Word: delbanco
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Judging by the titles of his books--The Death of Satan; Required Reading: Why Our American Classics Matter Now; Moby-Dick Or, the Whale--the writing of Andrew H. Delbanco '73 would seem more at home as beach reading than on the shelf of a highbrow literary critic...
...Delbanco, Levi professor of English at Columbia, does not want to confine his appreciation and study of American literature to the academy...
...These books express my engagement both with contemporary American culture and literary tradition," Delbanco says...
Certainly Delbanco is conscious of the mechanics of his prose--quite literally, in fact. Ballard twice upbraids other characters for improper use of gerunds. Like Ballard, Delbanco has an ear for "pretty mots all in a row," and obviously takes care to produce affecting sentences. Unfortunately, his sometimes clever phrases usually detract from the overall quality of the work. Entire paragraphs are sometimes included just for the sake of one pun. Some sentences read like Delbanco took a thesaurus and looked up a longer synonym for any word under six letters...
Those thesaurus-enhanced sentences scarcely sound pretentious when compared to Delbanco's generous use of allusion. References to virtually everything abound--"Leave It To Beaver," imaginary numbers and most classical composers are just a few of the staggering number of items mentioned. Delbanco likes allusions in English, but he loves them in foreign languages. Most European tongues are represented in Old Scores, had the book been any longer Delbanco would have had to use some non-Western quotes for variety. Rather than adding to the texture of the book, they merely provide a superficial veneer of erudition...