." In the end, Jake issues a jeremiad against his own treatment and therapy in general...