Customer Reviews

The Pooh Perplex : A Freshman Casebook

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

This is a brilliant send-up of the pretentious critiques that has masqueraded as literary criticism since pseudo-intellectualism was first invented by which mental-nonentities could parade as our moral superiors. Just read it. Absolutely convincing, and a breath of fresh air. You will love it - unless you are one of the poseurs, of course. But it will still be devastatingly funny.

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...?)

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.

An hilarious parody of intellectual analyses of Winnie the Pooh. A must-read if you are tired of seeing "The Tao of Pooh," "The Tei of Piglet," etc.

The Pooh Perplex is a parody of literary criticism, presenting the views of some twelve fictitious critics on A. A. Milne's "Winnie the Pooh." It's meant to be funny. Whether readers find it funny may depend on their sense of humour, how carefully they read, and whether they find humour that concerns homosexuality to be offensive. While there is no direct mention of homosexuality anywhere in the book (the specific word "homosexuality" is not used), there is unmistakable innuendo, and it deserves some examination.

Here is one of Crews' imagined writers ("Myron Masterson"), on Pooh:

""Alas, poor Tigger! Nothing in the forest is fit for him to eat but Roo's extract of malt, which must be administered by Kanga. And could we reasonably expect this matriarch to stand by idly and watch her household being overrun with sheer maleness? She sinks her hooks into Tigger at once:
'Well, look in my cupboard, Tigger dear, and see what you'd like.' Because she knew at once that, however big Tigger seemed to be, he wanted as much kindness as Roo.
As much kindness as Roo, forsooth! Sinclair Lewis, Wright Morris, and Evan S. Connell, Jr., all working together could never nauseate us half so successfully as does the picture of Kanga waving good-by to Roo and Tigger as they take their water-cress and extract-of-malt sandwiches off for a sexless dejeuner sur l'herbe. It is when things have reached this sorry pass that the inevitable homoerotic alternative to compulsory innocence suddenly offers itself to Kanga's victims."

Crews/Masterson goes on like that for several more paragraphs. He tells us how Piglet was "agog at the thought of seeing Christopher Robin's blue braces" again. He tells us how Christopher Robin was "flattered and attracted" by a "fetishistic response to his little striptease" and how he "has designs on one of the tiny scholars with whom he is now learning spelling and mathematics". You get the idea. "Masterson" seems to be suggesting that Kanga is responsible for what he believes to be Tigger and Roo's homosexuality (Freudian ideas about the development of homosexuality were still dominant in the early 1960s, when The Pooh Perplex was first published, and it doesn't seem to me that Crews' intention was to ridicule them; he was in his Freudian phase at the time). Elsewhere in The Pooh Perplex, "Murphy A. Sweat" (joking about whether a boy will become a homosexual) admits that Christopher Robin "sounds like a fairy but it's too early to tell."

If you think that homosexuality is intrinsically funny and that ridiculing it is clever, then maybe you will find this stuff funny. Otherwise, it might come across as just a little offensive. Personally, I don't find this type of humour offensive at all, but neither do I see anything particularly funny about it, which is why I'm giving this book a single star.