On vacation this past week I read Connolly's The Unquiet Grave and part of the Hollinger book, so did we want to resume conversation about either one?
About Hollinger, I'm up to mid-Chapter 4. He seems just to have chosen an elaborate way of pointing out that demographic labels, if used at all, shouldn't be treated as mutually exclusive. Is there more to it than I'm getting?
About the Connolly, dunno if Unquiet Grave is such a hot reading group selection after all. There are good items in it but it's also difficult, private, alternately pompous and self-hating, and loaded with dull bad advice about women and lemurs.
Any thoughts on either book?
Posted by Martha Bridegam at May 26, 2004 03:46 PMHollinger is still sitting on my dining table awaiting perusal. Unfortunately its arrival coincided with the need to read four other books in quick succession. I still want to return to it as soon as I can. I don't have a copy of the Unquiet Grave.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 27, 2004 04:33 AMI've suddenly got rather busy as well, hence the lack of significant posting lately. Next month I'll be taking an intensive language class and so might be scarce for a large part of June as well.
I believe I just finished Chapter 3, where he goes into the history of multicultural theory a bit, and it's a lot stronger, I think, than Chapter 2, which does in fact seem to go on about the "pentagon" a lot. He seems so far to have a problem hitching his excellent theoretical analysis to concrete policy.
Kind of funny that the chapter that's about policy is so convoluted but the one about theory is so clear.
In any case, I don't see how you can think it's all just about the definition of ethno-racial categories if you've read Chapter 3.
More importantly, I'm completely baffled by your lack of interest in Lemurs.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at May 27, 2004 03:25 PMOK, I'll try and redigest Chapter 3. Want to offer a few clues on what I failed to absorb, tho?
...and for the record, my dear sir, I have nothing whatsoever against lemurs. We've been to the lemur pen that is the pride of the San Francisco Zoo and lemurs are in fact charming, at least from a distance they are.
I would further bet Mr. Connolly understood and liked lemurs better than he did women. But that may or may not be saying much.
I don't have a copy of Gavin Maxwell's Ring of Bright Water here & hence can't check this, but IIRC Maxwell bought a lemur that had belonged to Cyril Connolly & afterwards had to return it due to "filthy habits." Which suggests either that Connolly wasn't good at training lemurs or that lemurs are difficult to train.
OK, there's this sad part where Connolly tells how one of his favorite lemurs got into the neighbors' kitchen and was beaten to death. That's not dullness or bad advice, it's just sad.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 27, 2004 06:48 PM