Frank Lentricchia

I know this is a textbook and people probably don't review textbooks that often, but I really loved this book. I continue to pick it up when I want to think about something I read in there. It's full of essays on things like "Interpretation" and "Intention" by talented professors who discuss whether there should be a literary canon or whether or not an author's intention should matter on how to interpret his novel.

Banging textbook I just had to write a review. Very useful during my undergraduate and postgraduate years whenever I needed a refresher - doesn't skimp on complexity yet serves a simple enough primer so you can branch out on your own.

I always enjoy reading Frank Lentricchia. I no longer read detective novels, nor crime, nor mystery, but a romp in Utica with this Italian intellectual is quite a different story. I recommend a visit with the mysterious Eliot Conte just as soon as you can.

The story of Robert, a sixty-year old man who spent his entire adult life working and living in the basement of a Manhattan bookstore, who returns to his home town of Utica, NY, to tell the untold secrets of the founding families of the city. The jacket blurb compares the author to Joyce and Faulkner, and describes it as “rich in literary heritage and allusion.” I don’t think I got it.