Comments on: Academic Mary Sues

By: Matt's Mom

Matt's Mom — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 22:06:43 +0000

Oh dear. The language in the swatch quoted from Erin O’Connor (career, steep curve) strangely and unhappily reminds me that Randall Jarrell died when he was hit by a car as he walked along a road—possibly a suicide.

By: Mr Ripley

Mr Ripley — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 06:19:33 +0000

There was an article in Lingua Franca five or six years ago about how the Academic Novel nowadays was so mild and defanged, and how Smiley and Russo and Chabon didn’t live up to Jarrell or even Mary McCarthy’s awful Cold War story. The Francans were right: if real universities were run as rationally and successfully as the one in Moo, with profs as sane and adminstrators as benignant as Smiley’s, it’d be a utopian improvement over what we got now. But the article didn’t mention Samuel Delany’s The Mad Man, which is hardly mild, or even DeLillo’s White Noise, IIRC.

By: John Quiggin

John Quiggin — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 04:05:38 +0000

More in the David Lodge vein, I enjoyed Jane Smiley’s Moo.

By: Helen

Helen — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 03:02:01 +0000

So many wonderful suggestions for further reading. I’m obviously not the only one here with a secret penchant for campus fiction. And to think I was resigned to simply rereading Lodge again. . . Jordan, thanks for the reference to your book. I’ll have to get my hands on copy. So much of the campus fiction I’ve read is set in the 50s & 60s; it’ll be refreshing to read something contemporary. Oh, & although it’s not comedy, Byatt’s Virgin in the Garden has some sharp observations about Cambridge culture.

By: Miriam

Miriam — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 02:22:01 +0000

I've got to agree with Ophelia about Straight Man--given how much there is to satirize in English departments, this novel seemed to miss the mark an awful lot. Reginald Hill (an ex-lecturer) managed to work some academic satire into Death's Jest-Book; there's more in his early novel An Advancement of Learning. You still can't go wrong with Francis Cornford's Microcosmographia Academica. Also, speaking non-fiction-wise, Mark Pattison's Memoirs of an Oxford Don is still a scorcher. For unintentional satire, try the last chapter or so of Sir Kenneth Dover's Marginal Comment (i.e., the chapter in which he explains how he goes about trying to rid his department of a disturbed colleague).

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:49:46 +0000

Speaking of Russo, I meant to say – I really hated Straight Man. That was the most unconvincing ‘English professor’ I’ve ever read. The guy was barely literate, and never thought, he just reacted and emoted. Plus he wasn’t funny. Or interesting.

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Thu, 04 Mar 2004 01:17:46 +0000

t'link was broken, but this seems to get it. Do you know the etymology? I will now blog-pimp: I am composing a reply which should go here

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:09:07 +0000

(And: Who is Academic Mary, and why is she suing?)

By: Matt Weiner

Matt Weiner — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 21:07:13 +0000

I love Barbara Pym’s Less than Angels. The opening scene, in which a party for the opening of a library is forced to absorb some students & scruffy professors who are actually working there, is absolutely classic. The students’ behavior is familiar from the inside (they wind up by the drink, snarking on the faculty). Many of Pym’s books impinge on academia—Pym herself worked for a long time as secretary (I think) to an anthropological society. I think of Esther Clovis as her stand-in. Her satire is IMO much gentler than Amis’s or Russo’s.

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 20:48:24 +0000

Henry, hmm, that’s an interesting thought. An intended character flaw. I’ve always taken Narrator to be very in love with himself. I’ll have to try it with the intended character flaw view in mind.

By: Henry

Henry — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 17:41:23 +0000

Ophelia, I’m happy to see all these fans too (spanning the political spectrum from Bill Sjostrom to you – good taste in literature knows no boundaries). I’m not so sure that the main character is perfect though; I think that his air of sad, amused detachment is an (intended) character flaw. Jordan, I’ve been meaning to buy the Grasshopper King for a while – it does indeed sound like my kind of book – now I’ve an excuse to do it!

By: Ophelia Benson

Ophelia Benson — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 17:22:07 +0000

Yeah, Pictures From an Institution is bloody brilliant. You have to read it fairly slowly, in installments, at least I think so, because it’s so rich that you have to read and digest each sentence separately. Didn’t we have a conversation about this book a few months ago? Some thread about favorite not-well-known-enough books? I think I said Pictures and someone said it’s well known, and I said yes but not well known enough. Which I stick to. But I’m happy to see all these fans. It does have one major flaw, though, which is that the central character is perfect. And since he’s obviously Jarrell, that gets a bit…annoying, after awhile. He should have deprecated himself as well as everyone else. (And I agree about the lame item on Erin O’Connor’s site – at least judging from the only bit I read, the first installment. Awful stuff. Labored pseudo-Waugh, sort of thing.)

By: J. Ellenberg

J. Ellenberg — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 16:09:00 +0000

Helen, at the risk of breaking blog-comment protocol, let me say that I wrote an academic novel, The Grasshopper King, which, since we seem to like the same things, you might enjoy: have a look at the book's web page. Has anybody read Stoner, by John Williams? I hear great things about it but haven't been able to find a copy. Oh, and re Jarrell: fans should all immediately obtain Randall Jarrell and his Age, by Stephen Burt.

By: st

st — Wed, 03 Mar 2004 13:46:41 +0000

I realize, of course, that my use of two (two!) adverbs in that parenthetical may reduce my credibility in recommending good writing.