“We are more inclined to shrug than we are to gasp.”
"Books of the Times" in The New York Times (6 July 1981)
Context: For every wicked witch there is, in our culture, a black magician, an alchemist, a Flying Dutchman, a Doctor Strangelove, a Vincent Price. The scientist, like the magician, possesses secrets. A secret — expertise — is somehow perceived as antidemocratic, and therefore ought to be unnatural. We have come a long way from Prometheus to Faust to Frankenstein. And even Frankenstein's monster is now a joke. Mr. Barnouw reminds us of "The Four Troublesome Heads" (1898), in which a conjuror punishes three of his own severed heads because they sing out of tune; he hits them with a banjo.
This book, at once scrupulous and provocative, reminds us of two habits of mind we seem to have misplace — innocent wonder and an appreciation of practical brain power. Peeled grapes are out and LSD is in. (Again, alas.) If we laugh at Frankenstein, we also laugh at Bambi. We are more inclined to shrug than we are to gasp. Isn't everything a trick? Am I putting you on? Of course not; you wouldn't fit. Hit me with a banjo.
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John Leonard 42
American critic, writer, and commentator 1939–2008Related quotes
“The result of this is fear. And man gasps for safety and morality.”
Speech at the Opening of the Bandung Conference
“That would have made Quintilian stare and gasp.”
On the Detraction which followed upon my writing certain Treatises, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
