The Counterfeiters: An Historical Comedy [Hardcover]

Professor Hugh Kenner (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 1, 1985

"This is one of the best short books of literary criticism that I know."—Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism

Wide-ranging enough to encompass Buster Keaton, Charles Babbage, horses, and a man riding a bicycle while wearing a gas mask, The Counterfeiters is one of Hugh Kenner's greatest achievements. In this fascinating work of literary and cultural criticism, Kenner seeks the causes and outcomes of man's ability to simulate himself (a computer that can calculate quicker than we can) and his world (a mechanical duck that acts the same as a living one).

This intertangling of art and science, of man and machine, of machine and art is at the heart of this book. He argues that the belief in art as a uniquely human expression is complicated and questioned by the prevalence of simulations—or "counterfeits"—in our culture. Kenner, with his characteristically accessible style and wit, brings together history, literature, science, and art to locate the personal in what is an increasingly counterfeit world.

--This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[A] wryly erudite, free-form excursion in modern culture... Kenner's theme, one Kafka would have appreciated, is the fast-fading distinction between the human and the mechanical, between originals and copies. His witty ground includes Gulliver, Buster Keaton, the computer, faked antiques, streetcorner happenings, Godel's Proof, and Andy Warhol... Continually engaging and often perceptive." -- Jerusalem Post

About the Author

Hugh Kenner (1923–2003)—born in Ontario, Canada—was one of the greatest literary critics of the twentieth century. He taught at several universities during his lifetime and was a frequent contributor to the National Review. His numerous critical books include The Pound Era, Joyce’s Voices, Samuel Beckett: A Critical Study, Flaubert, Joyce and Beckett: The Stoic Comedians, and Gnomon.

As Bruce Bawer wrote in Bookforum, "the late Guy Davenport (1927-2005) left behind an oeuvre that is one long lesson in the history of civilization, and to read any part of it—story, essay, or translation—is to be enthralled by his unflagging intellectual energy and engagement." His books include The Geography of the Imagination, The Death of Picasso, Herakleitos and Diogenes, A Table of Green Fields, The Cardiff Team, DaVinci's Bicycle, and many more. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 182 pages
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press (October 1, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 080182981X
• ISBN-13: 978-0801829819
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #448,917 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Sadness, May 13, 2009

By 

Mick McAllister - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Counterfeiters: An Historical Comedy (American Literature Series) (Paperback)

I read The Counterfeiters (in effectively one sitting) with some sadness. I realized that only a few more books remain before I will have read everything Hugh Kenner has written. He was one of the geniuses of the century, and The Counterfeiters shows him at his best. Imagine The Critique of Pure Reason written in the form of a few offhand essays about Buster Keaton. Imagine laughing out loud in the middle of a scholarly essay.

What Kenner has done in this book is to demolish, with Keatonesque deadpan, the rationalist foundation of Western culture. He is brilliant on Keaton. He is brilliant on Pope and Swift (the best reading of Swift's intentions in Gulliver's Travels that I've ever seen, and I have a PhD in 18C English Lit). He is brilliant on Andy Warhol and Alan Turing.

Kenner is often more interesting to read than his subject. I've never been able to finish Ulysses; Dublin's Joyce is a feast from beginning to end. Pound is an acquired taste; The Pound Era reads like a novel, Umberto Eco without the snobbery. Whether he is writing about William Butler Yeats, Buckminster Fuller, Chuck Jones, or William Carlos Williams, what he has to say will be challenging, well-informed, and entertaining. This is a literary scholar who had a column in Byte magazine for years.

Kenner died a few years ago after a long and productive life, leaving behind as legacy a dozen of the most accessible and valuable works of literary criticism in contemporary letters. The Counterfeiters is a great place to meet this amazing mind.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!, February 3, 2009

By 

Bonze Anne Rose Blayk "bonze blayk" (Ithaca, NY) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Counterfeiters: An Historical Comedy (American Literature Series) (Paperback)

"The Counterfeiters" is a humorous work of genius of the sort one doesn't usually associate with "literary criticism"... ranging over topics as diverse as comically Bad Poetry, Alan Turing's Turing Machine (and Turing Game), Andy Warhol, and Buster Keaton's comic artistry, Kenner probes the nature of identity and "humanitas". His prose style is remarkably clever and lucid; his prose is complemented by Guy Davenport's illustrations (e.g., "Mr. Andy Warhol Fetches a Work of Art Through a Metaphysical Barrier", depicting Warhol taking a can of Campbell's Tomato Soup from the shelf, one soon to be transformed into a Genuine Warhol Soup Can through the magic of his signature).

This short book is well worth reading... and re-reading. I picked this off the shelf at the age of seventeen, didn't get half of it, but still found it both marvelously entertaining and thought-provoking. I still do, 35 years later!