Michael Potts's Blog: Bits and Pieces: Book Reviews and Articles on Writing, Horror Fiction, and Some Philosophy - Posts Tagged "academia"

This is a fine novel about an eccentric college professor who by mistake ends up as a first-year undergraduate student at Oxford University. Dr. Brian S. Mossworth, Ph.D., an art historian at a small college in Arkansas, takes eccentricity a bit too far in a number of hilarious incidents, some reaching the point of pathos. The book reminds me a great deal of "A Confederacy of Dunces" combined with a bit of Flannery O'Connor. At Oxford, Mossberg finds his intellectual muddleness whipped into shape by a tough but benevolent tutor, learns how not to get drunk, and learns a lesson on how one gets into trouble by misspelling a person's name. The overall message of the book is far more profound, about the shallowness of trendy intellectual ideas and the need to return to real standards of goodness, truth, and beauty. This is a funny, poignant, and profound book of which I give my highest recommendation.