Word: books
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1960-1969
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Storr has participated frequently in British television and radio programs, and does journalistic work for the literary magazine "Book World." He has written three books: The Integrity of the Personality, Sexual Deviation, and Human Aggression. Now visiting American for the first time, Dr. Storr is currently teaching a course entitled "Human Aggression" at Harvard University...
Seen as sequential argument. The 1m-mortalist should stand or fall on the basis of such evidence. But because it is presented more as a loosely buttressed personal obsession, it is not obliged either to stand or fall. Instead, the book's thesis simply sways provocatively to the ritual accompaniment of Harrington's prose-a flexible alloy of Mao-revolutionary and Norman Vincent Peale-inspirational...
...over rude nature, and turn it upside down. In this position Crusoe's diligence, rationality, racial pride and Christian ethics-the very qualities that in Defoe's handling ensured Crusoe's survival-get lost while Crusoe accepts the "primitive" values of his black manservant. Call the book Friday to make the irony unmistakable. So much for Western civilization...
Eventually, Defoe's cannibals appear in Tournier's book, too, intending to eat a captive. Crusoe II frightens them off with gunpowder and English pluck, names the captive Friday, and sets about turning him into a proper British slave. He succeeds to the extent that Friday learns English and performs complicated chores. But the Negro-Indian half-caste will go no further; he refuses to be a black Englishman. Although he is tireless, he is not diligent. He is clever, but not rational. For him, the Church of England, punitive ditch digging and goatskin trousers are merely...
Thus Tournier's book may seem to be one more demonstration-and a notably self-conscious and unconvincing one-of a mercantile society's well-known and often belabored shortcomings. Tournier intended some satirical comment on civilization's defects, of course, or why else so pointedly rewrite a tract in which the Western world is praised? What gradually dawns on the surprised reader is that the author has accomplished much more. As a 20th century author, Tournier is concerned with Defoe's implicit but largely unexplored theme, the development of a mind in isolation. With...