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The Pooh Perplex : A Freshman Casebook |  | Author: Frederick C. Crews
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Category: Book
List Price: $16.00
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Rating:  7 reviews
Sales Rank: 192254
Media: Paperback
Pages: 164
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.2 x 0.4
ISBN: 0226120589
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.912
EAN: 9780226120584
ASIN: 0226120589
Publication Date: February 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In this devastatingly funny classic, Frederick Crews skewers the ego-inflated pretensions of the schools and practitioners of literary criticism popular in the 1960s, including Freudians, Aristotelians, and New Critics. Modeled on the "casebooks" often used in freshman English classes at the time, The Pooh Perplex contains twelve essays written in different critical voices, complete with ridiculous footnotes, tongue-in-cheek "questions and study projects," and hilarious biographical notes on the contributors. This edition contains a new preface by the author that compares literary theory then and now and identifies some of the real-life critics who were spoofed in certain chapters.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
 Keep You In Confusion November 10, 2009
Kevin L. Nenstiel (Kearney, Nebraska)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Frederick Crews made his name back in 1963 with this punchy, sardonic parody of academic self-importance. Over 45 years later, it retains its power to cut to the quick. Though not laugh-out-loud hilarious, it has a wit that exposes truth to the light of day. Though it goes on a bit longer than is actually necessary to prove its point, it remains a reminder to those of us who work with words and ideas of why we need to be humble.
In his facetious introduction, Crews tells eager freshman that this book "is frankly designed to keep you in confusion." Since too many freshman texts to exactly that, this take is all too just. The satirical articles then go on to deflate the most pompous mid-century literary critics, including Lacan, Bloom, and Eliot. Some of the references may be dated, but even if we don't recognize all of Crews' individual targets, we know the type.
The paradoxical aspect is that this book could almost be used to teach how to do criticism correctly. By mocking what the various schools do wrong to make themselves ridiculous, Crews also shows how they can be made communicative and useful. That being the case, every English major should have a copy of this book thrust into their hands. Literate and dense, but readable and funny, this is a must for all of us working in the humanities.
 First-rate satire June 14, 2006
Librum (CA, USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
If I ever read Winnie the Pooh, it was decades ago and I have long since forgotten it. An ignorance of WtP, however, is no obstacle to reading TPP. As others note, below, TPP is a terrific sendup of literary theories (and theorists) current in the mid-sixties academy. (It is often laugh-out-loud funny.) The critical intention that underlies this slim volume is also very much on the mark. TPP would be a satisfying read for critical thinkers everywhere, and an instructive read for anyone lacking in critical faculties. (Hmm...A mandatory read for rising college freshmen...?)
Brilliant and funny January 30, 2006
A. J. Cornish Bowden (Marseilles, France)
10 out of 10 found this review helpful
It was probably the publication of Postmodern Pooh, Frederick Crews's second venture into Pooh studies, that explains the renewed availability of The Pooh Perplex more than 40 years after its first appearance. But whatever the reason, it is an excellent thing that modern readers can get hold of it, both because it is a brilliant and witty book in itself and also because it makes a natural companion for Postmodern Pooh.
For those who have not met the book before it should be explained that it is a series of parodies of different styles of literary criticism (those that were fashionable in the 1960s) applied to Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, collected together as a "case book" of the kind that was then popular for elementary English courses, and accompanied by Questions and Study Projects prepared by the editor, ostensibly Crews himself, but in reality as much of a parody as the articles themselves.
No doubt one would need to be familiar already with the parodied styles to get the most from the book, but no matter; one can get a great deal of amusement from it without any specialist knowledge, and some of the sources are fairly obvious even to non-specialists, the Freudian analysis by "Karl Anschauung", for example, or the proletarian analysis by "Martin Tempralis". On the other hand, readers born since the book was written may not easily recognize F. R. Leavis thinly disguised as "Simon Lacerous".
The non-specialist reader will easily be tempted to believe that Crews is exaggerating. Surely no serious expert on English literature could really express some of the sillier ideas expressed in this book? Alas, he amply demonstrates with real quotations from real (and apparently serious) publications that they could and they did.
The Pooh Perplex December 5, 2005
Zoe Gibbons
21 out of 21 found this review helpful
I first read The Pooh Perplex in the summer before my freshman year of college; my father presented it to me as an encapsulation of the reasons why he had abandoned his English major. I had not yet encountered Leavis, Crane, and the other critics so marvelously parodied in Crews's book, but I spent a good few hours shrieking with laughter at Myron Masterson's vision of Kanga as castrating "'Mom' figure" and Simon Lacerous's characterization of the bear himself as a flabby old Tory with a string of knightly titles and an overfondness for condensed milk.
Then I came to college and took a Literary Criticism and Theory class; with wonder, I recognized in my casebook more and more of the bizarre characters inhabiting Crews's topsy-turvy hermeneutic milieu. Oddest of all, I found that my reading of The Pooh Perplex had actually provided me with a fairly solid overview of structuralism, Marxist theory, and other critical concoctions my professor obliged me to imbibe. And when I gave Crews's work a second reading, I discovered a myriad of hilarities that had previously passed me by.
Though it is depressing that Crews's zany satire can help a student of literature grasp the principal critical theories of the past fifty years, I disagree with my father's justification for forsaking his major. Many critics unintentionally self-parody; to endure their bombast, the reader must absorb the good, dismiss the inane, and find in the ludicrous a scrap or two of humor. Fortunately, we have Crews to assist us with that last task. Satire is a dying art; read The Pooh Perplex to understand why it is still necessary.
Wonderfully funny stuff April 9, 2003
Christopher Tessone (Durham, NC USA)
15 out of 16 found this review helpful
I ran across a reference to Postmodern Pooh about a week ago, and I decided to read Crews' first Pooh satire before reading the latest. What a gas! Crews takes the prevalent methods of literary criticism leading up to the 1960s and apes them with a deft touch. One of my favorite moments was when "C. J. L. Culpepper, D.Litt., Oxon.," after determining the Christic nature of Eeyore, declares that Christopher Robin is a stand-in for God the Father. He proves this simply: "Christopher Robin" is an anagram for "I HOPE CHRIST BORN. R." ("I take this to be a decree in the hortatory imperative, dispatched to the Heavenly Host, urging the speedy fulfillment of the Incarnation and signed 'R' for REX.")Admittedly, the book does drag at times, but only rarely, and probably due to Crews' too perfect mimicry of the rather dry literary personae being roasted over the flames. Not many books make me laugh out loud on every page -- this is one of them.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 7
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