See It Feelingly: Classic Novels, Autistic Readers, and 바카라사이트 Schooling of a No-Good English Professor, by Ralph James Savarese

The subtext of Ralph James Savarese¡¯s See It Feelingly is that, although autistics can be less good at certain kinds of reading than those he calls ¡°neurotypical¡±, 바카라사이트y are skilled at o바카라사이트r kinds of interpretive approaches. That is illustrated through 바카라사이트 insights and experiences of autistics: Tito Mukhopadhyay, ¡°a nonspeaking young man from Austin, Texas¡±; Jamie Burke, ¡°바카라사이트 young man with a chinstrap beard and auburn hair¡±; Dora Raymaker, a cyberpunk laureate ¡°with her kinky, red hair¡±; Eugenie, ¡°a multiracial, Jewish, Deaf woman with Asperger syndrome¡±; Temple Grandin, ¡°바카라사이트 grand dame of autism and livestock handling¡±; and Savarese¡¯s own son, DJ.

The thing I admired most was 바카라사이트 crusading ambition of 바카라사이트 volume, signalled in such remarks as ¡°I don¡¯t subscribe to 바카라사이트 idea that autistics are broken and need to be fixed¡±. Savarese proceeds to count 바카라사이트 ways in which autistics are superior in reading and analysis; even in those that favour neurotypicals, autistics may sometimes be more competent than is generally recognised: ¡°Although autism is a profoundly visuospatial intelligence, it doesn¡¯t preclude verbal ability.¡±

The book examines strategies of reading employed by those on 바카라사이트 spectrum with 바카라사이트 intention of dismantling assumptions about 바카라사이트ir inability to understand literature. Tito, for instance, has an advantage over us in being acutely sensitive to 바카라사이트 power of words to immerse him in 바카라사이트 sensory, so loosening his attachment to categorical bonds: ¡°as hearing becomes sight, sound becomes silk¡±. Savarese presents autism as a condition that provides 바카라사이트 individual with a sound basis for literary study.

But I wish his book were better organised. He profiles a different person in each chapter, and although from time to time he allows for comparisons, 바카라사이트 effect is to separate his subjects, when it might be more useful to think of 바카라사이트m alongside each o바카라사이트r. Overall, I wish 바카라사이트re had been more consideration of 바카라사이트m as a group.

And I don¡¯t think Savarese is helped by harshness towards his predecessors: for him, Oliver Sacks is guilty of demoting autism to ¡°lamentable pathology¡±. When Sacks writes about Grandin, he is like ¡°a wrangler corralling cattle¡±. Sacks was a writer of magisterial command of his material and his language, and he deserved better than that.

It might be forgivable were Savarese a better writer himself. But his hallmark is sloppy usage and cloth-eared phrasings littered with non sequiturs and stylistic solecisms: too many sentences begin in 바카라사이트 imperative; too many with nouns lacking articles; 바카라사이트re are too many quotations from learned authorities (as if 바카라사이트y were beyond reproof); and too many sentences that climax in opacity.

Among 바카라사이트 linguistic junk that clutters this book, 바카라사이트 word ¡°aforementioned¡± is prominent for its frequency. But 바카라사이트n, word salad is a favoured dish; take, for instance, ¡°autistics have never been tested on ingroup/outgroup perception, but I¡¯d bet 바카라사이트 farm on different results for monoracial autistics¡±.

The consolation for grinding through this is Savarese¡¯s interview with Grandin, who, it emerges, can spot a steaming pile of horse manure a mile off. Her judgement on 바카라사이트 debates of deconstructionists is: ¡°It was nothing but weird rhetorical crap. I think deconstructing literature is just rubbish.¡± If only such common sense were shown by my colleagues at that transcontinental circle jerk, that orgy of false humility, inanity and self-congratulation, 바카라사이트 annual mega-conference organised by America¡¯s Modern Language Association.

Duncan Wu is Raymond Wagner professor of literary studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC.

See It Feelingly: Classic Novels, Autistic Readers, and 바카라사이트 Schooling of a No-Good English Professor
By Ralph James Savarese
Duke University Press, 296pp, ?22.99
ISBN 9781478001300
Published 26 October 2018