Adapting the discontinuous and multitonal critical procedures of works like Carlyle's "Sartor Resartus" and Laura Riding's "Anarchism Is Not Enough", in this pamphlet Jerome McGann subjects current literary studies to a patacritical investigation. The investigation centers on the interpretation of a notorious modern riddle: 'Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it's too dark to read'. Working by indirection and from multiple points of view, the book argues that aesthetics is always a science of exceptions, and that any given critical practice is also always an exception from itself. The book works from two assumptions: first, that the riddle of the dog conceals an allegory about book culture and is addressed to the academic custodians of book culture; and second, that any explanation of the riddle is necessarily implicated in the problem posed by the riddle. It therefore remains to be seen - it is the reader's part to decide - whether the book is a friend to man or - perhaps like the riddle of the dog - 'too dark to read'.
