Exodus

Lars and W. return to complete Iyer's dialogic trilogy about these two "friends of thought." W.'s position at the university has been saved from termination by a legal technicality, but since they've still closed the humanities department in which he worked, he has been relegated to teaching the sports science students. The pair decide they must go on a lecture tour of Britain to witness the ruins of the humanities and the destruction of philosophy. Their journey, told in vignettes, alternates between W. frequently insulting Lars' intelligence%E2%80%94going as far as pointing out how Lars fits the 14 types of stupidity listed in Wikipedia%E2%80%94and W. lamenting his own lack of accomplishments, pondering his significance, and wondering if he should have left Britain like his former colleagues. There are amusing passages, like W.'s rumination on bovine intelligence or the question of why Lars must remove his trousers every time he visits W., but much of the banter becomes tedious with W.'s consistent abuse of Lars. Readers who are familiar with the first two books in the trilogy, Spurious and Dogma, will find the third just as entertaining, but those who are new to Iyer's work should probably start at the beginning. (Feb.)