the last bastion

College English departments are perhaps the only place on earth where Marxism survives as a viable political philosophy. As Jeremy Noel-Tod notes, ironically, it's because academic Marxists are out-of-touch with the mass of humanity. But card-carrying pinko Terry Eagleton's crime is worse: he's lost touch with the very novels he's supposed to be illuminating.

Nobody familiar with the opening chapters of Great Expectations--featuring Pip's guiltily stolen "wittles" and Miss Havisham's grotesquely stale wedding cak--could write: "Food in Dickens... is always a sign of well-being." Eagleton excels at sweeping critical statements that knock actual novels out of sight.

Like Fidel Castro, academic blowhards never die. They just fade into insignificance.