Rating: 
Summary: couldn't even finish it
Review: It isn't often that I don't read a book all the way through... unless of course it's utter rubbish. I wouldn't peg Paglia's book of essays as that, but i would approach it with trepidation. It wasn't that I didn't agree with most of her rantings (although I didn't), it was the way they were written. Buried in a heap of reference after reference, it was almost impossible to trudge through most of what she said, without feeling the need to research every other sentence. Her essays on date rape were linguistically digestable, although her ideas were fairly offensive, not to mention, reading this work in 2001 (It came out in the early 90's) makes a lot of her opinions read as outdated. At first I liked it, she made me angry and it was fun to wage an inner debate... but later on... I mean, do we really want to read her lesson plan for a class she once taught... all 50 pages of it? Do you get the idea? A lot of it seemed like her own mental masturbation. Proceed with caution.
Rating: 
Summary: blunt language, banal conception
Review: Paglia enjoys being irreverent and un P.C. However, her sharp pronouncements are not qualified by either scholarship or personal experience. Sass is the propellant for her arguments. Her examinations of various topics from rape to the avant garde are cursory. So her conclusions are simplistic, sensational, and ultimately very irresponsible.
Rating: 
Summary: An effective attack on PC
Review: Paglia writes from a standpoint of anti-PC/anti-postmodernist philosophy. The weakness of her book is that it is dedicated to what John Berger has called 'the instant culture', the culture where postmodernism has cut us off from the past while the media cuts us off daily from the future. For a study of the interaction of the media with the outcast elements of the instant culture from the standpoint of PC/postmodernism see Joshua Gamson's "Freaks Talk Back". Both Paglia and Gamson are TV addicts. Both praise the role of the media in the instant culture. One is Foucauldian, the other is not.Paglia's intellectual contribution comes from her anti-postpodernism. PC is an instant-practice in postmodernist society that creates/spreads the pseudo-disease called victimization. America has, through PC, become a nation of victims. See also "Dumbing Down our Kids", by Charles J. Sykes, for the role played by schools in creating 'victims'. Paglia's anti-postmodernist essay 'Junk bonds and Corporate Raiders' is worth reading because it's a very effective attack on postmodernism/PC, and predates the Sokal hoax by about five years. Her MIT lecture is also worth reading. The rest of the book, in praise of the instant-culture created by modern capitalism, which has largely destroyed the chance of nontrivial culture within America, includes a lot of horn-tooting for Paglia by Paglia and does not shed light on anything worth knowing. Paglia likes to emphasize her Italian roots, but the stark contrast with John Berger's writing, where peasants do not behave as victims and capitalism is not praised for what it has done, is worth noting.
Rating: 
Summary: Intelligent, perceptive, sassy
Review: Paglia, as she says herself, has an ego to rival Norman Mailer's. She's also got a brain to rival Einstein's. Not to mention her own brand of originality.In this collection of essays, Paglia takes on and demolishes post modernism, deconstruction and a forest of Foucaultian foolishness befouling the modern American university.Paglia does not hesitate to assert that the feminist movement has been taken over by man-haters, bull dykes and the sexually frustrated. Not to mention the terminally stupid. The book is a great read, but it's really only for those familiar with the debates and debaters she skewers. If you don't know what she's talking about...well, you won't know what she's talking about.
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Read Camille to Agree with Her
Review: Read Ms. Paglia to get your mind stretched. Whether you are on the left or the right you will find her in equal parts right on and maddening, but that just means that she thinks for herself, a rare commodity in modern academia. She is intellectually honest and grounded in common sense. You will never find her excusing President Clinton's conduct like the rest of the so-called woman's movement does. Viva Paglia!
Rating:
Summary: Erm...no
Review: Reading this book--indeed, reading anything by Camille Paglia, and hearing her speak--is like riding a roller coaster: a leisurely and provocative ride to a high, entirely different point of view ("Hmm...I've never thought of it this way..."), followed by a manic drop in sanity and reasoning that gives way to loops of circular argument and hypocrisy and fears of never getting out alive. Forgive me for the overheated analogy: they're part of Paglia's repertoire. Paglia's avowed polaristic view of the world--dionysian vs. apollonian, light vs. dark, male vs. female, French vs. Italian/American, Paglia vs. Garber--is frustrating and maddening. You're either with her or you're not. On a few points--the importance of studying popular culture in the academy, the fundamental role gay men have played in shaping culture (behind the scenes), the seductive and brilliant power of art-house cinema, the usefulness of Freudian theory to the study of art and literature--I'm totally with her. But these positions align her with the theory-heads she maligns. Her persistent solipsism and playfulness make her the prime example of what she loathes in contemporary academia. (...)
Rating:
Summary: This book is only a compilation of smaller historical work
Review: Take previously published articles and interviews, bind them up and slap a title on it and you have this book. Perhaps her publisher talked her into this thing?
Only buy this book if you want to read interviews, and previously submitted articles and such from her. It has a somewhat disjointed feel. As other reviewers have written, I did not complete this book. I had very high hopes as I waited for it to come in the mail. I was disappointed, not by what she has to say, but by the format and lack of depth in this book. I appreciate her opinions and wanted to read an elaboration on them. This book doesn't do that. It simply repeats the same themes over and over. It does not build on them, or dig into much of anything. It kind of reminded me of those television shows you see from time to time that patch what they think are their best scenes together into a "remember when" show. As with those shows, I gave up about half way through.
I would have given this book only two stars, but I do like what she has to say and that she's willing to swim against the tide of popularity and NOT blame men for everything.
Rating:
Summary: A Lone Star
Review: The importance of this book will only be of worth to those who think, and are disgusted with the path with which the Baby Boomer's have taken. From the 60's through the early 70's, where sit-in's were popular and people were actually concerned with political leader's and foreign affairs, the American Society looked like they were on the road to ethics which we could feel good about. These very Baby Boomer's wanted to live in a better, less distorted society. Something onlong the course of history changed, and these ideals fell from the minds of the Baby Boomer's. Possibly it had something to do with new considerations (like raising children and making money). De facto or premeditative, the importance of raising kids and education to these very people have not only fallen, but now remain missing. Camille illustrates not only this fact, but also the sheer lack of thinking which now exists in American Society. She also describes perfectly how the Universities are failing at teaching future generations how to think, and failing at giving their students exposure to History in general. She is an American rebel who is willing to go against the tide of the establishment (educational institutions as well as the real world) and stand up for thinking!!! To suggest that Camille is right or wrong is one thing to argue (I believe she is right), but her ability to have the guts to stand up against the majority of those who prefer not to question makes her unquestionably a remarkable women.
Rating:
Summary: Mesmerizing, but...
Review: There is something intoxicating about Camille Paglia. It's partly her prose, which manages to be both blunt and extravagant; she'd make a good political speech writer. She writes in slick, easily digested proclamations that both dramatize and grossly over-simplify the world - which is gratifying to read initially but not particuarly enlightening in the long run. She seduces partly because of her palpable love of art and her unquestionable erudition; certainly, as an English student, it's refreshing to read someone who approaches art with an unabashed sense of awe and pleasure, which IS often missing from present academe. Anf she also seduces because she often interprets culture at face-value, and it's always fun in some way to have every superficial prejudice indulged, and all human history reduced to a larger-than-life cartoon, all neat dichotomies between civilization and nature, brutish, brilliant men and enchanting, passive women, Apollo and Dionysius...
But, as you read on, you become aware you're in the presence of some exotic species of maniac. Her bullying style initially seduces and finally repulses. It's Camille, Camille, Camille - and as you read through these essays, you begin to mutter to yourself, "If she refers to "my Sixties generation", her Italian heritage or her own intellectual virtuosity one more time, I'm going to...."
Her obsessional loathing of the feminist establishment seems finally self-indulgent. She seems to believe that feminist ideology is this pernicious disease that is spreading out of control, polluting the minds of the young and vulnerable and poisoning human relationships, when in actuality, feminist thought is nowhere near the orthodoxy she makes it out to be. It is the status quo in the hallowed halls of universities, perhaps, but not in the real world. Her constant, immature caricaturing of "the feminists" actually prevents the very debate she says she wants to ignite, and finally just plays into the hands of the very people who were hostile to the idea of women's liberation to begin with.
She's at her best when she's elucidating the mysterious allure of a particular icon or piece of art. She's at her worst when she's making absurdly simplistic assertions about date rape. Still, she obviously gets off on playing the devil's advocate, and she can certainly make you laugh.
Read her to feel angry, and to revive your sense of pleasure and wonder in art and culture. Her football-stadium-size ego pervades everything she writes - it's almost like she wants to footnote each sentence with "You ARE aware I'm the authority on the entire human experience, aren't you? Good. GOOD. Just so we're clear." It's revolting and maddening and completely disarming, all at once.
Read it, though. You won't feel indifferent.
Rating:
Summary: A refreshing attack on Foucault,feminism and the academia
Review: This book is not as brilliant as Sexual Personae, but it still offers insights into her view on art,feminism,society and of course sex. It's her most user-friendly book - less academic then Sexual Personae but more serious then the not so hot "vamps and tramps" (no drag queens here..). Sure, no one can agree with all her views, and sometimes she craves provocation to much, but her wit and originality make this book fun and interesting.
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