Louisiana Books

This book is, in effect, two books in one. The first section is a dual-language selection of John Owen's Latin epigrams, which are by turns laugh-out-loud funny and vulgar and oddly pious. My Latin is very rusty, but it is a pleasure to read the Latin and compare it to the translations, which are sometimes faithful to the letter of the original, but always faithful to the artistic spirit of the Owen's poems.

The second section is a playful re-telling of Spenser's Faerie Queene. This section is even better than the first, both in terms of readerly enjoyment, and scholarly interest. I'm planning a class on re-tellings, and this book is certain to be on the syllabus. The outrageous fun Slavitt has with Spenser's epic in this long poem of his is a joy to encounter.

So, get thee hence and purchase this fine volume!

Years ago a good friend of mine, who knew Voegelin personally, recommended that I read him. It was not until recently that I delved into his works, motivated mostly by the increase in fundamentalism and falsified consciousness in U.S. society (and elsewhere). Voegelin's own works are daunting in their sheer volume, but I have found Franz's little book a superb accounting of the most essential parts of Voegelin's thought, at least of the parts that are of most interest to me. Franz writes clearly and captures well the depth and expanse of Voegelin's panoramic mindset.
If I can register one minor complaint: though Marxism as a closed ideology has its problems, I would disagree with Franz's judgment (in a footnote on p. 116) that "the ideology has NEVER had much going for it in terms of empirical support or theoretical cogency." Despite the weakness of its philosophical underpinnings, I believe that as an analytical tool for understanding what's happening in today's economy, Marxism still has much worth. And that is precisely its appeal, not some hankering after an illusory communistic paradise.
But this is a minor complaint. Franz makes Voegelin highly accessible to people who will never be able to navigate the ocean of his collected works, and I recommend his book highly to anyone who wants to understand not only Voegelin but the radical nature of the crisis of our small-minded society.

Ms. Cherry's *Exiled Heart* deserves any accolade one can muster: moving, extraordinary, strikingly intelligent, and--yes--heartbreaking. Ms. Cherry's meditations upon fate's intrusions into love are a balance of braininess and passion.

Steve Vivian

Dr. Bainard Cowan's masterpiece on Moby Dick is the result of a deep and thoughtful consideration of the work in the great context of the epic tradition. The cosmos of Moby Dick is presented in light of the puritan world picture which denies the open and honest exploration of the untamed beauty of creation. This in depth penetration beyond the glassy surface, of what some have mistook to be merely an adventure novel, reveals the mystery that Ishmael is so hungry to experience. Faced with the figure of Ahab, whose character is revealed in very short bursts of narrative clarity, Ishmael must wrestle with the corrupted view of Leviathan bestowed on him by Ahab and the indifference of nature. Dr. Cowan's book is good for any serious scholar of literature who faces the problems of a withering Academy. I entreat you to explore these exiled waters to come to a deeper understanding of the American Myth which is so important to the restoration of our culture.

Great! THis is the best book I've ever read

I found this book to be a great way to learn about public hiking trails in CNY area. It has many details about access, estimated time, and conditions on the trails. One particularly useful feature is that it has a copy of a topographic map of the area with the trail clearly marked. Has a map showing the relative positions of each trail across the region with the table of contents. I like this book because it gives me ideas about new places to explore with lots of specific information.

I highly recommend this book and LSU grad Chris Warner's "A Tailgater's Guide to SEC Football"

Both are must-haves for the die-hard LSU fan.

This book is an extremely comprehensive collection of LSU Tiger Football history. I have had it for months and have just begun to scratch the surface. Anyone who ever played for the Tigers up until the publication year is listed in this book, along with the years and positions that they played. In addition, there are amazing facts and stories recorded here. Finney does a fine job of capturing the spirit of LSU Football. This ain't light reading, however as most people know, most Tiger fans don't do anything lightly.

This is a marvelous effort which offers insights into the philosophical background of key spokesmen in the Disunion/Secession movement. Focusing on nine such figures (such as Rhett, Wigfall, Ruffin...), Walther weaves a mini-biography of sorts, along with discussion of the contribution these "fire-eaters" made to the fruition of their efforts - formal Secession of core Southern states, after the election of Black Republican apostle, A. Lincoln. Walther shows the how the "abstract" art of politics finally leads to "tangible" armed conflict - conflict which in many ways was given an intellectual basis by the writings and actions of the nine Southerners outlined in this book. As I often tend to more military oriented studies, Walther's Fire-Eaters was a wonderful sidebar! I recommend this book to all Civil War students, especially, of course, those with a particular slant toward CSA studies.

Fred Chappell, First and Last Words (Louisiana State U., 1989)

If every poem in Fred Chappell's eighth collection, First and Last Words, were as good as "An Old Mountain Woman Reading the Book of Job," Fred Chappell would have written, hands down, the finest book of poetry released during the twentieth century. They aren't, not all of them, but a fair number are good enough to put this book in, say, the top twenty, sharing the rarefied air of Charles Simic's The World Doesn't End, Robert Lowell's Lord Weary's Castle, Hayden Carruth's Collected Shorter Poems, and other such lights.

First and Last Words, a book that can loosely be called the beginning of Chappell's modern period, is where the poet turned slightly from the hardcore imagist work he'd been doing previously and looked toward a more abstract notion of poetry. He did so, however, without falling prey to the vagueness (or, lord help us, the idea that poems should be "message-based") that turns so many potential poets into unreadable hacks. Nowehere is this better illustrated than in "An Old Mountain Woman Reading the Book of Job."

"...She moves her lips to read but does not speak.
What is there to answer these terrible words,
To these sharp final words that engrave the fate
Of a hammered old man?..."

Beautifully rendered images combine with musings of characters, animals, even the elements at times. First and Last Words is brilliant, and deserves to be on the short shelf. **** ½