As any avid reader of posters, billboards, and banners will surely know, the U of T book sale season is in full swing. Whether you’re in need of a mass-market Margaret Atwood paperback or 25 different translations of the New Testament, Vic is the place to be this weekend. But even for the functionally analphabetic on campus, the Victoria College Book Sale has something to offer.
“I’m just looking for decor” professes Gertrude Plath, a low-brow third-year in search of high-brow literary furnishings. “It’s not easy being an English major. Sure, I’m well versed in the canon, you know, Seuss, Sendak, Carlisle, and Dahl, but still my professors and peers expect more.”
Keeping up with the esoteric expectations of egotistical English students is hard enough for anyone. For Plath, whose English reading level is that of the average eight year old Mongolian, it’s damn near impossible.
“When people see these new finds on my shelf maybe they’ll change their tune” remarks Plath, brimming with joy at her recent acquisition of Hegel and Woolf. “I may not be able to spell dialectics and I’m unclear on how Virginia Woolf is related to the big bad one, but I still can’t wait for people to see me holding these”.
It’s too early to say whether Plath’s manoeuvre will be a success, but this Boundary correspondent wishes her all the best. As for the Vic book sale, so long as it guarantees that Ulysseys and Candide will keep flying off the shelves, it’s more than glad to participate in such feats of academic dishonesty.
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