Many Pretty Toys

by Hazard Adams

When Nixon orders the bombing of Cambodia, the resulting protests push a West Coast university to the brink of anarchy, altering irrevocably the lives of students and faculty and disrupting the process of storytelling itself. Through the words of two professors and a communal voice known only as "We" Hazard Adams interweaves the political, literary, and philosophical developments of the time into a story in which generations and their histories meet, as well as literary styles and methods, showing how political and intellectual events play on the consciousness of a range of characters. The spirit here is serious and generous, but not without a satirical element as a communal group attempts to establish an elusive identity. With a remarkable breadth of method, Adams deliberately evades the usual literary classifications.

245 pages, Paperback

First published February 3, 1999

Reviews

[Jackie Ess · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn't expect to love this book, which did feel dated and very self-indulgent. As I was reading I found it helped to put on very smug self-serious voices and say things like

"Oh ho, Professor Snively---I wonder what he's about?"

or

"What if the text, Sir, were a metaphor--- for the very text itself."

Yet when it lifts its eyes from its own navel it manages to say something very interesting about campus politics in the sixties, and the history that seems to prepare all of us almost perfectly to take our places in the play.

[Daniell · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just could not keep my attention on the book. I was very bored while attempting to read this book. I found it excessively wordy and dull.