Literature: A Crash Course

Remember ZOTS? In this audacious pocket edition, the authors set out to cover in a small, gift-giving, Hallmark style, a book spanning the entire evolution of the written language. What is most wonderful about this book has to do with its outlandish titles to literary eras and the way it succinctly bounds through every age and movement. Textbook publishers would shut their ears, shutter "blasphemy," and probably try to send the author back to his English teacher for re-engineering. For the titles are sometimes bawdy, sometimes dry, oftentimes eye catching, and never sound like anything you would find in an educational high school textbook. This is why the little book that could is so transforming because it allows you to see different ages in different lights. Authors, too, are scandalized and placed on a platter in terms of the lives they really led versus the politically correct versions biographed in the textbook intros. The book also manages to not only produce a cross section of international literature, but also delineates sub sections within literary movements, so that readers can get a true sense of an era. Lesser known writers are also touched upon which adds to a refreshing spirit throughout. It seems brilliant writing is still out there to be discovered and digested by even the most "educated" English AP student (and teacher alike). In short, the book reveals a different way of viewing the chronology of literary time and pomp, as well as, development, social contexts, and the lives of famous and not-so-famous authors. This pocket book entitled "Literature" with its ever eye catching Hemingway on the cover forces readers to rethink something which might have become old hat, namely, a teacher's curriculum or what they taught you in school all those years ago. Reading the book reminds me of eating ZOTS when I was a kid: When you placed those cough drop sized pellets in your mouth, shazam! there was an explosion of taste . . . and enjoyment.

If you like your books entertaining, colorful, and funny, this is a painless way to fill in the gaps of your knowledge. The author does not pretend to be impartial or neutral. He pans many famous authors who he feels are given far too much credit. To my amazement, his treatment of Jane Austen is almost sacrilegious. He claims that all the adulation and praise that has been heaped on her is undeserved and the sooner she is relegated to obscurity the better off readers of the future would be. However, the beautiful illustrations used, the timelines provided and the obvious fun the author had in writing this book is well worth the investment.