Bibliographic record
Abstract
734 SEER, 87, 4, OCTOBER 2OOg Beckettand Flann O'Brien. PartfouranalysesAmericanabsurdist fiction, particularly JosephHeller'sCatch-22, and offers somesummary conclusions. Corn well beginshis introductory sectionon the theoretical background by averring thatthe'absurd''appearsnotto be, as such,a fully accredited philosophical category' and that,as a term,it enjoysTar morecurrency in literature' and literary studies.He adduces variousdictionary definitions, includingthatto be foundin the Concise Oxford Dictionary ofLiterary Terms which explainsthe absurd as a 'termderivedfromthe existentialism of Albert Camus,and often appliedto themodernsenseofhumanpurposelessness in a universe without meaningorvalue' (p. 2). He thenproceedsto analysethe links withassociatedconcepts likeexistentialism and nihilism, as wellas with jokes,humour,nonsenseand thegrotesque. CornwelPs methodhere,as in some ofhis otherworks, is to presenta veritable cornucopiaof definitions and examplesofa givenliterary conceptor phenomenon and leave itto his readers totakefrom itwhatisofthegreatest useorinterest tothem.Attimes thebookreadsmorelikewhatone might call a 'narrated bibliography', and thisis a positiveconcept.One is constantly amazed by thebreadthof the author's erudition and bytheinexhaustible stream ofhints fordirected readingwhichhe vouchsafes hisreader.Take hisdetailedrehearsal oftheabsurd elements in Gogol''s story'The Nose', forexample,and theextraordinary excursusaccompanying it on 'nosology'(in Sterne,of course,but also in Bakhtin,'Bonaventura',Shakespeare, Joseph Roth, Ionesco) (pp. 46-47). Similarassociative toursde forceare to be foundaproposofDostoevskii in CornwelPs ramifying accountofthemotif ofthedoubleinEuropeanliterature (pp.51-53)or,aproposofKharms'sso-called'Ryzhiichelovek', hisoutlining oftheredhairmotif intexts as widely separated as theBibleand The Adventures ofSherlock Holmes (pp. 169-74).We catchsighthereof the author'sendless serendipity whichis, however,farfromrandomand a constantsourceof insight tothereader.Allinall,Cornwell hasproducedan extremely enjoyable accountofhissubject,and one whichwillbe ofconsiderable value bothto thespecialist and to thegeneralreader. Department ofRussian R. J. Keys University ofStAndrews Clayton, J. Douglas (ed).La Russie etlemonde francophone. Le Groupeen études slavesde l'Université d'Ottawa,University ofOttawa,Ottawa,2007.v + 304 pp. Notes.Priceunknown. The mainquestion thatkeptoccurring tomewhilereading La Russie etlemonde francophone was 'Why?'.There is an abundanceoffascinating information in thiscollective volumepublished inthewakeofwhatwas surely an interesting conference heldat theUniversity ofOttawainApril2006,butitis often difficult to understand whythisinformation matters or whatitproves.Despite thefactthatcontributions weremade byscholars fromninedifferent countries , manyofthearticles follow a narrative style lacking a perceptible lineof argument anda conclusion thatmaintains thatitssubject issignificant because reviews 735 it is interesting or is interesting because it is significant, withoutactually addressingthe sourcesof the interest or significance. The same lack of structure existsin thevolumeas a whole- therelations ofRussia and the Francophone worldare toovasta themeto serveas a coherent linkon their own, ana ine essays Dear mue reiauon io eacri ouier. reri] internal themeconnecting severalofthearticles is theRus Paris and how it has faced French cultureover the ) together Maria Rubins'sintriguing study of 1930sprosew reflections on NataliiaGorbanevskaia inParis,and Gervais Lapsuie oniy cicai sianemigration in rears,which links riters, Alan Reid's e Tassis'spieceon IuriiFelzens useofProust. Yetdespite thetactthatinprinciple alltheauthors shouldhaveeither heardorreadtheir colleagues'articles, theydo notin any»ÍU.Y X V^X'_/X ',yj V^U^/ll VUlVl^ V/V^ll Ul V^l4.kJ^kJ »TXXV^iV^ UiVT LAVACI.«, U111111U1 UUVÜUU11UI Quotationsare also inconsistently treated, withsomecontributors providing thesein translation and others in theoriginal. In her articleabout Aleksandr Belosselskii-Belozerskii and hisDianyologie, TatianaArtemieva claimsthattheauthorbelongedequallyto Europeanand Russianculture, and thatbycombining thesecultures within himself and by hisinvolvement in enlightenment (we do notfindout ofwhomexactly) he contributed to unitybetweenthem.However,despitespendinghalfof her articleon a biographical sketch ofBelosselskii-Belozerskii shefailsto explain howhe was an exponent ofRussianculture exceptbyvirtue ofbirth, orhow hiswritings impactedEuropeanculture. Havingspenttheremaining halfof thearticlediscussing linguistic problems oftranslations oftheDianyologLe, she further omitsto explainhow thesetranslations werereceivedin Russia and whatcontribution they madetoRussianthought. Bycontrast, Stephanie Lin's examination of the lifeand writings of AnastasieKlustina,a comparable case ofa Russian-born intellectual who spentmostofherlifeoutsideofthe country and whoseintellectual legacywas composedprimarily in French,is an effective inquiry intoRussianself-representation. Alia Zlatopolskaia's studyofpublication and censorship oftranslations of Rousseauin Russiais a thorough piece ofresearch, whichcarefully compiles information from diverse sourcestoreconstruct thehistorical evolution ofthe presentation ofthethinker's writings. However, theauthor presents thesefacts without any conceptualstructure, and withone paragraphof introduction stating thatRousseau'spublishing history in Russiahas been a difficult one, and a one-sentence conclusion thatsaysthatitremains forthefuture tomake an uncensored, faithful translation ofRousseau'smajorworks.Zlatopolskaia rarely discusses whatthespecific censorialdecisionsor mistranslations show about eitherRussiansociety or theRussianstateofthetime,or how these affected theperception ofRousseau in thecountry. An articleon Nathalie Sarrau tein Russiancriticism exhibits theexactsameweaknesses. To a lesser degree, ArkadiKlioutchanski's essayalsosuffers from a lackofargumentation, despitean interesting set of observations about the evolutionof Tolstoi's...
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame distilled prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. Learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and 10,348 direct Gemma labels. Candidate is the union of thresholded teacher heads; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels or direct frontier model labels.
Codex and Gemma teacher scores by category
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; both teacher heads agree on what is shown here.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".