Word: wilson
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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Despite its title, Edmund Wilson presents several pieces of his mind in this latest work, and some of them are more palatable than others. For here, as elsewhere in his work, the author's determined rationality sometimes becomes oppressive; his assertions of the intellectual clarity of his own position antagonize even sympathetic readers, and create the suspicion that in his quest for a concise and unified point of view the author has sometimes ignored important considerations...
...antagonism is in many cases a more productive response than admiration. Disagreement with a thinker and writer of Wilson's calibre demands of the reader a serious and fruitful consideration of his own beliefs, and this is certainly close to the optimum effect that an essayist can hope to achieve. If he cannot convince, he can at least force the reader to scrutinize his own opinion, and perhaps to modify it. In this, Wilson succeeds admirably...
...despite the almost presumptuous scope of his remarks, Wilson seldom takes a position lightly. In one of the book's most infuriating passage, he describe pragmatically the superiority of the American bathroom to the Gothic cathedral as a mental stimulus: "But the bathroom, too, shelters the spirit, it tranquillizes and reassures, in surroundings of a celestial Whiteness, where the pipes and the faucets gleam and the mirror makes another liquid surface, which will render you, shaved, rubbed and brushed, a nobler and more winning appearance... It encourages self-dependence and prepares one to face the world, fortified, firm...
Neither reaction, I think, is quite correct. As a considerate thinker, Wilson is quite conscious of the extremity of this position as stated. But he does not desire or expect a reaction of disgust from anyone interested in reading his essay in the first place; the dogmatic force of his statement creates resistance in the reader, who, in examining the idea for its real weaknesses, comes more fully to understand understand the author's meaning...
...same starting lineup will begin tonight, with Canty, Muncaster, Woolston, Hastings, and Hurley forming the first team. But Coach Wilson in recent games has shown a tendency to substitute liberally, and the second team should play a good portion of the game...