My Little Blue Dress, by Bruno Maddox. (Viking)

If I could just quote a little something from the “Biography” sent to The Crimson with the first novel of Bruno P. Maddox ’92: “Bruno was educated at Westminster School in London, then at Harvard University in America. He studied English, which at that time, the dying days of postmodernism, meant scouring the canon for coded references to genitalia and despite wildly inconsistent grades he was finally hailed as brilliant for his senior thesis on the use of adjectives in restaurant menus.” I suspect Maddox himself had a hand in writing that; publicists usually aren’t that irreverent.

My Little Blue Dress supposedly tells the story of a woman born on January 1, 1900, but we eventually figure out that it’s just Bruno talking, and talking faster and faster the further along we get. He seems to be in a hurry. The novel takes a wholeheartedly absurd stab at the memoir genre, and, according to its own publicity materials, succeeds admirably (as books always do in publicity handouts). The life of the century through the life of this woman with the little blue dress, as it were. The memoir of this “woman” begins with her childhood in the English countryside, then follows her adventures in Paris, London and New York. And yet after all that, she ends up growing old in New York’s Chinatown with a caretaker named Bruno Maddox. Hmmm. Something’s not quite right, but that something appears to be why we should think this book is so cool.

Maddox’s most recent institutional gig was as editor of Spy magazine (he seems very proud of the fact that he “elevated it to within spitting distance of its former glory” and then “accidentally drove it out of business”), and this debut has been getting not an insignificant amount of good buzz. Hopefully it’s as funny and original as Maddox and his conspirators seem to think it is. I plan to read it for its somewhat original premise and its seemingly healthy sense of self-worth and promising sense of humor. Plus, anyone who can get away with a thesis on adjectives in restaurant menus must have something interesting to say.

Mmm....existentialism.

The Simpsons and Philosophy: The D’oh! of Homer, edited by William Irwin, Mark T. Conard and Aeon J. Skoble. (Open Court)

Harvard being the school that it is, “The Simpsons” enjoys a cult-like following not only for its occasional references to our fair school, but for its unbeatable combination of humor and intelligence as well. This newest attempt to bring philosophy to the masses does not exactly do justice to our love for television’s finest program. The book is no doubt part of that weird trend that has produced books like The Tao of Pooh, which attempts to show us how Taoism can be relevant to our own modern and western existence, and The Consolations of Philosophy, a primer on how thinkers like Montaigne and Seneca can be relevant to our everyday experiences.

The Simpsons and Philosophy is actually the second title in the publisher’s Popular Culture and Philosophy series. (Volume 1 was called Seinfeld and Philosophy; Volume 3, forthcoming, is entitled The Matrix and Philosophy.) The book is a shameless attempt to pander to all the intellectuals and psuedo-intellectuals who recognize and celebrate the sophisticated and slapstick comedy of “The Simpsons,” but it is more of a general(ly mediocre) survey of various philosophical concepts that can be projected onto the show. We get essays by random associate and assistant professors of philosophy entitled “Homer and Aristotle,” “Marge’s Moral Motivation,” “The Moral World of the Simpson Family” and discussions of how Nietzsche might justify Bart’s behavior, but the book somehow ends up being less informative and entertaining than one would expect from a project riding on the coattails of such a popular show. Maybe America’s favorite family was not meant for the academy; the essays resemble bullshit undergraduate papers written in jest and under duress. True fans of the show, however, will be excited to simply see the book in stores.