Mental gymnastics and synchronised psyching

By Nicola Shepherd

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ONCE again several mind-bending questions have been posted on the Arts & Literature section.

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The person who wanted to know how culture and identity are defined in American society defeated most, and so a booklist, selected from the 4,000 books on the subject, was provided.

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A seemingly innocuous question about Jonathan Swift's essay A Modest Proposal, elicited an answer�that is best not read by the squeamish.

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Don Campbell seems such a common name that when we were asked to track down this American author we really weren't sure we had got the right one. Ours wrote a book about teaching children through music.

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Dorothy's surname in a Wizard of Oz foxed everyone for a few days, until a fan came forward.

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By contrast the poem used in the Center Parcs advert was easy prey, as it has recently been voted in the nation's top one hundred poems.

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We still haven't had anyone brave enough to venture a definition of post-modern literature. Just goes to show that literary snobbery still lives on if�we are all too embarassed to venture our own attempts at a definition.

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Keep those questions coming here.