Negative Positive
Title: Still depressing; now made even WORSE through an introduction by Elizabeth Ammons
Review: The best part of this edition is the cover illustrator. Jeffrey Brown deserves more attention -- the illustrations were great.Elizabeth Ammons took a straightfoward story and post-neo-racia-femini-homo-colonia-hegemoni-classstruggled it in her introductory notes. This is what passes for scholarship? Good grief. This book is not so difficult to understand, that she had to decide that race underscores the whole thing. And Toni Morrison as an expert opinion leader? I'm insulted, but I'm not surprised.Last, one would think in a world where Howard Zinn's corrupt scholarship has been so thoroughly discredited, that scholars would be reluctant to cite him so prominently in their work. Seems reckless.Edith Wharton wrote about what she knew: misery and lost chances. That's Ethan Frome. It becomes all the more poignant and painful to read it as an adult -- but good literature does that. It grows on you.
Is the review positive or negative? 