Candor and Perversion: Literature

With incisive analysis, he elucidates the nature of intellectual craftsmanship, defends arts undeniable moral component, and, faced with an academic world shattered by theory, laments how extra-literary politics have grown increasingly dominant, now attempting to eliminate the very category of literature. Whether commenting on Foucault, <em>Pulp Fiction</em>, Georgia OKeeffe, V.S. Naipaul, or the survival of a core tradition in the humanities, Shattuck presents a stirring synthesis of the principles and values by which we can live together as a nation finally at peace with its diversity. A <em>Los Angeles Times</em> Best Book of the Year and a <em>TLS</em> Notable Book of 1999.