Doug McCabe's Response to Esther De Bruijn's Essay

[...] by developing this angle through a closer reading of Okri's novel, and other texts, de Bruijn would not only contribute to scholarship on The Famished Road, but also to the body of scholarship on New Age spirituality, where an account of New Ageism as "cosmopolitan" rather than "Western" would be a valuable contribution. (181) Thus, in just this one portion of her key concluding remarks, de Bruijn compresses several demeaning speculations: first, she suggests, bafflingly, that my appreciation of "salutary" qualities in The Famished Road is a reason to wonder why I "bothered" with the novel; secondly, having ruled out any legitimate academic motives, she confidently proffers the veiled retributive purpose she has (erroneously) discovered lurking in my two essays; and then she tops it all off by implying that I likely fell prey to my own "imperialist tendencies" due to academic ignorance.