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Record Nr. |
UNINA9910813957803321 |
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Autore |
Kernan Alvin B |
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Titolo |
The fruited plain : fables for a postmodern democracy / / Alvin Kernan |
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Pubbl/distr/stampa |
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New Haven, : Yale University Press, c2002 |
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ISBN |
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1-281-72172-7 |
9786611721725 |
0-300-12834-7 |
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Edizione |
[1st ed.] |
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Descrizione fisica |
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1 online resource (1 online resource (x, 260 p.)) |
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Disciplina |
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Soggetti |
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Humorous stories, American |
Domestic fiction, American |
Satire, American |
Fables, American |
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Lingua di pubblicazione |
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Formato |
Materiale a stampa |
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Livello bibliografico |
Monografia |
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Note generali |
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Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph |
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Nota di contenuto |
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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. |
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Sommario/riassunto |
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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 |
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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. |
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