Customer Reviews

English Majors: A Comedy Collection for the Highly Literate (Prairie Home Companion)

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I am a huge Garrison Keillor fan - I buy everything I can get my hands on (on audio CD) and it makes my drive time so enjoyable. I stopped listening to this one only because it has so much inside humour that my little non English major brain didn't understand or didn't find humourous. I intend to give in to my brother who lives in Minnesota and has a PHD in English, loved Shakespeare and I know he'll enjoy it better than this music major did.

I am not an English Major but I "got it". If you haven't read The Scarlet Letter, On the Road, seen Hamlet in the theatre or any of the other pieces of literature recently or ever at all, it is time you read them. The reason they are classics is that they are good stories. The way Garrison Keillor explains it, you get a lot more out of it, than when you took American Lit. in high school or college from someone who was tired of trying to impress morality on someone not particularly interested in that subject. Keillor's interpretation plus thirty years' distance will do wonders for you sometimes.

I enjoyed this compilation of English Major inside humor from Garison Keillor, and I did laugh out loud a few times, but the previous reviewer is right in that the humor is very "inside" and esoteric. If you didn't just spend like four years as an undergrad and two years in grad school studying English, you probably won't find these jokes funny, or even get them. But for the nerdy bookworm English major out there, slaving over Tolstoy and rewriting that term paper, this is for you.

There is some wonderful material here -- excerpts from Garrison Keillor's "A Prairie Home Companion" that relate to literature and poetry. "Six Minute Hamlet" was a raucous and off-kilter condensation of The Danish Play, while "For Whom?" featured an English major working at a fast food joint taking grammar to its logical and brutal extreme. There's a great Guy Noir piece as well as a couple of Keillor's extended stories about Lake Wobegon, including a wonderful story about the new English teacher in a pink halter top who lives in the ghost-ridden Hochstetter house. Some of the musical interludes were terrific, including an updated folk tune about a writerly John Henry in a writing duel with a laptop computer. Some decent poetry too, especially a piece called "The Lanyard" by Billy Collins and a funny story about southern eating habits.

There was also plenty of pretention along the way. Allen Ginsburg reading a long passage from Walt Whitman's Song of Myself, semi-accompanied by folk instruments was long and dull and included mostly I guess for the star power. A piece about a family car trip "a la" Kerouac was neither funny nor respectful to the great Beat writer. "The Family Shakespeare" was basically a retread of "Six Minute Hamlet", and "Ten Minute Macbeth" ("voiced" by Henry Kissinger, Fred Rogers and Jack Nicolson) was just not funny. The live audience backs me up on that. And playing Hester Prynne as an airheaded valley girl was more predictable than funny.

At $25 or 2-1/2 hours of material, or $10 an hour, this 2-CD set might make a nice graduation gift for the English major in your life. But given the uneven quality of the material, I'd opt for picking up a copy at the local library.

I have always enjoyed the running gag on Prairie Home Companion about English majors. Being a lover of language, and someone who develops a twitch when she hears people use subjective pronouns in objective positions, I can laugh at myself while laughing at the humor. BUT . . . this CD set was something of a disappointment. PHC has featured many, many wonderful sketches about English majors, and yet only a small handful were included! Also, although I enjoyed several of the readings, I wish it had been made clear on the CD cover that a significant number of the tracks were readings and not comedic sketches or parodies.

If you understand what you're getting before you buy this set, you should be happy with it. But, if you buy it based on the cover information and expect it to be primarily English major sketches from the show, you probably won't be. I feel that it's really two quite different projects mashed into one set, and it doesn't quite achieve either goal.

this is mostly a good collection of very dry garrison keillor humor, but the material is very uneven. some of the material is really funny and engaging to many sorts of listeners. other material is stretched out and ceases, in slow motion, to be funny for anyone. the title is well-chosen: many of the best, laughter-evoking passages do require some knowledge of literature so that the hearer will "get" the parody or satire in progress. that's fine with me, but my high-school kids couldn't make some connections. for those who care, i'd add that the collection is so "clean" as to be tedious.
i recommend this product with such reservations as i've given above. amazon's good price made the purchase worth-while.

This compilation of skits, poetry readings, songs, and ruminations on classic literature is very engaging. Keillor's dry humor and unsurpassed storytelling ability make this collection worth a listen. I did feel that some of the references and humor might be difficult for some people to grasp, but, all in all, these CD'S are just plain fun and should not pose a problem. The first disk is far superior to the second. I felt that the second CD dragged at places, and the rendition of Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself," (performed by Alan Ginsberg), was overdramatic and unnecessary. The parody of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter was too silly and, frankly, insulting to have any merit. The second CD did have some gems, my favorite track being a beautiful rendition of Mary Oliver's "The Wild Geese," read by actress Marel Streep. My favorite pieces in the collection are as follows:

1. "Guy Noir: Private Eye": The humorous private detective, (portrayed by Keillor), goes to New York City to buoy the spirits of a first-time poet who has received a bad review from a writer with another agenda. This piece was hilareous and featured poet laureate Billy Collins as the bad guy.
2. "Lanyard": This poem is a tribute to mother's everywhere. It's humor and poignancy are truly beautiful. The author, Billy Collins, reads the poem wonderfully well.
3. "For Whom": My absolute favorite skit of the bunch, this scene features an English major, (Keillor), working at a fast-food establishment. "Welcome to Buggeda-Buggeda. May I interest you in one of our jumbo joe-joe meals with the half-pound Buggeda-Buggeda burger, the big bucket of fries and the half-gallon vanilla shimmy-shimmy shake all for $5.49?" I was in stitches by the end!
4. "Southern Eating Habits": A wonderful piece by Roy Blount, Jr., about the delight to be found in a meal with family. Humorous and poignant. "We only have so much appetite allotted to us was my feeling, and it's a shame to run any risk of not using it all!"
5. "The Ten-Minute Macbeth": Although this piece dragged at times, the primise was great, and Tim Russell, the voice actor on the show, performed every character. "Celebrity Classics: Featuring Mr. Rogers as Macbeth, Jack Nickholson as the Thane of Ross, Henry Kissinger as King Duncan, Bill Clinton as Macduff, and, above all, Lady Macbeth? Julia Child!"

Please give this collection a chance. God bless you all.

Bought this as a gift for my English major daughter, so I can't speak to the quality. It arrived promptly and looked to be in good condition. I love the English major spots on Prairie Home Companion and hope that my daughter will enjoy the CD!

The best of Garrison Keillor and his group. If you enjoy Prarie Home Companion, you'll love this.