Apparently, Mr. Lev Grossman of Time Magazine find love beneath the dignity of the God of the Judeo-Christian tradition. In a rather pathetic article entitled, Who Dies in Harry Potter? God, Grossman argues that Jo Rowling has made a radical departure from literary tradition. Of course, the ever well-read Mr. Grossman cites two sources for literary tradition: J.R.R. Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. I should say, right off the bat, that it is a mistake to respond to Lev Grossman’s article. It is a case of a lesser intellect, unable to contribute anything useful to the world, leaping onto the sensation that is Harry Potter and using it to try to make a name for himself. To gain a bit of the brilliant light shining on Ms. Rowling. I am doubtful that even Grossman finds his article interesting, but is hopeful that it will stir up anger among Rowling’s supporters, and win him a slice of fame among the Christian fundamentalists who will doubtless use his insipid little article to further the cause of book banning (witch burning?). It is no surprise to find those of meagre intellect trying to ride the coattails of Ms. Rowling’s success, however mean-spirited and intellectually bankrupt the means of grabbing on. What is surprising is that this bit of drivel has found its way into Time Magazine. I was under the impression that Time still had pretensions (however vague) to being a news magazine.

Grossman lauds the Catholic spirit that animates Tolkien’s work, and the Anglican teachings that thump us on the head like a troll’s club in C.S. Lewis, but then wonders where lies the spiritual backbone of Harry Potter. Harry, he says, lives in a world free of religion or spirituality where he has no one to whom he can pray. He notes the presence of Ghosts, but not God. The ever brilliant Lev goes so far as to say that Rowling has more in common with “celebrity atheists” (seriously) like Christopher Hitchens (a very interesting comparison, really, when you consider that Hitchens has gone right over the edge and is in support of murder for oil, openly stated) than she does with Lewis and Tolkien. Of course, there is some humor in the fact that a great many people have insulted the work of Ms. Rowling as being entirely derivative of Mr. Tolkien. Lev Grossman, instead, chooses to roast the heretical Rowling for not being derivative enough! We could go on at length about the pathetic nature of his review based on his knowledge of only two writers in the fantasy genre, but I don’t suppose there is any need. Grossman’s intellectual merit is so sadly lacking that it needs no reinforcement.

Mr. Grossman says:

In the new millennium, magic comes not from God or nature or anything grander or more mystical than a mere human emotion. In choosing Rowling as the reigning dreamer of our era, we have chosen a writer who dreams of a secular, bureaucratized, all-too-human sorcery, in which psychology and technology have superseded the sacred.

Love is a “mere human emotion”. Apparently, Mr. Grossman does not read the works he derides or he might recognize the sublime in Ms. Rowling’s description of love. It is also apparent that Mr. Grossman has a very limited capacity for love, which probably explains his jingoistic take on religion as a whole. For Lev Grossman, if it isn’t in the Christian tradition, it isn’t religion. Further, love is the basis of bureaucracy not spirituality. If that’s true, put me down for the bureaucrats.

I can’t argue with his logic. The “true” religions are at the root of all hate in the world, it seems. President Bush says that God speaks through him (you would hope God would have a better command of logic and the English language than that, wouldn’t you?), and Bush speaks in terms of religion-based genocide. He speaks of crusades and he bombs on the basis of color and religion. Pope Ratzinger has told us that all other religions than Catholicism are not religions at all. The Catholic Church has always felt that way, of course, but I don’t think it does much to spread fellowship around the globe to be shouting out, “I’m right and you’re all wrong!” at the top of your Popely lungs. Funny, too, because so many people have hated the Jews for their arrogant sense that they are God’s chosen people. Everybody else is just scenery. Of course, the Jews work to be an exclusive club (kind of amusing to compare how Jews promote conversion to their religion to how Country Clubs historically promoted Jews to Country Club membership, but, again, not our point.) Israel is all about exterminating the Palestinians, killing without conscious or remorse. And it is hardly worth the effort of mentioning the hostility of the Muslim world toward Christians and Jews at this particular juncture in time. It would be difficult to spend a passing instant with any US media and not come away with a list more complete than I could compile, though perhaps also a touch more to the side of fiction than my own list might lean.

Lev Grossman has chosen to bemoan the lack of spirituality in Harry Potter because Rowling has chosen the ethic, or emotion, of love over the Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition (I have no doubt that, were Harry to be a Muslim, his treatment in Lev’s article would fare no better). It is impossible to miss the point that dogmatism is of more significance to Grossman than seeking a deeper understanding of God, or Gods, or nature. Grossman is stating that, if you don’t package spiritualism in an easily recognizable form for this Fundamentalist Christian nation, it is not spirituality at all. And Time has chosen to print this view as if it were news rather than an opinion piece better suited to the pages of Guideposts, or the airwaves of the 700 Club. It is interesting, because Time is choosing to align itself with the segment of society that sees good in Christianity, and a world spiritually bereft in all else. It is choosing not to be a news magazine, but a mouthpiece of a fundamentalist nation. Time has chosen faith over reason, and that is of the deepest concern for the intellectual future of the United States. George Bush and company already claim that faith should trump reason in government. Gut feelings and Bush hearing the voice of God should mean that we no longer need to question Bush’s authority, because his authority is divine.

So, Mr. Grossman, as you and Time prepare to toss the Harry Potter series onto the still warm embers of the Constitution that it might make a bigger bonfire around which to perform your war dance in the name of God, I will choose love. Who dies in the Deathly Hallows? I can only hope it is the culture of hate mongering religious bigotry, the true Voldemort of our age.

It is all the rage these days to out authors for being not telling the truth. The case of James Frey and his infamous memoir comes to mind, but, of more pressing concern is the recent court case of JT LeRoy. JT LeRoy was the pen name of Laura Albert. Ms. Albert claims that JT was more than just a name that she wrote under, but that he was a personality hidden within her own. While tabloids such as the New York Times might enjoy these little tidbits, it is of absolutely no relevance at all whether or not there is a personality living inside Ms. Albert who responds to the name of JT LeRoy. The fact is that most good writers have their characters swimming around inside them, neither entirely real, nor entirely fictional. But that, too, is of absolutely no consequence. What is of consequence is that Ms. Albert was successfully sued for fraud by Jeffrey Levy-Hinte of Antidote Films.

There is a long tradition in literature of using false names. I don’t suppose there is anyone in the United States who is not acquainted with the case of Mark Twain, nor of his alter ego, Samuel Clemens. Certainly, from the perspective of American pop culture, Mark Twain is the reality and Sam Clemens is the curious fact mentioned in relation to the career of Mr. Twain. But perhaps more to the point, in this case, we should mention George Eliot. A woman in the Victorian era, she chose to write under a man’s name, because women were not taken seriously except as writers of romances. It was not crucial for Mary Ann Evans to take the name “George Eliot” in order to be published, but it was important if she was to be taken seriously. Even J.K. Rowling was encouraged by her publisher to use initials, rather than her name, because her publisher did not believe that her target audience of young boys would be interested in reading the works of a woman. In fact, she has no “K” in her name at all, so one might call it a nom de plume that she writers under. In another case, William Sharp wrote under the name of Fiona MacLeod during the second half of the 19th Century, even adopting dress, separate handwriting, and other critical details for himself in his Fiona MacLeod persona.

Not just writers, but musicians have done the same thing. David Bowie comes immediately to mind, changing personas the way others might change wardrobe. In recent years, Garth Brooks made a very sad attempt to enter the world of Rock and Roll under the name of Chris Gaines, knowing that his music would not be taken seriously if he tried to crossover from mega-country star into the world of rock and roll.

And this was the dilemma facing Laura Albert. She had a character she wanted to present to the world. Laura had the body and name of a woman, which would lead people to question the story she presented. As an audience, Americans have a tendency to shallowness, especially in regard to matters of gender. We go into a novel with a higher level of disbelief if the author is male, speaking with a female voice. We immediately question the authenticity of the voice and note where the author failed to present a full-bodied, three dimensional woman. The same is true with women writing in men’s voices. For anyone who has read JT LeRoy’s Sarah, it is clearly an effeminate voice. While this appropriate to the character, it is easy to imagine the reviews the novel would have received had a woman’s name appeared on the cover of the book. The effeminate voice would not have been taken as part of the character, but as a flaw of the author.

Not so many years ago, an Irish author named Julian Gough had a manuscript that he was shopping to publishers under a woman’s name. An American publisher agreed to publish it, but when Mr. Gough revealed his gender, the offer was rescinded. The novel was later published under his real name, but one wonders what changed in the minds of that first publisher when it learned that Mr. Gough was, in fact, a Mr. Did the novel cease to be good literature? Did the words change? What, precisely, had changed for the publisher? Clearly only one thing had changed and that was the reader’s (publisher’s) perception of the writing because they no longer believed the feminine voice to be authentic. Yes, it is ridiculous that the view of the author changed the content of the novel. Altered its worth. But we are, as I have said, a shallow society and we like to see the obvious. Consider our trouble with race relations as an obvious case in point. While there are no differences in human beings that can be demarcated by skin color (save cultural ones, and those, obviously, depend not on skin color, but on environment and skin color), we have to resort to legal restraints to have equality of treatment between races. Glass ceilings for women in the corporate world would be another example. However evolved we think we are, one needs only look at the disparity of pay among people of differing genders in comparable jobs to know that, as much as we would like to pretend there is not, a perception that women are not equal to men in the workplace.

Perhaps the hostility Ms. Albert experienced from the legal system is because she managed to do what other Americans cannot, and that is to get outside of her neatly labeled box for gender, race and class. Yes, she and LeRoy are both White, but she didn’t have to be. She could have chosen any color that pleased her. She chose a gender that pleased her, as well as a class. Perhaps it is a hostility to proving that we are very poor at reading people without very obvious labels. We need to be Black and White, male and female, rich and poor, or we cannot effectively deal with one another. If such barriers are broken down, we might have to assess a poor person on merit rather than labeling that person lazy. Perhaps it is this idea that we should assess people as people rather than neatly delineated, pre-defined packages that brought such outrage at the actions of Ms. Albert.

I’m afraid, however, that the moral outrage is ill-earned. At this very moment in history, we are dealing with a president that fabricated evidence in order to send us to war so that his backers might soak up Iraqi oil and US taxpayer dollars like the giant sponges they are. This man knowingly lied, leading us to kill hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and to sacrifice the lives of thousands of American soldiers in the name of greed. Greed, mind you, that is not shared with the American people, but kept to a small cadre of super rich friends of the President. The money behind the throne that gathers more money still at our expense. We have a Vice President who exposed a CIA agent. We have an executive that spies on us and lies about what they listen to. About why they listen. We have a government that is tearing down our Constitution in a wild grab for power and wealth in excess of all reason and lying to us every step of the way. But it is a writer of FICTION we choose to hold to the highest standards of TRUTH.

Mr. Levy-Hinte (whose films I will see on a cold day in Hell) claimed in court that what he was purchasing was the JT Brand. Not the novel, but the persona of the author. And there you have it. We live in a tabloid culture where we like to be titillated by the naughty tales that surround us. We judged Paris Hilton for making a sex tape, but then we all download it and gleefully watch her fuck. We are outraged that Britney Spears flashed her pussy to a crowd of photographers and, to make sure that America knows how outraged we are, we play that scene over and over on the news. What Britney knows and what we won’t admit is that we want to see that Mousketeer pussy. We are a nation of voyeurs who get off on watching the lurid details of the lives of others. Consider the constant play of O.J. Simpson’s murder trial. How the media reveled in the gory details of the crime, speculated about the jealousy and rage. Mr. Levy-Hinte is that same American voyeur. What he was buying was the thrill of watching a pretty young boy turn tricks in a truck stop. He was titillated by the details. Perhaps turned on by the thought of having or being Sarah. And when the sexual fantasy vanished, he went to court to get revenge for having it stolen away. It is not art to Levy-Hinte, but high-brow pornography. He can’t admit to his sexual kinks, except when disguised as art.

But Levy-Hinte was not buying JT LeRoy. We no longer truck in human chattel. He was buying the film rights to a novel! Movie rights do not include the life and personality of the author of that book. Could he not also have sued the actor who landed the role of “Sarah” if he did not render sexual services? By portraying the part of a male prostitute in the film, is this actor not committing fraud unless he comes across for Mr. Levy-Hinte? Can I sue Julia Roberts because she committed fraud by presenting herself as a prostitute in Pretty Woman? Can I sue Tim Allen for fraudulently pretending to be Santa Claus? Quentin Tarantino frequently represents himself in the press as a genius of modern film. Surely there are actionable grounds in that!

The insanely misguided Levy-Hinte said, “I’m kind of a person of principle. Not kind of–I am. I wasn’t willing to simply walk away and take a loss with no apology or reasonable explanation.” Yes, Levy-Hinte is a person of supreme integrity, operating strictly on the grounds of principle. He said, with the compassion one might expect from a human being in the world of art, that if Ms. Albert, who never got rich from her writing, could not afford to pay the judgement, he might have to consider laying claim to the rights to past and future books. A true humanitarian and patron of the arts. To paraphrase, I want my money back and the rights to everything this woman has ever done and ever will do. Simple justice. I am glad he is not over-reaching with his greed and I do hope that an appeal is in the works. I should hope that Levy-Hinte will never find another writer, or artist of any type, willing to do business with him. Have I gotten across that he is the lowest of the low? A true bottom-feeder? He is, indeed. A business man who has entered the world of art and wants to make commodities of everything he sees.

It is the right of the artist to present art in the best possible light. Whether that be in the seedy light of a child prostitute or in the comfortable confines of a 40-year old mother, it does not matter. There is a FICTION stamp on books for a reason, and to claim that the author must uphold the flaws and virtues of the characters within that book is absurd. Because you read the voice of a first person narrator, it does not mean that narrator is the author. Nor does the author have any obligation to truth. NONE. Fiction is a well-told lie that we are welcome to participate in or ignore. It might be a lie that uncovers truth, but it is a lie, just the same. It is the nature of the novel. Were it otherwise, you would find these books in the biography section. The author is relevant to the work only in so far as the baggage the reader carries. If a writer takes the time to present a persona that might enable you to better enjoy the fiction, a simple thank you is all that is required. Not a lawsuit.

Said Mary Gaitskill of JT Leroy, “One of the first things he ever said to me was, ‘I feel like this is just another hustle, like maybe I’m hustling the literary world.’ I said, ‘If your writing is good, it doesn’t matter.’ “

As Gaitskill put it, “It’s occurred to me that the whole thing with Jeremy [J.T.] is a hoax, but I felt that even if it turned out to be a hoax, it’s a very enjoyable one. And a hoax that exposes things about people, the confusion between love and art and publicity. A hoax that would be delightful and if people are made fools of, it would be OK—in fact, it would be useful.”

It is an absurd world where our politicians lie with impunity, but our writers of fiction are held to the highest standard of truth. I will not dispute that there is more integrity in fiction than politics, but that does not make fiction culpable for its falsehoods, nor does it excuse politicians from theirs. Boycott Antidote Films. I can only pray for a successful appeal on the part of Laura Albert, that it might right this world turned upside down.

Would someone, as a service to the study of English literature, please do the service of servicing Mr. Stephen Koch? Because it seems that in critics we not only find frustrated writers, but those suffering from frustration of an entirely other kind.

I don’t know the man. I don’t know what he does for a living (I have hopes that he works the grill at a McDonalds hidden away in the flatlands of north central Illinois, but fear he is somewhere employed in the field of education). I know only that when I finished reading the Bantam Classics printing of A Tale of Two Cities, I was treated to Mr. Koch’s views on the very same. Normally, I am pleased to read a scholarly essay on a novel that contains phrases, words, personages from a time with which I am not familiar. I am a bright guy. I have faith in my ability to follow along a discussion of most subjects, but I willingly admit that I do not possess an encyclopedic knowledge of European history or English literature. Perhaps only a passing knowledge of both. I am pleased to be enlightened by better educated souls in the many areas where my own knowledge is deficient. It took no more than a few paragraphs to realize that Mr. Koch was not that better educated soul and to create wonder as to why his essay had been included in the Bantam Classics printing of A Tale of Two Cities.

In short order, Mr. Koch reached for an analysis so tired in all literature and so incredibly out of place in the case of Mr. Dickens’s fine novel that I found myself shouting at the book in the same way that sports fans often shout at their televisions with the fervent belief that it will receive their (complaints, prayers, directions) and provide satisfaction. Mr. Koch informed me that the crux of A Tale of Two Cities was often forgotten by readers of the novel. I was intrigued. What had I missed? The rape recounted in the second trial of Evremonde called Darnay. I had not missed it and found myself disappointed that the secret, obscure information imparted was obvious and already possessed. I read on. In fact, what we ordinary readers failed to realize was that the novel was really about sexual guilt. Huh?

The essay wandered off to find itself tramping through the old Dracula arguments (we will skip the diatribe on Dracula just now) of Victorian sexual repression. No argument to the assertion the Victorians were sexually repressed. They were. We are (if we weren’t, we would probably be able to critique literature from above the waist). Koch even suggested that A Tale of Two Cities bordered on Gothic. At this point, I move from appalled that Mr. Koch has been paid (and probably handsomely) for this contribution to true Gothic horror at the thought that Mr. Koch is ‘educating’ students in some respectable university!

Koch touches on the structure of the novel, nearly understanding it, when he says that it borders on the allegorical. He fails to believe that this method extends beyond the use of The Vengeance as a character name and wanders off into the minefield of ignorance. Indeed, all of his criticism from this point on fails to the degree that he fails to understand the allegorical nature of the novel. I suppose, at this point, I ought to comment on the novel and to give the diatribe against Mr. Koch some substance.

A Tale of Two Cities follows a few intertwined lives through the cities of London and Paris in the years proceeding the French Revolution and following them into the event itself. Mr. Dickens is careful, in the early stages of the novel, to illustrate the differences between England and France. He stresses the cruelty and poverty of France, but does not fail to point out, in less obvious fashion, the similarities to conditions in England. In the person of Jerry Cruncher, Dickens clearly illustrates the divide of rich and poor in his own country and the extremes to which the lower classes must go to make a living. Mr. Koch fails to realize this, of course, and thinks it to be Dickens patriotism rather than his subtlety that we are reading. Too subtle, of course, for Mr. Koch. I can’t say that I know, but I do suppose there would be problems for Mr. Dickens were he to publish a book openly warning that England had all the makings of a future class conflict of the sort that happened a century before in France, but that is his object. In the final hundred pages, he warns, over and over again, that the kind of abuse and hopelessness experienced by the French people would lead anywhere to a revolution just as angry, as cruel, as bloodthirsty. And, though Mr. Koch cannot conceive of such a thing, Mr. Dickens suggests that there is justice in the drive to revolution and the murders that follow.

In the end, Mr. Darnay is tried and found guilty for the crimes of his family. Indeed, for the aristocracy as a whole. Mrs. Defarge calls for the extermination of his entire family and, by it, she means of the entire aristocracy of France. Herein lies a great failing in Mr. Koch’s understanding of the form of Mr. Dickens’s novel. We find, in the concluding moments of the novel, that Darnay’s father and uncle committed a crime of rape some years ago that lead to the deaths of three members of a small peasant family. Mr. Koch supposes the rape to represent sexual guilt and waxes Freudian in a complete misunderstanding of the obvious. The rape is of the people of France. The rape is of the peasantry. Mrs. Defarge is the avenging angel of the family that is the entirety of the common people. It is her sister, her brother, her father who have fallen at the hands of the aristocracy. The sexual act is symbolic of the centuries long abuse of the French people rather than the revolution being symbolic of some sexual guilt, as Mr. Koch perceives.

Mrs. Defarge cannot be satisfied in her lust for revenge and the innocent Mr. Darnay (who has laid aside his inheritance of office in exchange for a life of honest industry) cannot be saved because he is the surviving race, or class, that drove Mrs. Defarge (indeed, the whole of France) to the bloody cleansing required to start anew. So condemned, and with no end in sight to the vengeance of Sainte Guillotine, Mr. Darnay is rescued at the last possible moment by a man who exchanges his life for that of Mr. Darnay. Sydney Carton steps into the abyss, giving his life that Darnay might live. Here again, Mr. Koch misses several important points. He does not see that Mr. Carton is a man of sin and little worth because the sin takes place offstage. We see only that he drinks heavily and has never been able to achieve success to match his abilities. But it is enough for most readers to have the witness of Mr. Carton to his own sins and we need not witness them ourselves. I can suppose only that Mr. Koch suffers from feelings of guilt and inadequacy, projecting those same feelings onto Mr. Carton in a misguided shower of self-pity. But Mr. Carton exists before the age of Freud where we all dwell on dysfunction and guilt. Mr. Carton is not a character of the psychological era, but one of the romantic era and his sins are real. He is the failure of the aristocracy. He is the abusive, non-productive child of privilege and wealth. He consumes, but does not create. He is a symbol and we need not delve into his individual actions to know that his sin is real. We need simply to understand what, rather than who, this Mr. Carton is.

As Sydney starts his path to the guillotine where he will exchange his life for that of Mr. Darnay, he begins to speak the words of Christ the Redeemer. This bit of critical information seems to elude Mr. Koch in all significant fashions, but it is simple: Carton, the aristocrat, is to die for the sins of all his class, and the reformed Mr. Darnay is to set an example of the new mode of life that is allowed to live because Carton has willingly sacrificed himself, his class, his kind for the sins of all the privileged. His death opens the way for the flowering of a new society based on justice and equality. In the same event, the blood lust of Mrs. Defarge is quenched. From here, we move forward.

Dickens makes it clear that the events that led to the French Revolution are easily reproduced and one suspects he chose this subject as a vehicle to speak to England of the danger that lay before her rather than a desire to write an historical novel. It is strange that Mr. Koch should fail to see this when so much of Mr. Dickens’s work is in sympathy with the working classes. It is strange that Mr. Koch fails to see Mr. Dickens’s sympathies with the French Revolution when he states them plainly. Dickens paints the horror of what came to pass in France, but says at all points that it was a hand forced by the aristocracy. Though Dickens is clearly in sympathy with the individual lives lost to the Revolution, he is clear that it is for a greater good, even to the point of having the innocent seamstress that goes hand in hand to death with Sydney Carton stress her feeling that, if it is for the greater good, she is not sorry to lose her life. She notes that if her (was it her sister or her cousin?) should achieve a better life, it is worth the loss of her own to see this object done. Again, it is allegory. Citizens of France sacrificing for the sake of fellow citizens.

Mr. Koch doubts the abilities of Dickens to understand women and tells us that, indeed, all the characters of A Tale of Two Cities are superficial and uninteresting, save for the character of Sydney Carton. This is a pet peeve of mine, the notion that all characters must be well-rounded. I will grant that there are issues in the character of Lucie Manette and what women mean to society, but that, if you grant Mr. Dickens the right embody in the feminine the higher ideals of society, the character is justly constructed. Without debating the feminist perspective, I will assert that Lucie Manette is a country, not a person. She is an ideal and should be judged as such and not at all as a human being. To cut short the debate on the use of women in this glorified and constrained role, it is worth noting that Mr. Darnay is her exact replica in the male form. He is no more fully human and no less virtuous than is Lucie Manette. His only sins are those of his family, but he himself is blameless and without blemish of character. So, in this case, I think Mr. Dickens might be absolved of a typical Victorian view of womanhood.

Indeed, his representation of Mrs. Defarge would discount this constrained view of the feminine. If one were to assume that Mrs. Defarge were irrational rage, then she would not provide that full-bodied counterpoint, but I think it is wrong to assume any such thing of Mrs. Defarge. She represents the French nation rising and she is, perhaps, colder than is her husband, but she is also stronger than he. She imagines a future justice that reaches beyond her life and is willing to sacrifice for it with only the faith–and not the witness–that it will be. Mr. Defarge is weakened by the fear that he will not see the end of his labor in his lifetime and is only steadied in his course for a better future by the resolve of his wife. He defers to her in all things and she is the record keeper of the crimes against the people. While her recording of sins is merciless, it is also perfect. There is no doubt of the truth of her woven record, only a question of whether or not mercy can be shown. When, in then end, her blood lust is shown to be personal, it is only to say that all crimes against the people are personal. Just as the aristocrats beheaded are real people with whom we sympathize, so too are the victims of the aristocracy. To Dickens, it is the least to be expected that centuries of crimes committed by the Evremondes should lead to equal carelessness when these crimes are avenged. The Terror is to be understood as no more horrible in its relatively brief but concentrated bloodletting as a few hundred years of oppression entailing deprivation, rapes and deaths.

Between Mrs. Defarge and Miss Manette, Dickens creates not a shallow view of the feminine, but a complete view of humanity. It is impossible to represent the whole of humanity in depth, but must be done with representative forms and this is the manner of character that populates A Tale of Two Cities. It is an allegory and a brilliant one at that. And may we all hope, for the sake of literature, that Mr. Koch’s observations are served up with a burger and fries rather than in the setting of a university.