March 11

Theoretically, I should not not find common ground with Diane Auer Jones, who was a George W. Bush nominee to the Department of Education. Yet I quite agree with her that college courses should be "hard" and that...

It is time to stop treating students like consumers and to go back to treating them like students. Students may not like it if they have to perform higher order mathematical functions and get the right answer, or if they have to become proficient in a second language, or even if they have to read classical pieces of literature upon which Eastern or Western civilizations were based, but as the adults in charge, we need to ensure that a diploma on the wall means that the recipient is capable of reading, writing, and performing arithmetic at a level worthy of the sheepskin.

http://chronicle.com/blogPost/Revival-of-the-Liberal-Arts-/21544/

I'm coming across a lot of references to Elif Batuman's new book The Possessed: Adventures with Russian Books and the People Who Read Them. The subject matter is pure bait for me, and the treatment sounds intriguing:

http://therumpus.net/2010/03/sean-carman-the-last-book-i-loved-the-possessed-adventures-with-russian-books-and-the-people-who-read-them/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704784904575111503804014096.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_lifestyle

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-03-11/alternative-russian-classics/

A disgraceful feature in the American Book Review on the "Top 40 Bad Books," consisting predominantly of high-toned snark from professors who dislike certain classics, is pissing off commentators all over the blogosphere (myself among them), and it's no wonder. When David Denby wrote in his book on snark that at the routine, knee-jerk level, it adulterates the cultural conversation, this piece is exactly the sort of offal he was talking about. I am not encouraged about the state of literary academe (not that I really was to begin with).

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/jacketcopy/2010/03/americas-40-worst-books-gatsby-really.html

http://mhpbooks.com/mobylives/?p=13434

Much more constructively, a feature at The Second Pass celebrates worthy out-of-print titles:

http://thesecondpass.com/?p=4866

Reading California Fiction has unearthed a real surprise, a novel about Los Angeles by the great French novelist and playwright Jean Giraudoux:

http://readingcalifornia.typepad.com/reading_california_fictio/2010/03/choice-of-the-elect.html

When I read Giraudoux's Trojan War play Tiger at the Gates in high school, I was completely blown away, and was later glad to read that Kenneth Tynan, reviewing the London premiere, doubted that any savvy playgoer could leave the theater without realizing that what had just hit them was a masterpiece.

Hilary at Vulpes Libris engages thoughtfully with William Cobbett's early 19th century classic Rural Rides, which I am reading myself in the delightful two-volume edition from Everyman.

http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2010/03/10/rural-rides-by-william-cobbett/

I commented upon the post:

"I agree, it's a great book, although not all of Cobbett's 'prejudices' are still palatable -- he has a fairly wide anti-semitic streak, for example. But one must read historically. Is the Penguin edition compete, as the two-volume Everyman hardcover edition is? It would have to be a fairly thick volume. If it is a 'selected,' it wouldn't surprise me if they pruned some of the less pleasant passages. But I believe one should experience Cobbett whole, just as one should experience Carlyle, another great writer, whole, despite his nasty racism."

Over at stevereads, Steve Donoghue revives Kipling's Jungle Books, which I also happen to be (re-)reading (I always have a lot of books going at once). I join with him in encouraging you to take this book down from the dusty shelf -- and warn you to put all thoughts of Disney's trivial animated version out of your mind, because the gravitas of Kipling's stories is one of their most noteworthy traits.

http://www.openlettersmonthly.com/stevereads/2010/03/kaas-hunting/

If I was anywhere near Dallas, I'd be all over the exhibit "Royal Splendor in the Enlightenment" at the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University:

http://www.artdaily.org/index.asp?int_sec=11&int_new=36681

http://smu.edu/meadowsmuseum/about_CharlesIV.htm

Staying at the FriendHouse Hotel in the Ukraine would appear to be a deeply funky experience:

http://www.archdaily.com/51767/friendhouse-hotel-ryntovt/

Among notables born on this date are poets D.J. Enright and Torquato Tasso (Italy), historian Ronald Syme, composers Henry Cowell, Carl Ruggles, Astor Piazzolla (Argentina), Tristan Murail (France), and Ilhan Mimaroglu (Turkey), film directors Raoul Walsh and Claude Jutra (Quebec), science fiction novelist Douglas Adams, choreographer Marius Petipa, and actors Timothy Carey, Terrence Howard, Dominique Sanda, and Elias Koteas. Raoul Walsh is a director with a sure hand and many little-known gems scattered throughout his oeuvre (he would have hated the word "oeuvre"!). A fine example is a thoroughly charming "dramedy" from 1932, Me and My Gal, with Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett (many years before Father of the Bride, as everyone points out) in fine form. Its use of interior monologues on the soundtrack is a comic nod to Eugene O'Neill's play Strange Interlude (mentioned in the screenplay), and also looks forward to Annie Hall -- I wonder if Woody had seen it?