Sense and Nonsensibilty
Lawrence Douglas and Alexander George
From the Cover: "At last, the thinking person's take on the life
of the mind in today's increasingly mindless age. Sense and Nonsensibilty
pokes fun at everyone from spoof-proof scholars to pompous professors; from
anal-rtentive authors to plagiarizing poets; from snake-oil therapists to
bestselling illiteati.
"This singular collection by Professors Lawrence Douglas and Alexander
George brings together their most popular pieces, along with many brand-new
ones "
(description goes on to name a few things, and I'm not retyping them for this
review)
What it is: A series of short spoofs, satires, and lampoons, directing their "humor" at professors, academia, philosophy, and literature. Basically it's supposed to be funny stuff taking aim at higher learning.
What I think: I'm a smart guy, or at least I like to think I am.
I am smarter than a fifth grader at the very least. I get sophisticated humor,
"high-brow" stuff if you will. I can keep up with the best of them.
But this... this just isn't funny. In fact, it's snooze worthy if you're not
prepared for it.
See, one would compare this to Monty Python and their ilk, but that IS a mistake.
Python, while baring humor for the intellectual (often sketches written by
Cleese and Chapman), they leave it at a level that we can still see the parody
of it all. See Philosopher Football for the best example of that. Plus, remember,
the Pythons never dedicated a whole to pure high-brow, thinking man's comedy;
they always evened it out with the absurd.
See, this book lacked the absurd. Perhaps it's because they wrote even the
ridiculous pieces almost as deadly serious, or perhaps it just feels that
way when you read it: either way it just comes off as too to the cuff.
Basically this just wasn't all that funny.
Final Word: Should you get this? Well if you are one of the following: a professor, a grad student, a die-hard reader of the New Yorker, a pseudo intelectual, or a person who aspires to be any or all of these- then please, feel free to read this book. For the rest of us: pass on by and don't look back. This book is clearly designed to be funny to a very particular persons.
.
