@edgarblythe,
I'm gobsmacked ed.
I just read Anthony Burgess' account of his time as Distinguished Visiting Professor at City College, New York. It's in Part Four of You've Had Your Time. I have read the book previously but long before I joined A2K. The latter experience has given it a focus it didn't have the first time through.
I have always known that I was writing my posts across a cultural divide. But that it is quite so wide as Burgess depicts it has gobsmacked me.
Student lethargy being casually put down to "they were all going to pass anyway". Which says a great deal about such expressions as "when I graduated" and "my students". And also about why most of my posts are not understood.
The democratisation of education is an utter disaster. It's proponents have to hate Jesuits as a matter of course and disguise the hate under a barrage of criticism on other, and quite separate grounds having nothing to do with education.
Anybody voluntarily going to the US after reading Burgess, and at their own expense, needs their head reading.
I shall try to take it into account in future. Good luck with your book.
It seems, according to AB, that in the US books are not meant to be read. They are meant to be sold and reviewed and talked about on chat shows and at cocktail parties to the point where they can be discussed at such length that it might easily seem that they have been read. The publisher's PR being quite sufficient for a lengthy review.
I learned to take no notice of reviews, or what they spawn, years ago. Flaubert's one off response to Sainte-Beuve's scholarly review of Salammbo flattened reviewers for ever in my eyes. And it flattened Sainte-Beuve as well.
