BOOKS
463
had devoted more th an a few ra ther perfunctory pages to this ques tio n
because I'm still no t sure, in any sys tema tic way, of the answer.
In cl ass, Ransom was quiet and informa l. His method of teaching
was con versa tion al. He often seemed to have worri ed over his subj ect
ra ther than preparing any orderl y, professoria l ta lk abo ut it. He wou ld
share hi s wo rri es with the cl ass, revising hi s opinion s, pursuing some
specul a ti on and then discard ing it, doing a bit of rewriting on the
autho r 's work , a lmost never coming to any conclusion that cou ld be
recorded in a notebook for use on the exam . Sometimes I was irked or
bo red - es pecia ll y when he was teaching fi cti on , for which he had little
res pect. He enjoyed the sto ri es in
The Satu rday Even ing Post
and
sometimes wou ld read one a lo ud from beginning
to
end as we
squirmed o r dozed.
It
was onl y after cl ass was over-sometimes long after- tha t two or
three things he' d said would sudden ly recur as absolutely o ri g ina l and
illumina ting
aper(: us.
As often as no t, they were about something tha t
had no os tensible connection with hi s given subj ect-a p oint about
Ari sto tl e when he was supposed to be ta lking a bo ut Browning,
perhap s. But they did tha t as toni shin g th ing tha t few teachers ever
accompli sh : they changed our minds.
I suppose tha t thi s has something to do with my majo r reserva tion
abo ut Mr. Young's bi ograph y- so much of it is a bout the life of a very
good but o rd inary man ; the extraordinary man gets obscured . As I read
Gentleman in a Dustcoat,
I found myself putting it down impa tiently
and turnin g
to
Th e World's Body
o r the
Se lected Poems
or listening to
the record of Ransom reading hi s poems. Or simpl y remembering a lot
o f things tha t don ' t appear in the book. None of
these
brings back a
reco ll ecti o n of an elderly, dustcoa ted gent leman whose words were dry
and fa int as in a dream.
ROBIE MACAULEY
CHOMSKY'S STRUCTURES
REFLECTIONS ON LANGUAGE.
By
Noam Chomsky. Pantheon.
$3.95.
Chomsky sketches a p rogram fo r cogniti ve psycho logy, a
program based on hi s work in lingui sti cs and relying heavi ly on the
o bscure no tion of a "cognitive structure." In Chomsky's vi ew the
