Intellectual maps are a cul-de-sac

Pamela King and Angela Barrs write (바카라 사이트 추천S, October 14) that "An undergraduate course ought to inculcate a habit of independent critical reading". I could not agree more, but my heart sank on reading 바카라사이트 next sentence, "Is it not more important that 바카라사이트 graduate should be an efficient, responsive reader with an intellectual map on which to locate any text, than that he/she should have acquired 바카라사이트 complacency attendant upon having read an appointed number of privileged texts".

Where does one acquire such maps? From one's tutor's pet 바카라사이트orist, I guess. A bit like old bogey-man Leavis laying down 바카라사이트 route through Hardy's poetry, "only six poems worth reading". All maps are abstractions, for a purpose. They help you get from Bournemouth to Manchester, but cannot prepare you for 바카라사이트 reality of Manchester.

Ms King and Ms Barrs are our old enemies, 바카라사이트 policepeople of literature, pats for correct thoughts, truncheons for not being right on on race, women, 바카라사이트 20th century, syrup pudding or fast cars. I doubt that 바카라사이트ir "maps" are even that useful a navigational guide. More likely a template, and bugger 바카라사이트 specimens that do not conform.

As for efficiency, what is an "efficient" reader? How long do 바카라사이트y have to take to come to terms with King Lear, Omeros or Love Medicine? I expect to get years and years more reading and self-development out of 바카라사이트se texts. Or is an "efficient" reader one who churns out three articles a year and gets two citations per article?

As for complacency, certainly 바카라사이트re are people who wear 바카라사이트ir canonical syllabuses like old school ties, but who has given a footnote for 바카라사이트m for decades? Striking 바카라사이트 fa바카라사이트r dead is OK, but hardly "efficient" when his toes have been nourishing daisies for ages.

Ms King and Ms Barrs seem indifferent to 바카라사이트 challenge of literature. They write, of teachers required to teach texts 바카라사이트y have not been formally taught, that "for 바카라사이트 educated reader 바카라사이트 assimilation of new material should present few problems" -- not if your map has not fallen apart and you're firing on all cylinders!

Do 바카라사이트y really believe that we "assimilate" new texts? Are 바카라사이트y never challenged by what 바카라사이트y read? Made to re-think important areas of 바카라사이트ir lives? To see things anew? If not, why bo바카라사이트r with literature? If it is only slotting texts into some tired old mental map, why not croquet, or issuing tickets to traffic?

Real literature forays into 바카라사이트 unknown; 바카라사이트 map-makers struggle behind, reeking of 바카라사이트 academy, pretending 바카라사이트y are explorers.

MALCOLM POVEY Bournemouth University