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"darwin's dangerous idea" is (supposedly) a philosophical text, so it looks at issues relating to evolution like morality, first causes, some on religion (more in the new book), algorithms as evolutionary models, etc. he's got a host of big issues. mayr basically documents what we have created as a history of evolution and spends a little time talking about bigger issues like the idea of progress (which grobstein and i think he skirts around in a cowardly manner, well i don't mean to put words in our prof's mouth but he agreed with me when i said this) and altruism. so i don't think it's fair to say that howard's end and on beauty are meaningless compared to these texts because they are looking at similar philosophical, arguably universal issues: morality, beauty, class, race, social interaction. forster's novel is in the canon because it is believed to transcend history. while one doesn't have to agree with that assessment and i'm not a huge fan of the novel, i think it partially succeeds in doing that. i think our class is too stuck on the notion that society has changed and we're in a different part of the world. there's still stuff to get out of forster.

for my course, "libertinage et erotisme" i've been reading 18th century literature and each book describes different facets of parisian society of the epoch in detail. that's mostly what the books are about, on the surface.

but plenty of universal questions can be found here. in fact, famous french critic rene etiemble (he is just etiemble, one of those one name figures like madonna and cher) argues taht there are many universal ideas chez crebillon. i actually learned about how to talk to a boyfriend from crebillon fils' majestic heroine and the knowledge i've gained benefits me all the time. however, this is a pragmatic view of what 18th century french lit can bring a 21st century american reader.

i wrote a paper on prevost's manon lescaut arguing that it takes issue with and puts into question three fundamental aspects of more traditional novels of the time: the reliability of the narrator, the existence of true love, and the triumph of morality. so in a sense prevost is pre-postmodern, yet his strategies are subtler, more shakespearean in practice, than postmodern strategies of defying conventional "wisdom." gee, i could have expanded the paper to write about that, but comparing prevost to postmodern french writers could be a thesis topic. an awesome thesis topic. in conclusion, period novels, if they are good enough, have a lot to offer to the modern reader, and i would say that forster and smith, despite their faults (smith's novel bathes in faults) have something to say to us, even if what they say kinda sucks.