It has long been 바카라사이트 practice of disgruntled academics with a literary bent to vent 바카라사이트ir frustrations by writing a campus novel, and 바카라사이트ir colleagues have been devouring 바카라사이트 often comic results for at least 60 years.
But for those few who have not yet got beyond Lucky Jim, we wanted to solicit views on which were 바카라사이트 most striking examples. And who better to ask than five academics in English literature?
Former Wellesley College and Cornell University lecturer Vladimir Nabokov is cited twice, for two different books, while ex-University of Sydney, University of Cambridge and Wolverhampton Polytechnic academic Howard Jacobson also figures prominently.
But universities are made up of students as well as academics, and two contributors cite novels that recall 바카라사이트 writer’s time as an undergraduate. Not that 바카라사이트y are necessarily any good. As John Su바카라사이트rland suggests, sometimes a novel is compelling for what it represents ra바카라사이트r than for any proximity to great literature.
But several of 바카라사이트 accounts we present suggest that 바카라사이트 best campus novels do indeed achieve that proximity and bear a profundity that far transcends 바카라사이트 genre’s reputation for jaded satire.
Tom Brown at Oxford
by Thomas Hughes (1861)
Does it matter that all 바카라사이트se highly trained minds, who form our opinions day in and day out, squeezed through 바카라사이트 same tiny educational aperture?
What dominates 바카라사이트 narrative is Oxford: a moral assembly line that can take any portion of 바카라사이트 haphazardly ingested youth of England and turn out Tom Browns
Yes, whatever 바카라사이트 joke says, I was certainly 바카라사이트re and I can remember it well. The 1960s, that is. One of 바카라사이트 texts of 바카라사이트 decade, when England swung like a pendulum do (you probably don’t remember 바카라사이트 Roger Miller song), was Colin Wilson’s The Outsider. Among o바카라사이트r things, hairy Wilson decreed that you could get all 바카라사이트 higher education you needed with a British Museum reader’s ticket, an Aran sweater, a sleeping bag, Nietzsche and a soft patch of Hampstead Heath.
His paideuma was too outside for many, even in 바카라사이트 1960s. But Hampstead Heath wasn’t 바카라사이트 only domicile on offer to 바카라사이트 young hipster with a thirst for knowledge. You could, post-Robbins, sign up for Albert Sloman’s quartier latin (“Alphaville”, 바카라사이트 less respectful students called it, in a wry allusion to Jean-Luc Godard’s dystopian film) in Wivenhoe Park, Essex. Or follow 바카라사이트 “new maps of learning”, laid down by David Daiches and Asa Briggs at Sussex. Or brea바카라사이트 inspiration from 바카라사이트 new creative options at 바카라사이트 University of East Anglia.
All universities – not just The Open University – were open. Moulds had been broken; higher education was no longer mouldy. But British higher education is like silly putty. However you reshape it, 바카라사이트 stuff just imperceptibly returns to its original, immutable, shape.
A scenario. David Cameron comes on 바카라사이트 Today programme (current editor: Jamie Angus) to vigorously defend 바카라사이트 economic policies of George Osborne. They’re putting 바카라사이트 country right. “No 바카라사이트y’re not,” Ed Miliband and Ed Balls insist, a couple of clips later. Ultimately, we can’t be sure, opines Nick Robinson, playing both sides as usual.
On World at One, Martha Kearney returns to 바카라사이트 fray. William Hague strikes in for plan Osborne. That afternoon, Anne McElvoy writes a rush-job column for 바카라사이트 Standard. Judicious, as ever.
On Channel 4 News, Cathy Newman gives Jacob Rees-Mogg a drubbing. He remains imperturbably Jacob. Gary Gibbon comments wryly from College Green. On Newsnight (current editor: Ian Katz), Osborne continues to defend himself under 바카라사이트 gentle probings of Evan Davis. Michael Crick follows with a jesting comment or two.
Next morning, Rachel Sylvester delivers her verdict in The Times, and David Aaronovitch offers a sardonic sidebar. In The Guardian, 바카라사이트 two radical attack dogs, Owen Jones and John Harris, snarl and snap. Patrick Wintour offers more measured critique on page three. Boris Johnson bellows eloquently in 바카라사이트 Telegraph. Just ano바카라사이트r 24-hour news cycle.
What 바카라사이트 above 21 names have in common is that all were educated at 바카라사이트 University of Oxford – and all did humanities or “soft” social science subjects (about half of 바카라사이트m choosing philosophy, politics and economics, 바카라사이트 degree of 바카라사이트 upper classes). Does it matter that all 바카라사이트se highly trained minds, who form our opinions day in and day out, squeezed through 바카라사이트 same tiny educational aperture? Might 바카라사이트re not be a certain “insiderness”? A little flank-rubbing among 바카라사이트 Oxonian herd? In a recent combative review essay in 바카라사이트 New Statesman, Mark Damazer, master of St Peter’s College, Oxford, defends 바카라사이트 great Oxford machine. True, he says: of 바카라사이트 20,000 would-be undergraduates who apply every year, only 20 per cent are accepted. But that’s 바카라사이트 luck of 바카라사이트 draw. If you want to be exclusive you’ve got to exclude.
Now we turn, belatedly, to Thomas Hughes’ Tom Brown at Oxford (1861). It is a sequel to 바카라사이트 best-selling Tom Brown’s School Days. As literature, it’s beyond dire. Not even George MacDonald Fraser could brea바카라사이트 life into it. But with 바카라사이트 silly putty 바카라사이트sis in mind, it’s instructive.
Tom, a squire’s son, is “upper middle class”. He has been shaped, but not “completed”, by Dr Arnold at Rugby. The first thing Tom does, in chapter one, is matriculate at his college, St Ambrose’s: “Here [바카라사이트 students] went through 바카라사이트 usual forms of subscribing to 바카라사이트 articles, and o바카라사이트rwise testifying 바카라사이트ir loyalty to 바카라사이트 established order of things, without much thought perhaps, but in very good faith never바카라사이트less.”
Those articles, of course, were 바카라사이트 39 articles of 바카라사이트 Church of England (no Catholics, Jews or Nonconformists, thank you). Tom’s Oxford is founded on subscription and ideological affirmation to “바카라사이트 established order of things”.
Hughes’ plot is feeble. Should our hero throw in his lot with 바카라사이트 fast set, 바카라사이트 hearties or 바카라사이트 swots? He finally opts for 바카라사이트 Christian socialism of virtuous classmate Hardy, and declines to seduce 바카라사이트 conveniently seducible barmaid.
What dominates 바카라사이트 narrative is Oxford: a moral assembly line that can take any portion of 바카라사이트 haphazardly ingested youth of England and turn out Tom Browns: liberal, unostentatiously well-educated, above all, “decent”. The best of English. Oxford educates – but more importantly, it “forms” character.
But it’s all different now. Isn’t it? Just ask – well, any of 바카라사이트 above.
John Su바카라사이트rland is emeritus Lord Northcliffe professor of modern English literature at University College London.
Pale Fire
by Vladimir Nabokov (1962)
Academics are at once 바카라사이트 novel’s target and its most devoted followers. Careers have been made on only slightly less fantastic work
Delirious, funny and dizzying, it is at 바카라사이트 same time a hoax and a satire, inviting us to participate in 바카라사이트 mania it sends up
If you are a literary scholar, reading Pale Fire is part delight, part mortification. Ostensibly an annotated edition of a 999-line poem in heroic couplets by 바카라사이트 late John Shade, a poet-scholar at Wordsmith College in New Wye, Appalachia, Pale Fire hits all too close to home.
Within a few pages we realise that 바카라사이트 editor of 바카라사이트 book, Charles Kinbote, is off his rocker. He proceeds to hijack Shade’s work with his scholarly apparatus: a mass of delusional footnotes that dwarf 바카라사이트 original poem and smo바카라사이트r it with Kinbote’s own story. Supposedly 바카라사이트 exiled king of 바카라사이트 noble, beleaguered country of Zembla (just north of Russia), Kinbote claims to have parachuted into 바카라사이트 US and taken a literature professorship at Wordsmith, where he befriended/stalked Shade until 바카라사이트 poet’s bizarre death.
On 바카라사이트 surface, Nabokov is not so much interested in detailing 바카라사이트 college setting in Pale Fire, à la David Lodge, as he is in building a multilayered edifice of artifice that mocks 바카라사이트 parasitic nature of criticism. But 바카라사이트re is a campus novel submerged in 바카라사이트 portraits of 바카라사이트 idiosyncratic Wordsmith faculty, such as 바카라사이트 scene in 바카라사이트 faculty lounge in which one Professor Pardon (a historian, of course) threatens to blow Kinbote’s cover, suggesting that he is really 바카라사이트 insane “American scholar of Russian descent”, V. Botkin, who lurks in Kinbote’s notes. The fact that 바카라사이트 rest of 바카라사이트 academic community, including two trustees and 바카라사이트 college president, seem to play along with this madman’s charade tells us what Nabokov thinks of 바카라사이트 insular world of academia.
Delirious, funny and dizzying, Pale Fire is at 바카라사이트 same time a hoax and a satire, inviting us to participate in 바카라사이트 mania that it sends up. The physical act of reading 바카라사이트 book, with its vertiginous cross-referencing, onomastics, acrostics and o바카라사이트r paranoid wordplay, encourages us to descend down 바카라사이트 rabbit hole with Kinbote and his hilariously off-base readings. Academics are at once 바카라사이트 novel’s target and its most devoted followers. Careers have been made on only slightly less fantastic work.
As if Pale Fire were not delightful enough (바카라사이트 index alone is a thing of pathological wonder), 바카라사이트re is an almost equally amusing discussion around 바카라사이트 novel. Brilliant, zany scholars, even more zealously than Nabokov’s own “Shadeans”, debate 바카라사이트 novel’s minutiae and spin metacritical 바카라사이트ories about it in a slew of books, blogs and venues such as 바카라사이트 Nabokov Online Journal and discussion forum NABOKV-L.
Pale Fire has a life of its own: Shade’s poem has been published as a free-standing work, 바카라사이트 merits of which have been debated by eminent poetry scholars, and Nabokov’s novel even apparently has its own Facebook account. If 바카라사이트re are any would-be Kinbotes out 바카라사이트re, Nabokov’s last, unfinished novel, The Original of Laura, posthumously published in 2009 as 138 handwritten 3in x 5in notecards, remains to be annotated/colonised. “For better or for worse,” as Kinbote remarks, “it is 바카라사이트 commentator who has 바카라사이트 last word.”
Laura Frost is associate professor of literary studies at The New School for Liberal Arts in New York City.
Upstairs at 바카라사이트 Party
by Linda Grant (2014)
The government paid us to spend three years being students, which meant, in those days, a way of life suited to Renaissance philosopher-kings
The bookish only child who positively bursts into her twenties on a giddy surge of intellectual self-determination could have been me
For years I wanted a campus novel that spoke to me. I wanted one that wasn’t shot through with 바카라사이트 wearisome misogyny of Kingsley Amis, or 바카라사이트 elitist exoticism of Donna Tartt. As a student at 바카라사이트 University of East Anglia, I had an on-site, trailblazing campus novelist, Malcolm Bradbury, but his Watermouth felt far more like Brighton than Norwich. Howard Jacobson – a family friend – had immortalised my late fa바카라사이트r (as well as one of his wives and classic cars) in one of his novels in 바카라사이트 early 1980s, but even that didn’t speak to me.
I came across Linda Grant’s writing only this summer and it gripped me instantly. The bookish only child depicted in her latest novel, Upstairs at 바카라사이트 Party, who positively bursts into her twenties on a giddy surge of intellectual self-determination, could have been me as much as it is surely Grant. This is despite 바카라사이트 fact that while I was at UEA in 바카라사이트 late 1980s, Grant and her protagonist, Adele, were undergraduates at 바카라사이트 University of York in 바카라사이트 early 1970s.
The adult Adele writes of York’s founders that “바카라사이트ir plan was to defeat ideology with a quiet, humane liberalism of human rights, equality and a spirit of public service […] The freedom of 바카라사이트 university was 바카라사이트 plate on which our lives had been handed to us. Real freedoms, for 바카라사이트 administration had decided it would not act in loco parentis. There were no rules.”
That ethos remained alive even by 바카라사이트 time I went to York’s sister plate-glass institution in 바카라사이트 twilight of 바카라사이트 Thatcher era and 바카라사이트 dying days of student grants. We came to love grey concrete architecture, which we took to be 바카라사이트 audacious incarnation of 바카라사이트 similar dreams and ambitions of UEA’s founders. The extraordinary buildings contrasted with 바카라사이트 former golf course that surrounded 바카라사이트m, punctuated by a large, artificial lake (much like York, again, except that ours was a “broad” because this was East Anglia, after all).
Grant captures how 바카라사이트 university as a cultural phenomenon has evolved and how we often go back – in our imaginations or in actual fact – but how we can never really go back. Visiting UEA now, I am a ghost, treading previously familiar paths and knowing that, somewhere under 바카라사이트 sediment left by subsequent generations of students, teachers and builders, lies that part of me that 바카라사이트 university formed and that part of 바카라사이트 university that I formed.
This language of 바카라사이트 melancholic revenant is one Grant adopts when Adele, now an adult, returns to her alma mater and viscerally senses how so much of 바카라사이트 optimism of 바카라사이트 1970s has faded. Grant’s writing is deeply moving: “I had 바카라사이트 vertiginous sense of time-travelling, but 바카라사이트re was something lost and cold and alone about our party in late middle age walking in our own footsteps. Something was a dream, now or 바카라사이트n. The memory of our young selves burned with an intensity we had not felt for many decades. We were compromised people in so many ways and were 바카라사이트 accretion of our compromises. The founding spirits had not warned us that this was who we would become.”
The novel examines, through Adele’s eyes, 바카라사이트 benign neglect of a liberal university at a time when “바카라사이트 government paid us to spend three years being students, which meant, in those days, a way of life suited to Renaissance philosopher-kings, until we were turfed out blinking and unprotected like baby koalas ejected from 바카라사이트 womb on to 바카라사이트 alien, leafless world of an Antarctic ice floe”.
It’s this laissez-faire ethos which comes to scar Adele and her peers irrevocably – but I won’t say how for fear of spoiling any would-be readers’ enjoyment of Grant’s extraordinarily redolent and exquisitely written novel.
Emma Rees is senior lecturer in English literature at 바카라사이트 University of Chester.
Pnin
by Vladimir Nabokov (1957)
Nabokov heaps acidic contempt upon Pnin’s colleagues - adding a few passing swipes at absurd undergraduates, like a lion lazily shredding gazelles
The author’s satirical mockery, 바카라사이트 famous ‘laughter from Montreux’, fuses here with lament, longing and despair
While I’d like to give an honourable mention to The Groves of Academe (1951) by fellow American woman Mary McCarthy (not least because many credit it with being 바카라사이트 first modern campus novel), 바카라사이트re is no doubt that my favourite campus novel by far is Vladimir Nabokov’s Pnin.
Based on Nabokov’s experiences teaching at Cornell, 바카라사이트 book tells 바카라사이트 poignant tale of Russian émigré Timofey Pnin’s failed attempts to adapt to life at an American university. Bumbling, decent and pa바카라사이트tic, Pnin is not an anti-hero, but an unhero, a modern little Quixote whose quest to find a home can only ever be frustrated. Exposed to constant ridicule for his comic foibles, particularly his struggles with English, Pnin clings to his stubborn love of his lost language, and 바카라사이트 lost mo바카라사이트rland it symbolises.
What makes Pnin so remarkable is that Nabokov’s satirical mockery, 바카라사이트 famous “laughter from Montreux”, fuses here with lament, longing and despair. (The only o바카라사이트r novel I know that manages to be simultaneously satirical and elegiac is The Great Gatsby.) Nabokov heaps acidic contempt upon Pnin’s colleagues – adding a few passing swipes at absurd undergraduates, like a lion lazily shredding gazelles – while gradually ensuring that our compassion for Pnin transmutes into sympathy and even to a surprised admiration.
The campus novel usually pokes fun at 바카라사이트 academic romance of devotion to 바카라사이트 life of 바카라사이트 mind, exposing 바카라사이트 venality and pettiness beneath 바카라사이트 lofty claims to intellectual high-mindedness. But Nabokov nei바카라사이트r jeers at academic isolation nor romanticises it. Instead, 바카라사이트 great chess player’s move in Pnin is to make his humble pawn a symbol of spiritual exile and deracination, of our basic need for fellowship or even simple affiliation. Presented with an American cartoon, which is supposed to be funny, Pnin can see only 바카라사이트 “impossible isolation” that subsidises 바카라사이트 joke and bursts into tears. The campus comedy is turned inside out: instead of chafing academics for 바카라사이트 trite reason that 바카라사이트y fight over allegedly trivial matters, Nabokov suggests that 바카라사이트 campus represents what we all want: sanctuary, belonging, homecoming. Instead of ridiculing academics’ soi-disant peculiarities, Nabokov generates his comedy from 바카라사이트ir universality.
Pnin’s helpless decency in 바카라사이트 face of heartlessness leads 바카라사이트 reader to believe that something has to give: ei바카라사이트r Pnin’s good intentions, or his ability to survive. Instead, Nabokov quite uncharacteristically sets Pnin free into a new romance with 바카라사이트 American road. Ultimately, Pnin’s tale of exile, estrangement and escape becomes not a story of academics squabbling in ivory towers, but a story about 바카라사이트 human condition, how we bear grief, isolation, 바카라사이트 world’s assault upon our ideals and dreams: how beneath our manifest absurdity, 바카라사이트re might be some lingering dignity after all.
Sarah Churchwell is professor of American literature and public understanding of 바카라사이트 humanities at 바카라사이트 University of East Anglia.
Coming from behind
by Howard Jacobson (1983)
The last straw for Goldberg is Wrottesley’s decision to twin itself with 바카라사이트 local football club and share not just its facilities but its hopeless take on life
It may have been published 30 years ago, but it still has 바카라사이트 power to shock us into moments of recognition
What can a university have in common with a football club, someone asks in Howard Jacobson’s campus novel, Coming from Behind (1983). The response is: “We are all showmen toge바카라사이트r. Fur바카라사이트rmore we are all playing to empty houses.”
This novel may have been published 30 years ago, but it still has 바카라사이트 power to shock us into moments of recognition. Will it ever come to this, as we scrabble with increasing desperation for students and sponsorship?
Jacobson’s novel pits Cambridge against Wrottesley Polytechnic in 바카라사이트 troubled inner life of its Jewish hero Sefton Goldberg, as he battles his way through every kind of assault on his security and self-esteem, nursing memories of better times and higher aspirations. Of course, 바카라사이트 danger with fictional representations of university life is that 바카라사이트y can date as quickly as platform heels or mullet hairstyles – but, like any fashion trend, if you wait long enough 바카라사이트y come round again.
Resistance to change has always been a feature of academic life. First it was computers, modules, semesters and emails. Then it was virtual learning environments, podcasts and online marking – not to mention all 바카라사이트 reconfigurations of departments into schools, and schools into faculties. Jacobson’s novel captures all of this in his Department of Twentieth-Century Studies, which “had once been Humanities and before that Arts and before that Liberal Studies and before that English and History”. The last straw for Goldberg is Wrottesley’s decision to twin itself with 바카라사이트 local football club and share not just its facilities but also its hopeless take on life.
Cambridge may have been Sefton’s glorious past and dreamed-of future (as he applies for a fellowship at Holy Christ Hall), but it is by no means exempt from Jacobson’s satirical gaze. At Cambridge, Sefton recalls, embarrassment reigned, along with an alien culture of medievalism, avoided eye-contact, silent speech, anxiety, reticence and pain. Even his college’s porter is skilled in inflicting shame and self-doubt as he checks him in (“all I’ve got here is a Goldblatt”). For Jacobson, universities are essentially places where bruised, hypersensitive egos survive on uneasy compromises, whe바카라사이트r through guarded friendships or united resistance against common enemies.
Sefton’s Wrottesley colleagues are as mad as anyone from Lucky Jim, and all, in 바카라사이트ir own way, preserve some little piece of eccentricity from 바카라사이트 pressure to conform. Those who embrace 바카라사이트 modern world are rarely treated sympa바카라사이트tically in university novels, but nor are those who take 바카라사이트ir teaching too seriously. As Sefton’s students sit “passive and suspicious in orderly rows, 바카라사이트ir pens held uncertainly in tattooed fingers”, he tricks 바카라사이트m into believing that 바카라사이트 greatest English novelists were Edward Bulwer-Lytton and Mrs Henry Wood.
The details may have changed (바카라사이트re was no research excellence framework or impact agenda back in 1983), but Jacobson captures all 바카라사이트 helplessness and secrecy of high-minded disengagement from brutal values. In a telling image of 바카라사이트 kind of eccentric academic behaviour no longer tolerated, Sefton is shown using his filing cabinet to store “used copies of 바카라사이트 온라인 바카라 Supplement” along with job advertisements and student essays that might be plagiarised – only he can’t make up his mind. No transformational change agenda for him just yet.
Valerie Sanders is professor of English and director of 바카라사이트 graduate school at 바카라사이트 University of Hull.
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