tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post952709078434110844..comments2024-03-28T05:13:13.921-04:00Comments on Books, Inq. — The Epilogue: Sounds interesting ...Frank Wilsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18410473158808750903noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-46177819503724362422009-02-20T21:19:00.000-05:002009-02-20T21:19:00.000-05:00Thanbk you, Buce, for thinking so well of me. I wa...Thanbk you, Buce, for thinking so well of me. I was a good drunk, as was my old man. In fact. a psychiatrist once said I was the best drunk he had ever seen. By which he meant that I could remain lucid after consuming appalling amounts of liquor. I guess there's something to be said for that. But my point is that I just liked to drink. It was a form of gluttony and there was no profound psychological reason for it. (That was the difference between my father and me: His drinking was grounded in a terrible tragedy. But that is private matter.)Frank Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18410473158808750903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-38935716662895727042009-02-20T21:15:00.000-05:002009-02-20T21:15:00.000-05:00Well, Lynne, that certainly is a nasty review (I t...Well, Lynne, that certainly is a nasty review (I think I may have linked to it here when it ran). I think the key to it lies here: "A graduate of the prestigious Dalton School in Manhattan and Brown University, Jacobs is a prime example of that curiously modern innovation: the pedigreed simpleton."<BR/>Why do I think that? Because Queenan, whom I do not know, went to the same college I did, a Jesuit college, and if there is anything you get from a Jesuit college it is an absence of any sense educational inferiority. And yet Jacobs went to schools that should immunize one against that also. But he pretends to be a dunce. That said, I do think Queenan's review is over the top, and, as your own experience attests, maybe not an entirely accurate account of the book. But reviewing is not a science.Frank Wilsonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/18410473158808750903noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-62914779158761595622009-02-20T20:45:00.000-05:002009-02-20T20:45:00.000-05:00Frank, at the risk seeming impudent, it is hard to...Frank, at the risk seeming impudent, it is hard to imagine you being a common anything.<BR/><BR/>I do wonder what got Queenan's back up about Jacobs. He isn't usually that mean.Bucehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16452321114185736762noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10178279.post-36472271228272189082009-02-20T20:22:00.000-05:002009-02-20T20:22:00.000-05:00The problem I have with Joe Queenan is that he cro...The problem I have with Joe Queenan is that he crosses the line from humor to meanness. I'm thinking of his scathing and ugly review in the NYT on October 3, 2004 of a book called The Know It All by A.J. Jacobs. I found that book knee-slapping funny. I found the review gratuitously cruel. Here is the link. See if you agree:<BR/><BR/>http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=<BR/>9B07E7DE1E39F930A35753C1A9629C8B63Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com