“Once upon a time there was a classroom.”
— Zenna Henderson, “Loo Ree”
See as well other posts now tagged Lurie.
Thursday, December 3, 2020
For Alison Lurie (Sept. 3, 1926 — December 3, 2020)
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Sunday, May 9, 2010
For Miss Prothero (and Dylan Thomas)
Friday’s post “Religion at Harvard” continues…
This list may be of some use to
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein, who, like Prothero,
spoke recently at Harvard Book Store.
See also Rosalind Krauss on Grids,
An Education, and Plan 9 from Outer Space.
Readers more advanced than Harvard audiences
may wish to compare yesterday’s linked-to story
“Loo Ree” with the works of Alison Lurie—
in particular, Imaginary Friends and Familiar Spirits.
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Saturday, May 8, 2010
A Better Story —
Or, “Get me rewrite!”
Today’s New York Times online–
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein imagines a story about academics discussing literary theory—
“Rumors had reached us of a doctrine called Theory emanating from distant corners of the university. We in the Department of Philosophy understood it immediately as a grand hoax. I will not dwell on my particular amusement, in which I was so tragically at odds with my collaborator, Theo Rhee….
… It was at this moment that Hans Furth appeared and ambled over….”
And thanks to Google Books, here he is—
“…I can imagine the decisive evolutionary beginnings of humans and societies… not in an adult version, but in the playful mentality of children…. An unlikely story? Perhaps. I am looking out for a better story.”
— Hans G. Furth, Desire for Society: Children’s Knowledge as Social Imagination, published by Springer, 1996, p. 181
As am I. (See previous post.) One possibility, from 1943— “Mimsy Were the Borogoves.”
Another possibility, from 1953— not Theo Rhee, but rather “Loo Ree.”
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Thursday, June 3, 2004
Thursday June 3, 2004
STAR WARS
Continued…
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Today’s New York Times story on Richard Helms, together with my reminiscences in the entry that follows it below, suggest the following possibility for symbol-mongering:
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Not even the most powerful
can alter the alignment
of the stars.
In a related story….
The Good Bad Boy
By Alison Lurie
“Today, many people have the illusion that they know who Pinocchio is. They think that he is a wooden marionette who becomes a human boy; that he was swallowed by a huge fish; and that when he told lies his nose grew longer. These people are right, but often in a very limited way. They know Pinocchio only from the sentimentalized and simplified Disney cartoon, or the condensed versions of his story that are thought more suitable for children. The original novel by Carlo Collodi, which today survives mainly in scholarly editions, is much longer, far more complex and interesting, and also much darker.”
— The New York Review of Books, June 24, 2004