The fruited plain : fables for a postmodern democracy / Alvin Kernan.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Kernan, Alvin B.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Humorous stories, American.

Domestic fiction, American.

Satire, American.

Fables, American.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (1 online resource (x, 260 p.))

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

New Haven : Yale University Press, c2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The beleaguered Joad family of Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath struggled in an era of disappointed dreams and empty pockets. But how might the grandchildren of that Dust Bowl generation fare in today's more promising times? In this boisterously inventive book Alvin Kernan sends various descendants of the original Joad family on a postmodern journey out of California and into the excesses of American culture at the beginning of the twenty-first century. The experiences of today's Joads are as hilarious as they are discomfiting: they encounter in Kernan's America a world of democracy gone haywire and social institutions in perplexing disarray.In ten satiric episodes, Kernan visits virtually every important American institution-the family, education, religion, art, the military, law courts, sex, science and medicine, politics, and not least television and its advertisements. Unsparing with his barbs, he reveals both the fools and the knaves among us. Kernan's modern-day Joads find themselves in a distorted world where a surplus of democracy not only fails to free its inhabitants but also makes them vulnerable to the machinations of greedy and unscrupulous exploiters. Echoing the voices of such other provocative wits as Evelyn Waugh and Tom Wolfe, Kernan will make you laugh at the absurdity of American culture and-in all likelihood-at yourself.

Contents:

Machine generated contents note: Preface ix

ONE

Merry Xmas from the Joads 1

TWO

Majoring in Deconstruction 19

THREE

Religion USA 50

FOUR

Art Lets It All Hang Out 75

FIVE

The Politics Gene 98

SIX

Klutz-Brightgrin H.R. 1984-

The John Quincy Thud On-Line Biography

of Great Americans 125

SEVEN

Poshpenny v. Lone Tree State 153

EIGHT

A Long Way Up the Arroyo 178

NINE

Operation Gulliver 205

TEN

Virtual America 227

Selected Items from the On-Line Biography

of Great Americans 251.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

ISBN:

1-281-72172-7

9786611721725

0-300-12834-7

OCLC:

1024008075