Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-At-Any-Price

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12 years later still worth reading!

A difference between tough and cruel

If You Think You Work For A Jerk...

Fascinating story with one flaw

Corporate Hellhole

Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-At-Any-Price

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Binding: Paperback
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Al Dunlap was so ruthless in downsizing corporations for short-term shareholder profit that he earned nicknames such as "Chainsaw Al" and "Rambo in Pinstripes." Wall Street loved Dunlap at Scott Paper, where he laid off thousands, but then hated him at Sunbeam, where he himself was finally fired. Chainsaw, by Business Week writer John A. Byrne, dramatically documents the rise and fall of Dunlap, the havoc he wreaked on companies and people's lives, and how he came to power in the first place.

"Chainsaw Al was a creation of the Street and its ceaseless lust for profit at any cost. He came of age when the market routinely rewarded layoffs with lofty stock prices. The more people he tossed out in the street, the higher stock values went," writes Byrne, who cites "cutthroat investors" such as Michael Price and Ronald Perelman for helping Dunlap's rise. Superbly written and researched, the book vividly describes characters and scenes, and reveals the fictions that Dunlap told about himself. How cold was Chainsaw Al? Byrne writes that Dunlap never even attended the funerals for his mother and father. Byrne also tells the story of the questionable accounting and business practices that ultimately brought down Sunbeam and Dunlap, and the investigations that led to a restatement of the company's finances. Dunlap, unhappy about Byrne's reporting, once said of the Business Week writer, "If he were on fire, I wouldn't piss on him." It's a quote that Byrne uses to kick off his last chapter. Chainsaw is a compelling read for those interested in the inner workings of Wall Street and business, or just a well-told story. --Dan Ring

Book Description

At once praised as the darling of Wall Street and condemned as the foe of the working people, business executive Albert J. Dunlap--"Chainsaw Al"--is clearly one of the most controversial figures in American business.

This is the story of Dunlap's rise and fall. It reveals a notorious career that left a wake of fired employees, shuttered plants, devastated communities, gutted companies--and, often, enriched shareholders.

First breaking into the headlines with his draconian, expense-slashing firings at Scott Paper--and the subsequent boost in the value of the company's stock--his legend grew as he took on the task of turning around troubled Sunbeam Corporation. There, at the height of his career, Dunlap became a household name, lauded as the hero of the American investor and role model for managers.

But the darker side of the Dunlap legend began to emerge as questions arose about his methods and motivations. Was he selling out the company's future for quick, short-term gains? Did his plant closedowns make business sense, or were they done to impress the Wall Street analysts? Were his massive restructuring improving the company's competitiveness or just inflating the value of the stock and his own net worth? Was his harsh treatment of employees a justifiable business tactic or the symptom of egomania?

Eventually he is brought down by the virtual collapse of Sunbeam, investigators of accounting and business practices, and the subsequent restatement of Sunbeam's finances. As Chainsaw makes clear, Dunlap's relentless and destructive drive for profits is symptomatic of our times and Wall Street's insatiable greed.

Written by John A. Byrne, the distinguished Business Week journalist, Chainsaw reaches deep inside the world of business as it's practiced today. It's filled with players you'll recognize from the business headlines. And, throughout, you're a fly on the wall, witnessing the conversations and dramatic moments--everything from Dunlap's first get-together with Sunbeam executives, where he humiliates each of them in turn, right up to the last board of directors meeting, where he is fired. You'll meet Michael Price, whose mutual funds owned a large piece of Sunbeam and to whom Dunlap ultimately owed his job. Also present is Ron Perelman, the billionaire financier and chairman of Revlon, whose sale of camping equipment maker Coleman Co. to Dunlap eventually helped lead to Dunlap's fall from grace.

Chainsaw, finally, is about the mad pursuit of wealth in the last decade of the century. Loaded with implications for everyone with a stake in American business, Chainsaw will be to the 1990s what Barbarians at the Gate was to the 1980s.

Customer Reviews:

12 years later still worth reading!.......2007-05-08

This book is more of a case study on the Sunbeam Corporation than a biography of Al Dunlap. In that sense, this book is as valuable a learning tool today as it was in the 1990s. The author, in fact, should change the title and re-release it to a completely new generation of business leaders. Here is an opportunity for students of business to get a 360 degree view of a good company that happened to be pimped out by investors for profit, managed by people motivated by personal greed, and directed by a completely detached board. All these factors exist today and will always be present in business.

If it weren't Sunbeam, it would have been any number of other companies that could have been gutted by entrepreneurs. It continues to happen today, and likely will continue as long as people can engineer buyouts, takeovers, etc. GE could be leveraged, pumped and dumped in a similar way today if there were enough money available.

In the book, the interviewed Sunbeam leadership team all experienced moments when they were faced with some absolutely ludicrous business maneuver, but each one backed down. They were all looking for the big payoff for going along, so they just toed the line. They saw dollar signs in Al Dunlap. For that reason, Al can not be charged as solely responsible for the company's downfall. It took a team to execute his orders.

The board, in the end, terminated Al Dunlap for what they thought were leadership issues. As it happened, the company was in ruins. Would Sarbanes-Oxley prevent this today? It is possible, but not likely. Many of the maneuvers used to over-inflate the company to Wall Street occurred legally, but over-aggressively. An actively engaged board could have saved the company prior to devastation. However, since the CEO and investors stacked the board with their own players, a challenge from the board did not occur until the board members felt personally threatened financially. It took market forces and about 6 months to expose Sunbeam.

A difference between tough and cruel.......2002-08-06

If John Byrne's "Chainsaw" were a work of fiction, it would likely be considered unpublishable because its main character is so absurdely evil. Unfortunately -- especially for those who had to endure his wrath -- the story of Al Dunlap is all too true. Byrne's portrayal of Dunlap, who was hailed by Wall Street as a turaround genius before his leadership of Sunbeam ended in debacle, is that not of an admirable business leader, but of an hysterical, violent sociopath who, if his life had turned slightly differently, might well have ended up in prison, a mental hospital, or an early grave. "Chainsaw" paints a portrait of a man who was abusive -- mentally, emotionally and even physically -- to nearly everybody in his life, from his business associates to his family to the few whom he considered friends.

"Chainsaw" chronicles the rise and fall of "Chainsaw Al" Dunlap so compellingly that even those who wouldn't think to read a business book will be hooked. However, the book is in many ways fascinating the way that a car wreck is fascinating. The reader will marvel at the amount and intensity of abuse Dunlap hurls at even his closest friends and allies, the coldness with which he treats his family (he abandoned his son at age 2 and couldn't be bothered to attend the funerals of either of his parents), and the near-perverted bounds of his ego. In fact, as Sunbeam lurches toward collapse, his only apparent interest was in signing copies of his autobiography.

Defenders of Dunlap will say that he did the dirty work of downsizing and layoffs to save dying companies, sacrificing the needs of the few for the good of the many. And true, the modern business world is filled with harsh realities and tough decision-making. But Dunlap's approach to downsizing in "Chainsaw" teeters between indifference to those downsized and pure sadism. At points in the book, he actually seems to enjoy cutting jobs and closing factories (though he usually had others do the dirty deeds). As the author says, there is a business world between being tough and being cruel -- and Byrne leaves little doubt about where he places Dunlap. Worse, Dunlap's moves at Sunbeam didn't seem to have been done with any level of intelligence, other than to get Dunlap a quick win so he could cash out fast. The result was the near-total destruction of Sunbeam rather than long-term gains from short-term pain.

In "Chainsaw," Byrne stresses that either through fear, greed or naivetee, others enabled Dunlap. The way that each of these characters is drawn creates a fascinating if morbid portrait of a dysfunctional, cannibalistic organization revolving totally around Chainsaw Al.

Byrne is a terrific writer, and "Chainsaw" is a great read. My only quibble is that, since Byrne and Dunlap apparently have had great animosity toward each other, Byrne often sacrifices any attempt at objectivity. But perhaps objectivity isn't possible when chronicling such an extreme personality.

It's good to see "Chainsaw" returning to print in paperback. Now, in the era of Enron and WorldCom, Sept. 11 and the War on Terror reminding us what real toughness is all about, and with the Wall Street euphoria of the '90s in the rear-view mirror, its perspective is needed now more than ever...

If You Think You Work For A Jerk..........2002-04-03

I found "Chainsaw" in a discounted book bin and picked it up because I wanted to learn more about the man who was hailed by Wall Street analysts as a fast turnaround artist but hated by the many employees who felt the wrath of his cost-cutting sword at the companies in which he was in charge.

Chainsaw primarily chronicles Chainsaw Al Dunlap's rocky two year tenure at Sunbeam Corp., where he closed numerous plants, fired almost half of its employees, ran roughshod over the half who remained, heaped more praise upon himself then the most conceited athlete or movie star and pretty much ran the company into the ground.

The author, John Byrne has spoken to several hundred people who have dealt with Dunlap's rage and unrealistic expectations and has been able to piece together a non-fiction work that reads like a novel. Significant amounts of dialog between Dunlap and his cronies are displayed and it basically says one thing. Chainsaw Al Dunlap ruled through total intimidation and with the exception of his right hand man, listened to nobody but himself, even though he had no experience with the products that Sunbeam sold. He fired (or actually had somebody else fire) everybody who didn't appear to him to be part of the team. Byrne perfectly sets out the tension that occurred when Dunlap was on a rampage.

The reader gets to see the desperate measures a company will go through to try to meet investor and Wall Street expectations, including accounting games which have come to the forefront as a result of the Enron debacle. I'm not an accountant, but I even have to admit that things they did were pretty shady.

Byrne wraps the book up with the final straws that led Al Dunlap to go down in flames at Sunbeam, ending in his firing at a secretive board meeting in New York City. I see that a paperback version is coming out soon, which I hope will bring the story of Dunlap up to date, including his required payment to a trust fund to settle civil lawsuits against him.

Byrne's only fault is that he is not totally objective. It's easy to tell that he despises Dunlap (he calls him a loudmouth, comments on the large size of his teeth, attacks his love of his dogs over everything else), so I knock the rating to four stars, but it's still a pretty good business case book. Bryne would be a great candidate to writeup the Enron story as he does have a way with story telling and research.

Fascinating story with one flaw.......2001-06-22

John Byrne has presented a fascinating portrait of the fall of Al Dunlap at Sunbeam. He goes into great detail on all the irrational decisions that were made, the impossible targets, the pressure to fudge numbers and the final inevitable collapse. Byrne also spends some time on the rather unsavory private life of Dunlap (he didn't attend his parents funerals, he never meets his son or his sister). By and large I agree with the other positive reviews.

Byrne writes very well. Many business writers tend to get bogged down in detail when writing a book (as opposed to a small article) or get distracted or get stuck in flashbacks. Byrne does none of these and keeps your interest level high throughout.

If I have one gripe with the book (which is why I give it 4 rather than 5), its that it relies too much on people who dislike Dunlap or were trying to shift responsibility to him. Yes, the man is an egoist, a hypocrite, a braggart etc. But its a little hard for me to believe that every bad business decision at Sunbeam can be traced to Dunlap (or his consultants), and it seems to me that at least some of the other managers are trying to shift responsiblity to Dunlap on occasion. Also, Dunlap's attitude at Sunbeam was wrong in most ways -- still the company itself was unhealthy when he came in. The original management deserves at least some blame for the pre-Dunlap situation.

Similarly, a number of people in the book claim that they were always skeptical of Dunlap's business skills. Maybe after the Sunbeam collapse -- but I find it hard to believe they were all skeptical initially. Example -- an analyst claims that he doubted the Sunbeam turnaround story from the beginning, but he still kept on churning out positive reports on Sunbeam for his securities firm.

Corporate Hellhole.......2001-04-03

by Dan Moreland

We've all had bad bosses. Very few of us have not had the joy of working for a barbarous, bullying taskmaster that makes you dread Monday mornings.

Then there's Chainsaw Al Dunlap. Think of the most egotistical, arrogant, selfish, greedy, low-class and verbally abusive manager from hell you can think of. According to John Byrne's "Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-At-Any-Price", Al Dunlap is all of these things, and maybe more. He makes Mr. Dithers look like Richard Branson.

Flying the pirate flag of cost cutting, Chainsaw Al made his name rampaging through companies as a high level executive in the 1980s. He cut thousands of jobs and closed factories in the blink of an eye. During his reign of terror, Dunlap became the scourge of those with a corporate conscience while becoming the darling of investors and a media icon.

It wasn't until the mid to late 90s that the financial world got wind of what "Rambo in Pinstripes" was up to. As CEO with Scott and then Sunbeam, Chainsaw ate the heart out of both companies, allegedly falsified financials, and wooed Wall Street to pretty them up for a quick sale. Chainsaw would pocket millions while thousands of regular working stiffs were out of jobs- many after decades of service.

It's the Sunbeam debacle that Byrne documents in "Chainsaw" and boy what a fun ride. From Dunlap screaming and shouting at his bewildered executive staff at his first meeting to the apocalyptic crash from $50 to $5 a share, you get to see and hear it all. The author does an excellent job of recreating what life working for the guy must have been like, and it is obvious that he did very careful research.

Talk about a corporate nightmare. Dunlap, in his pinstripe suits, tinted glasses, dyed blonde hair and very loud voice would arrogantly hand out copies of his autographed book "Mean Business" and scream at anyone that told him anything he didn't want to hear.

My favorite scene is Dunlap is yelling one of his staff. He begins his tirade by telling his victim to be quiet and not to utter a word. After piling on the poor sap, he asks if he is going to respond to his accusations or just sit there silent. The executive reminds Al that he wasn't allowed to talk during the meeting.

"Shut up!" bellows Dunlap, "You don't deserve to speak!" Priceless! Suddenly Gordon Gekko is Ghandi!

"Chainsaw" kind of plods at first as you are barraged with a cast of characters that you quickly lose track of. But time and again Byrne pulls you in with great narratives. For instance one scene depicts the dark side of Darwinian capitalism: the financial travails of a former laid off Sunbeam employee contrasted with a description of Big Al negotiating a new multimillion dollar contract over an expensive steak dinner.

By the second half of "Chainsaw", you are hooked. Wall Street catches on to his shenanigans, and Sunbeam quickly spirals out of control along with our anti-hero.

Besides way too many players, my only other problem with "Chainsaw" is a section devoted to his ill-fated first marriage and the treatment of his only son. The author uses divorce testimony to imply Dunlap abused his first wife, and interview quotes revealing he abandoned his son. We also learn that Dunlap didn't even go to his father's funeral. This is tricky ground. Whether or not this is true, the author already makes a good case that the guy was a creep without having to include so much of his personal life. And, as the saying goes, there are two sides to every story (in Byrne's defense, Dunlap refused to cooperate with the book, but still).

There are other instances where you can really feel the author's venom. Byrne covered the subject in several articles for "Business Week" and reveals a deep personal dislike for Dunlap. He even refers to him as a "loudmouth" and makes other nasty remarks. It may or may not be well deserved, but these comments and the personal detail make John Byrne border on being as mean-spirited as Chainsaw himself.

This is a terrific read, and is definitely a business model for NOT how to manage a company. In the same vein, I also recommend the educational but more tedious "Apple: The Inside Story of Intrigue, Egomania and Business Blunders" by Jim Carlton, and "Trumped" by John O'Donnell.

If nothing else, "Chainsaw" will definitely make your crummy job seem a lot easier!

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Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-At-Any-Price
John A. Byrne
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OFASL2

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Chainsaw: The Notorious Career of Al Dunlap in the Era of Profit-At-Any-Price
John A. Byrne
Manufacturer: Collins
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OFDPEE

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All States Tax Handbook 2005 (All States Tax Handbook)

Manufacturer: Research Institute of America
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

General | Finance | Accounting & Finance | Professional & Technical | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0781103223

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2005 All States Tax Handbook , Tax charts and calendars covering Income, Sales and Use, Property, and Other Taxes
Steven A. Zelman , Linda Scheffel , Virginaia Lorenzo , and Rick Bivona
Manufacturer: Thomson / RIA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000NAMP00

Book Description

This Elibron Classics book is a facsimile reprint of a 1900 edition by Max Niemeyer, Halle a. S.

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Semana, published by Thomson Gale on April 9, 2006. The length of the article is 451 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Hispanos, con papeles o sin papeles, aran el futuro.(importancia de trabajadores inmigrantes para economía y agricultura estadounidenses)
Publication: Semana (Magazine/Journal)
Date: April 9, 2006
Publisher: Thomson Gale
Volume: 12 Issue: 684 Page: 7(1)

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Libro de Oro: Medio siglo de contribución al progreso nacional (1941-1991).: An article from: Agronomía Costarricense

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Libro de Oro: Medio siglo de contribución al progreso nacional (1941-1991).: An article from: Agronomía Costarricense
Alfredo Alvarado
Manufacturer: Universidad de Costa Rica
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

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Book Description

This digital document is an article from Agronomía Costarricense, published by Universidad de Costa Rica on July 1, 2002. The length of the article is 681 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Libro de Oro: Medio siglo de contribución al progreso nacional (1941-1991).
Author: Alfredo Alvarado
Publication: Agronomía Costarricense (Refereed)
Date: July 1, 2002
Publisher: Universidad de Costa Rica
Volume: 26 Issue: 2 Page: 101(2)

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Bolivia's experiments in development without aid: A case study of one man's attack on production, processing problems, and marketing (West Coast South America series)

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Bolivia's experiments in development without aid: A case study of one man's attack on production, processing problems, and marketing (West Coast South America series)
Richard W Patch
Manufacturer: American Universities Field Staff
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books
ASIN: B0007EW3UO

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Obra de agricultura (Dialect series)
Rutilius Taurus Aemilianus Palladius
Manufacturer: Hispanic Seminary of Medieval Studies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding

Spanish | Foreign Language Nonfiction | Nonfiction | Subjects | Books

Book Description

There is a growing demand for a book such as the Perry's Standard Tables and Formulae for Chemical Engineers that will provide necessary information in a quick and concise manner for the various chemical properties and chemical processes of industrial operations.

Perry's Standard Tables and Formulae for Chemical Engineers will present data that can be applied to chemical processing of raw materials into useable products as well as provide information for chemical process operations and the design of the equipment. A comprehensive and authoritative source data that can be used for designing chemical processes and equipment, it will be a complementary reference source to the Handbook of Chemical Process and Design Handbook (James G. Speight, McGraw-Hill) and will present tables and formulae that are necessary for chemical engineers on a day-to-day basis.

Book Description

This is a guide for boater's who are floating the Green River downcanyon from Green River town, located on Interstate Highway 70, south to The Confluence with the Colorado River and Spanish Bottom. it's also, for boaters running down the Colorado River from Moab to The Confluence with the Green River. Part of the area in this book is in Canyonlands National Park.

The primary emphasis of this book is hiking, but the best places to camp are also discussed, as well as places where hopefully-good drinking water can be found. The hikes typically start at the river and run upcanyon or to the canyon rim--just the opposite way as some hikes found in the author's other book, "Hiking, Biking and Exploring Canyonlands National Park and Vicinity". There are 18 mapped sections or chapters, each showing campsites, water, trails, Anasazi ruins, and pictographs or petroglyphs (something the National Park Service does not like, therefore they don't sell this book).

History is also a big part of this book, with lots of information on the early-day attempts at running steamboats on the Green and Colorado Rivers between the towns of Green River and Moab. In those days many people tried to homestead some river bottoms. Sandbars and low water cut those dreams short.

While doing research for this book (and the other one mentioned above), the author interviewed about 80 old timers in the Moab, Green River and the Hanksville area, and got lots of stories about cowboys, the ranchers and ranches along the river bottoms, and trail building information. Some of the history here is the same as that found in the other book mentioned above.

Customer Reviews:

Unreliable.......2007-04-26

Michael Kelsey is notorious for inaccurate information. He'll review hikes he's never done, list canyon entry and exit points he's never attempted. He's all about speed. He races through areas in order to spew out his next book without actually taking the time to experience the canyons through which he's rushing. He covers a lot of ground, but sees little. I do like the pictures of him in tube socks and cut-offs, though. If you're lucky, there may even be a picture of him in beefeaters.

Excellent read for Stilwater Canyon - great history.......2006-07-15

This is an excellent - and inexpensive - reference for Canyonlands and the Green River. We used it for referencing information about the area we trekked by canoe from Mineral Bottom on the Green to Spanish Bottom on the Colorado.

The history is very interesting and adds a lot of neat insights into the places you visit and the things you see along the way. Tamarisk has overgrown a few of the referenced campsites, but the river is an ever changing place - don't expect anything in print to be 100% accurate for long.

Overall - an outstanding book for the price! Definitely order it if you're hiking or boating the Canyonlands.

Fabulous Historical Read.......2006-05-17

Having just returned from a 9 day canoe trip through the Stillwater Canyon on the Green River, I can honestly say that this book added a great deal of enjoyment to the trip. Every float day began with a reading from the book to explain the history of each bottom as we passed by. The hiking descriptions were what one expects from Kelsey: great if you are experienced and use it as a guide, lacking if you need your hand held the whole way. Get this book if you are canoeing the flat waters of Canyonlands. (In general I find the Belknap guide book easier to use for actual river navigation.)

good, but skips Cataract Canyon.......2003-05-14

This book is great, especially if you're a hiker, but whitewater rafters wont find info in here on Cataract.

Rivers of the West: A Guide to the Geology and History

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Rivers of the West: A Guide to the Geology and History
Elizabeth L. Orr , and William N. Orr
Manufacturer: William N & Elizabeth L Orr
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Binding: Paperback

General | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

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Book Description

Lifetime spectroscopy is one of the most sensitive diagnostic tools for the identification and analysis of impurities in semiconductors. Since it is based on the recombination process, it provides insight into precisely those defects that are relevant to semiconductor devices such as solar cells. This book introduces a transparent modeling procedure that allows a detailed theoretical evaluation of the spectroscopic potential of the different lifetime spectroscopic techniques. The various theoretical predictions are verified experimentally with the context of a comprehensive study on different metal impurities. The quality and consistency of the spectroscopic results, as explained here, confirms the excellent performance of lifetime spectroscopy.

Book Description

Despite the long history of Menippean satire, from antiquity through the early modern era in Europe and up to the present, the genre often has resisted precise definition and has evoked critical controversy. In this magisterial work, Howard D. Weinbrot offers a new and lucid account of this complex literary category. He argues that in the wake of twentieth-century critics, notably Frye and Bakhtin, Menippean satire has been too broadly associated with "philosophic ideas" expressed in dialogic voices or languages.

He proposes instead a set of more rigorous but still fluid criteria incorporating several key elements: the use of varied historical periods, voices, languages, or genres that challenge a threatening orthodoxy; an outcome either of failure and the satirist's renewed anger or of resistance without counter-orthodoxy; and the use of one or more of several identified rhetorical devices. He then explores in detail how these elements of Menippean satire combine and operate in the literatures of classical Rome and early modern France and England, considering major texts by Varro, Petronius, Lucian, Swift, Boileau, Pope, and Richardson.

Critical Synoptics : Menippean Satire and the Analysis of Intellectual Mythology

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A must read for anyone interested in literary study
An enjoyable and wide-ranging academic book!
An enjoyable and wide-ranging academic book!
Book Description

Critical Synoptics : Menippean Satire and the Analysis of Intellectual Mythology
Carter Kaplan
Manufacturer: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Comic | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Classics | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Satire, Classic | Humor | Entertainment | Subjects | Books

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History of Ideas | Historical Study | History | Subjects | Books
ASIN: 0838638651

Customer Reviews:

A must read for anyone interested in literary study.......2003-09-29

This book provided me with a deeper understanding of both contemporary philosophy and the satirical genre.The Author's brilliant marriage of Wittgensteinian philosophy and modern literary criticism was simply brillant.I thoroughly enjoyed the book and highly recommend it for student and scholars alike.

An enjoyable and wide-ranging academic book!.......2002-04-03

This is a book of play, not a dry academic reference book. Part of the enjoyment of reading this, unlike reading many an academic book, is the playful, humorous voice of the author.

Because of its scope (covering everything from Hawthorne to Moorcock) and its style, the book should be read in order and not just consulted piecemeal. Reading it in order allows the reader to discover how certain words are being defined and used -- for example, my immediate reaction to the phrase "ideals of the Enlightenment" is different from how Kaplan ultimately defines it. Also, reading it in order exposes the entire range and scope of the satiric play, allowing the reader to see the various contradictions -- the statements against categorization/taxonomic nomenclature followed by his own categorization for example or the seemingly contradictory reactions to complexity theory and science that only make sense in the context of his enactment of Menippean Satire itself. Without reading the book in order, Chapter 9 "The Edge of Capital" seems out of place because of subject matter and voice. By reading that chapter and then Chapter 10, "Scaling up the Homeric Question," the reader understands the purpose of chapter 9.

Do not turn to this book to find a quick definition of Menippean Satire -- although the book does define it -- or the one and only reading of "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" -- although Kaplan does provide one. Rather, the importance of the book lies in its enactment of satire itself and the power and depth of the illustrations of critical synoptics. You leave the book not with an answer to how certain works should be read but with more questions about how to read, about what particular texts mean, about connections between texts -- in fact, about whether the book you've just read is a satire or not itself. These questions are not the result of a flaw in the book but in fact emphasize the notion inherent in the book that the universe is "variable and particular," that there is no Platonic absolute (121). The epigram that begins Chapter 10 and speaks of riddles with no answers also emphasizes that this is a book that is a riddle without an answer. In describing Melville's practice as "synoptic analysis" and his method as consisting "of testing propositions by examining them in contexts where they will be revealed as either valid or nonsensical"(124), Kaplan describes his own method. For me, the appeal of the book is not in the specific readings of texts he provides -- to be honest, some seemed to be very commonsensical readings easily arrived at after closely reading the text (or perhaps I have just been trained academically in the same manner) or, as in the case of some of the readings of Blake for example, are ones I find oversimplified -- but instead in his approach, his activity of exploration and questioning.

Anyone interested in examining literature and understanding satire, anyone knowledgeable about academic infighting in literary criticism and theory, or anyone who just wants a book to engage their intellect and make them chuckle at the same time should check this book out.

An enjoyable and wide-ranging academic book!.......2002-04-03

This is a book of play, not a dry academic reference book. Part of the enjoyment of reading this, unlike reading many an academic book, is the playful, humorous voice of the author.

Book Description.......2002-01-11

Critical Synoptics is a study of satire and British philosophy. Carter Kaplan argues that the tradition of satire from the early Greeks to the present day represents an important philosophical critique of the misguided claims that arise again and again in the fields of science, education, and religion. The book compares the important ideas of the great modern philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein to the work of such authors as Herman Melville, Nathaniel Hawthorne, William Blake, and John Milton. After tracing the history of "intellectual mythology" as it is treated in satirical literature, the book examines intellectual mythology in dystopian works such as Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 and Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange. The book concludes with an analysis of contemporary myths which support runaway consumer society and various corporate challenges to democracy and academic freedom.

For the past twenty years, literary study has been dominated by scientific or pseudo-scientific approaches to literature, and the discussion in university classrooms has emphasized academic fashion and theory. Kaplan's book instead emphasizes the ideas that drive great and popular literature. He goes beyond the established academic cultures of knowledge, and makes a forceful (and humorous) statement of humanistic understanding.

Customer Reviews:

great, especially for the scholar with little latin or greek.......1996-02-16

I'm always impressed by a contemporary classics scholar who can write a book that actually speaks to people beyond the confines of the classics community. Relihan seems to be under the sway of Robert Bracht Branham, whose own work on Lucian seems to have a lot to do with Relihan's own direction. However, there does not seem to be a thinking of the liberating possibilities of laughter and the grotesque which is commensurate with its subject matter. Nevertheless, an indispensable work, particularly for its work on Ennodius (?) and Martianus Capella.

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