I am aware that John Gardner was a bit of an asshole. That doesn’t bother me much. I can like John Gardner and John Barth. I’m postmodern that way. Also, when somebody puts on his business card
Prof. John C. Gardner, Jr.it’s both an indication that the person is an asshole and that I am likely to like him anyway. Again, Your Humble Blogger is postmodern. Not postmodernist, just postmodern.
A.B., M.A., Ph.D., D.V.P.
Medievalist, Novelist, Banjoist, Epic and Lyric Poet
Consultant on all Subjects
Occasional Poems for All Occasions
Lectures for Ladies’ Clubs, etc., & general good advice
Anyway, I am fond of The Wreckage of Agathon, despite its unrelenting nastiness. It was written in the late sixties, and it’s a book of its time, but then there are odd and unpleasant resonances with our own time, too. Mr. Gardner’s Sparta is rotten through and through, and the nonconformism that it seems to espouse also is the hammer tap on the crack that shatters the city. And Lycurgos! What would Mr. Gardner say if he knew that Sparta was being held up as a shining example in a popular movie? The Nazis, of course, loved Sparta. I’m just saying.
Tolerabimus quod tolerare debemus,
-Vardibidian.