Re: GG: Angilette Book

[Bradley P Lehman <bpl@umich.edu>]

On Wed, 9 Jul 1997, K. Berry wrote:

>   I can't remember where I first heard of Angilette's book, ...
> 
> I bought it, sigh, and found it, as others have remarked,
> an excellent example of American academic writing :-(.
> I'm sure she had some penetrating observations to make,
> but they were lost on me.

I read it a year or two ago, and like everyone else here who has responded
so far, found it to be on the dry side.  Part of the off-putting feel of
it, for me, was the style of having all the citations in parentheses in
the text, instead of as footnotes or endnotes.  Also, some of the book
seemed to repeat itself, at least to my somewhat superficial reading of
it. 

Turning to criticism of the content rather than the presentation: I think
Gould in his most fanciful writing style seemed sometimes as concerned
with the cleverness of his convoluted words as with his content...they
were creative compositions to be enjoyed with a good sense of humor.  As a
McLuhan fan, Gould made the medium part of the message.  The Angilette
study, if I remember correctly, took these Gould's essays at a more
serious and literal level than they (perhaps) might warrant. 

Bradley Lehman ~ Harrisonburg VA, USA ~ 38.44N+78.87W
bpl@umich.edu ~ http://www-personal.umich.edu/~bpl/