In 1976 there appeared in bookstores Geodesic Math and How to Use It (University of California Press). The author was Hugh Kenner, whose next book would be Joyce’s Voices (1978) and whose previous book had been A Homemade World (1975), a study of “the American Modernist Writers.” Hugh Kenner’s first book was about Chesterton, his second about Ezra Pound, his third about Wyndham Lewis, his fourth about James Joyce. Willard Goodwin’s bibliography lists thirty-two books, 856 articles, and 200 contributions to collections of essays. His last book was a series of lectures, The Elsewhere Community, spoken ex tempore for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, transcribed.

His command of any subject was such that he could lecture without notes or script. He usually had a folder of blank pages, or letters from friends, that he pretended to be reading from, to assure audi ...