A colleague shared a project with me that really brought home how much literary taste has changed. The book is an edgy parody of an academic journal, with its barbs and satire extending to its footnotes and ads. One article investigates, for example, whether Sylvia Plath's birth certificate is authentic.
Intellectual foolery like this was common in the sixties from authors like Barthelme, Coover, Barth. The thing is, the humor assumes certain knowledge, which is lost or fading today. I doubt if many of my colleague's own students would get the satire.
But I loved it. And I loved the fact that he spent so much time and energy on something so esoteric.
There's a great line in the book:
He wanted to become the reader for whom his book was true.
Don't we all.
