Word: contrarian
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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This one is unique in that buttoned-down field, though, owing to its massive authorial flamboyance. A born contrarian and self-promoter with a taste for the outrageous pronouncement, Dennis is given to advice like "If it flies, floats or fornicates, always rent it." A published poet, Dennis loads the pages with dozens of quotations from such literary luminaries as Goethe and T.S. Eliot. By turns pretentious and earnest, the book is sui generis. At worst, it reads like a huge ego trip. But the author is nothing if not entertaining, even inspiring. The unvarnished title says it all: Dennis...
...asked Roy Blount Jr., a literary humorist in the Twain tradition, to put the author in perspective. In his essay, Roy plumbs Twain's deeply contrarian nature and his abiding sadness and even bitterness at what he saw as collective human folly. For Twain's influence on race relations, we asked novelist and scholar Stephen L. Carter to address Twain's views on slavery and African Americans. There have been few books more controversial in U.S. history than Huck Finn, but Carter concludes that the novel is profoundly antislavery and that Twain pioneered the sophisticated literary attack on racism...
...generational effect of perpetuating defective genomes [May 19]. As a former genetics graduate student, I've seen tragic outcomes when parents with inherited diseases (or propensities for them) decide to pass their genes on to future offspring. Sometimes this is done with ignorance, sometimes with hopeful fatalism, sometimes with contrarian determination to prove that "I really am quite O.K.!" Carrying deleterious genes is certainly not within the carrier's control, but dooming a not yet conceived child to receive them certainly is. Discrimination is not always a pejorative term. John T. Lowry, AUSTIN, TEXAS...
...generational effect of perpetuating defective genomes [May 19]. As a former genetics graduate student, I've seen tragic outcomes when parents with inherited diseases (or propensities for them) decide to pass their genes on to future offspring. Sometimes this is done with ignorance, sometimes with hopeful fatalism, sometimes with contrarian determination to prove that "I really am quite O.K.!" Carrying deleterious genes is certainly not within the carrier's control, but dooming a not yet conceived child to receive them certainly is. Discrimination is not always a pejorative term. John T. Lowry, AUSTIN, TEXAS...
...Southern Baptist preacher, to do well in Yankee New Hampshire. He spent the days leading up to the primary cooking up photo ops and retooling his Iowa-focused message for a more national audience. Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson continued to underperform their supporters' early hopes, while the libertarian contrarian Ron Paul continued to exert his narrow but intense appeal...