Word: whole
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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CARL SAGAN'S MISSION--to popularize contemporary science--is beyond reproach. Yet, like a hard-sell broker, his execution is chronically faulty. In this collection of 25 essays he spreads before the reader a whole gamut of the most tasty scientific ideas, concepts, and predictions, ranging from the prospect of extraterrestial life to the role of gestation in shaping world religion. But he skips frenetically from one to the next, milking only the most sensational aspects and indulging freely in irresponsible speculation. Our aggravation is heightened by his persistent editorial voice in the background, applauding the genius of this...
...next knight approached and again conversed with Kob. But this warrior said his father went to Princeton. And Kob snarled, but the bridge remained whole...
...might have trouble filling out the whole of this miniature allegory, but that's undoubtedly Barth in the corner, playing with his toy trains. The great conservative, the practitioner of a lost art, the bearer of the torch--so Barth justifies his extravagances...
Barth knows. No novel has displayed such an elaborate Maginot Line of prepared defenses since Joyce had Stuart Gilbert write a whole book under his "supervision" to explicate Ulysses. Barth demands that Joycean parallel. You could spend a month, a year, maybe a life detecting patterns within patterns in Ulysses; at the end you might look back and wonder why you bothered, but at least you'd have met thousands of smart people along the way. You can spend the same time with Letters and find equally pleasing patterns, but then look over your shoulder and your only company...
...guiding patterns of Letters are like those abstract coffee-table sculptures that come apart into little pieces, then stand whole again only as a testimony to the dogged persistence of the party guest who sat there all night putting the damn thing back together again. You can play that game if you want to; stand in line for your Ph.D in Contemporary...