Posted on 01/04/2016 8:57:41 AM PST by Borges
Recently, while writing an essay on T. S. Eliot for The New York Review, I read or reread the work of many earlier critics, and was impressed most by two of them. One was Frank Kermode, who was ninety when he wrote, in 2010, one of his greatest essays, “Eliot and the Shudder,†a breathtakingly wide-ranging and sharply-focused piece about Eliot’s unique response to the common experience of shuddering. The other was a twenty-two-year-old college senior named Barack Obama, who wrote about Eliot in a letter to his girlfriend, Alexandra McNear, when she had been assigned to write a paper on The Waste Land for a college course.
Obama’s letter appeared in a biography by David Maraniss, Barack Obama: The Story, published in 2012, and prompted dozens of comments, some praising, some condescending. What struck me on rereading it was that, hasty and elliptical as it was, it exemplified literary criticism—like Frank Kermode’s—at its best, and showed why it might be worth doing. It also pointed toward something unsettling about its author’s later career.
(Excerpt) Read more at nybooks.com ...
Of interest perhaps
Was his name Barak Obama or Berry Sotaro when he was a college senior ?
It will be a travesty if the next administration doesn't open up all the files (including university records) on this imbecile.
Obama is nothing more than a PR creation, foisted upon America, designed to destroy this country. Obama needs to be exposed - and destroyed. His followers must be left wandering aimlessly in the desert.
Ten bucks says Baraq never read The Waste Land — and that he based his “review” on the Cliff Notes.
“a twenty-two-year-old college senior named Barack Obama, who wrote about Eliot in a letter”
The only question is, who ghosted it on behalf of the vapid, very intellectually slothful, lazy Obama. Did he know Bill Ayers at the time?
“to his girlfriend, Alexandra McNear”
Very unlikely. Maybe the writer means “Alex McNear”?
What did Barry write? Probably something like, “Hey, this guy Eliot is almost as smart as I am.”
Half-assed, just like he does everything in his life.
Seriously there is nothing he said that would be news to your average high school AP English student. At least it wouldn’t be to the class I was in 25 years ago. We actually read literature, not “informational texts,” as is now the case with Common Core.
I’m still surprised to find that Barry reads anything besides Sports Illustrated for Kids....
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