And I agree w/ you on Crypt.  I certainly think that Stevenson has some stylistic issues (like needing an editor, for one), but I *cough* might say the same of at least one other on the list. 

But to compare it to teaching Patriot Games?  A touch harsh, I’d say.

And its flaws, I think, make for an interesting conversation about the notion of a “Big Novel” and the burdens that accompany such a title.

Of course, there’s always The Firm.  (joking… always joking)

It may not be a work of “genius” by high-lit standards (standards I’d like to disrupt, anyhow), but I think it’s way more interesting than you give it credit for.

And, as you suggest, after making our way through the first three books, it’s a slightly more relaxed end-of-semester read.  JR would just be cruel and unusual.

To take one example off the top of my head, Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun (considered, rightly, as one novel, it’s about the same length as the rest and certainly encyclopedic) is, I’d conservatively estimate, infinitely more intellectually rewarding and better-written than the anomaly.

If the “current U.S. culture” angle doesn’t work for you w/r/t the Wolfe book (which I think it does), there’s always JR. Stephenson is of a more obvious sociological interest, but you could get the same effect from reading Slashdot for a few weeks.

Imagine taking a course on espionage fiction in which you read A Coffin for Dimitrios; Our Man in Havana; Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy; and then Patriot Games. But that’s unfair to Clancy. And the students will certainly appreciate something mindless after the first three.

I’m envious of the course, of course.

The banner works fine.

Below that, we have two columns.  In the left column, the words “Professor Kathleen Fitzpatrick” are sliding underneath the banner (I think these are the words, anyway, since I can only see the bottom 1/3 of them).

WinXP Pro.  IE 6.0.

I can check from home w/ similar OS/Browser.  My work computer can be weird sometimes.

Side note: on my monitor at work, the “info” part of your course blogs is cut off at the top, so that I can only see a small portion of the top line (above: “Office”).