Book: A Novel

by Robert Grudin

The English department at the University of Washagon is in a uproar. Professor Adam Snell - humanist, scholar, gadfly and faculty pariah - has disappeared without a trace. Stranger still, all copies of his obscure but brilliant novel, Sovrana Sostrata, also seem to be missing. Has Snell been murdered? Has his book been murdered? And, more important, if Snell is not dead, does his department have the power to fire him at his upcoming post-tenure review? So begins Book, a hilarious academic caper that lampoons clever critical theorists, spoofs the New York book-publishing scene, parodies at least seventeen separate literary forms and unleashes Frank Underwood, a deranged theorist with a high-powered target pistol - and a pathological hatred for Adam Snell. And that's just for starters. Book also contains a touching love story, an unforgettable mongrel dog, a genetically engineered garden weed, a power-crazed, sexually dazed chairwoman, a novel accused of rape and a revolt of footnotes that halts the text. Book is the wildest, woolliest campus satire since Lucky Jim - brilliantly on-target send-up of contemporary fads and follies.

Genres: Fiction, Mystery, Academia, Books About Books, Novels, Literary Fiction, Dark Academia

251 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1992

About the author

Grudin graduated from Harvard, and earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley in 1969. He received a Guggenheim Fellowship for 1992-1993. Until 1998 he was a professor of English at the University of Oregon. He has written about many political and philosophical themes including liberty, determinism, and several others.

Reviews

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like Moo, Straight Man and Small World, Grudin's Book is a comic novel set at an institution of higher learning. Like If on a Winter's Night a Traveler, The Floating Opera, and Breakfast of Champions it is a metafictional work. The novel begins with the mysterious disappearance of an English professor. As we read of what happened to him, we also learn something of campus politics, of contemporary literary theory, of creative writing, and of some of the early history of books.

The novel is a bit dated by now in its representation of technology. With the action set in the early 1990s, we see characters using computers as word processors, but things like email and the World Wide Web are still part of a future that is beyond the scope of this particular story.

I liked Book for its story of malignity defeated, for its comic portrayal of a late-century university English department, and for its experimentation with text and intertextuality, ranging from its quoting from fictional books, as well as from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, to its employment of various textual approaches, including the use of lists, of text broken into columns, of marginalia, and of footnotes deployed, as in Flann O'Brien’s The Third Policeman and Nicholson Baker’s The Mezzanine, to hilariously disruptive effect.

[Marne Wilson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book has been on my “to-read” shelf for 8 years, and I no longer remember exactly how it got there. It’s one of those books that is too much of its time to be of much use after its time. Since it came out in 1992 and I started my undergraduate studies in English in 1993, it took me right back to the atmosphere in literary studies at that time. To be blunt, I’d forgotten how much I hated it. The fact that I still enjoy reading after getting both a BA and an MA in literature in the late 1990’s is actually quite remarkable, I realize now.

So this novel dredged up a lot of uncomfortable memories for me. If you were involved in literary studies at that time, you’ll probably feel the same way. And if you weren’t, you probably won’t understand the first thing that goes on in it. So we have here a book that will actively repulse the only people that might possibly understand it, and that’s why I say it’s not of use to any reader today.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

That was a truly enjoyable book. Funny, wacky, informative about the history of books (thanks to excerpts from the 11th edition of the Encyclopedia Brittanica, between chapters), and generally well written.

If you're a big fan of literary theory, you may want to steer clear. Grudin is... not exactly fond of it.

One of the things I enjoyed a lot about the book is the shifting perspective, and narrative style. I was going to say more (about, you know, plot and themes and stuff), but honestly I recommend just picking it up and starting to read. Sometimes the experience is just about the joy of language and people. Even when the book is grim, it's somehow light-hearted.

And it has some of the best footnotes I've ever read.

[George Marshall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simply delightful. I have read no book like it, though Mr. Lemony Snicket in his eccentricities touches similar keys. As someone who deals in code, data, documents, meta documents and metadata, this self-probing look at writing, literature, meaning and academy was humorous even as it spoke truth through fiction. I am almost sad to be finished, for this world and voice to close itself up. But I am sure I can find something to follow it. A textbook on infinite numbers, or maybe something lighter, like Huxley or Conrad. Hmmm.

It was suggested by a friend and loaned by the same, and will return to him soon well-enjoyed and cared for.

[Richard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a more playful, and much less subversive book than the blurb promises. There is, perhaps, a little too much authorial fantasizing and wish fulfillment. The meandering and nonlinear aspects are reminiscent of Calvino and other modern greats, but this is ultimately lighter in weight and intent.

Did I say it was playful? Yes — and a fun read. Perhaps this book is hard to characterize, but for modern light fiction, that's good.

[Tim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book often escapes normal narrative flow. It might listen in to tenure meetings or hear the complaints of footnotes or find a character arguing with a character of his own creation. But it is also a funny mystery, set amid an English department, that blasts literary theorists. Fun for the university set.

[Getty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Is this book even in print? How can you not enjoy a great romp where a manuscript grows in a backyard, a novel gains consciousness, and footnotes organize against the reader and revolt. How cool is that!

[SeveredTherapy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ever have that friend that just tries TOO hard to be funny? Like, they are, but then they just continue to berate you with attempts at hilarity? Book is that friend.

[Tiffany · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book's description hyped this up in such a way that I thought I'd love it: murder on a college campus, a missing novel, etc. But I thought it was just flat. I can see where Grudin is trying to be humorous, but a lot of it just doesn't hit me as Funny; just so-so funny. Even the arguments against the main character's book from different literary theorists is smirk-worthy, but not enough that it was really worth it. I do like when the footnotes lead an attack, and some allusions Grudin makes, but overall, meh. Some of the references he makes and the names that are plays on words make it feel like he's trying too hard. Even the aftermath of the footnotes' attack gets old.

And all of the subplots! Oh my God! Some of them just drag on too long and are unnecessary.

There are places where it seems like Grudin has a great way with words, describing scenes and people in really unusual, descriptive ways, but still, even that ends up meh. It goes on too long, or what follows is meh, so that moment of "Ooh! I like that!" is fleeting.

And then all of a sudden, well over halfway through the book, it's first-person narration! Were we being told this story the whole time?!? What?!?

And I feel bad saying all of this stuff... The book is about an English professor who writes a book that is radically different from other books, and his next book is even more different (scattered, no plot, etc.). Is this Grudin? Am I panning his work just as the character-audience panned the character-author?

Overall, I'd give it about 1.5 stars, but since we can't give half-stars, it was more on the 1-star side than the 2-star side.

[Miki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clever - and perhaps too clever - send up of the academic world and the petty jealousies and infighting that in this case lead to attempted murder. Chapters are presented in a variety of formats from straight story-telling to class outlines, to screenplays. There are some utterly delightful moments, and use of language, but other parts that felt like they were mostly being written for an audience of English professors who want to nervously laugh at themselves. The overall plot of the mysterious attack on a professor on the eve of his "post-tenure review" moves along pretty well, but there were moments I wish the author had spent a little less time doing academic parody and more just being fun.

[Vypernight · Rating 4 out of 5]

I originally got this just so I could tell people, "I am reading Book." Overall, I enjoyed it, especially the scene where the footnotes take over the chapter. It seems to slow down near the end, and I felt like it needed another punch like the footnote chapter, but overall it was a lot of fun.

Now I want to study Lit Theory so I can hopefully pick up on some of the jokes in the novel.

[David Grosskopf · Rating 2 out of 5]

Book is indulgent, self-congratulating, and obnoxious. The book talks, the footnotes get disgusted and fight back, and the author himself shows up, finally, in the end of the book as a character, too.

The main character, Ian Snell, has written a book and a female protagonist that some hate hate and hate and others adore--but only the good people love it and the terrible people detest it, some out of jealousy, some out of principal (the feminist, for example, says that she has been raped by this book). Here are its qualities: "abundant creativity, its thunderous joie de vivre, its endorsement of male-female intimacy, its encomium for the heroic individual" (120).

The literary theorists, who don't actually read the books they skewer, are the villains: they lack sincerity, creativity, passion, and sexual license, and they hate those who read and write books emotionally and with sincere engagement for the same reason. They also can't teach well, which just gives them more time to research their empty and mean-spirited polemics.

The women in the book, including the protagonist of Ian Snell's book, Sovrana Sostrata, are either fuckable or hags; but some women appreciate the great sexual revolution presented by Ian Snell in recognizing that women have more sensitivity than men and they're sexual too. Great.

Book is playful; but you have to accept its aggressive view of how to read and appreciate literature to take delight in a lot of the play. This is an academic novel, naked satire, and it just made me grumpy.

[Nathaniel · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I was 20 years old, I pulled this book out of a free pile at my college and fell in love. That same yellowed, worn copy has followed me through seven states, nine apartments, and four houses over 19 years. And yet I never actually tried to read it again....until now. With the benefit of a couple of decades of life experience, a different world, and becoming a much more well-rounded reader and person in the interim, it felt like the time was right to tackle it again. It was much more...problematic...than I'd remembered.

The highlight of this book - and what made me love it in my early twenties - was the author's complete disregard for, and parody of, almost every literary stylistic convention that existed at the time. I thought that in that respect it was somewhat of a Rosetta Stone of literary parody, and from the standpoint of literary construction it was somewhere between clever and brilliant. Either way, I found that element of the work to be inspirational, and I still do. This is, I'm sure, what got this work shortlisted for a Pulitzer in the early 90's. I think that an aspiring writer could find something in this element of the work that still holds up even now.

As a former lit major who was fairly frustrated with the entire field by the time I graduated, I also appreciated the author's utter contempt for some of the ridiculous people in academia who are utterly, pretentiously proud of being completely useless. He lumps them all into the "literary theorist" camp, and I don't disagree with his opinion of that discipline. This portion of the work is also spot-on, which makes sense - the author was a professor of literature at the time, so all he needed to do was take notes during a department meeting and extrapolate some of the characters. For this reason, the "tenure review" scene and the parts making fun of useless disciplines like literary theory are easily the best part of the work in terms of content.

With that said, the rest of the work is.....really not good, at least not anymore. After you get past the good parts already described, the rest of the work is pedestrian, self-indulgent, and unbelievable. The main character, Adam Snell, is an underwritten Mary Sue who frankly comes off as not terribly interesting except as a vessel to move along the plot. Even the character's dog has more personality than he does. It's possible that this is a deliberate choice - the real "protagonist" of the book is the work's literary style - but even so, as a reader I wanted a bit more development out of the main character.

My main reason for saying this is that in spite of being underdeveloped this character then has everything happen to him, in a way that doesn't make a whole lot of sense except as 20th century male intellectual fantasy. Someone hates him enough to try to kill him. Every woman he encounters has some kind of sexual (or anti-sexual) interest in him. His obscure, out of print novel is rescued from oblivion by pure coincidence by a female literary agent from the other side of the country who then becomes his girlfriend; the reprint also becomes a bestseller subject to rave reviews. His unfavorable tenure review turns around and all of his enemies within his university are banished for completely unbelievable reasons. The guy who was trying to murder him ends up dying offscreen. He then receives a coveted departmental prize and lives happily ever after as a well-regarded literature professor at a public university in "Washagon" (heh), where his high-powered, successful New York-based girlfriend who is actually doing something with her life moves so that he can continue to do next to nothing with his. He then ends up breaking the fourth wall and finishing the book we're reading after the author, apparently, disappears for eight years (???) And so on.

And then there's the way this book treats women, which is so outdated it's almost offensive. Every female character in this book is a sexualized archetype of some kind, and we know some kind of sexual detail about all of them, even the minor characters who only appear for a page or two. Women whom Snell doesn't get along with are sexualized negative stereotypes. The ones he does get along with are sexualized archetypes of the tired 19th/20th century literary mold that very quickly and suddenly disappeared as soon as women started getting tenure. Snell is portrayed as a mild-mannered, implicitly depressive nonentity whose marriage has failed and who then spends two years writing a work of both intellectual and literal masturbation about his archetypal dream woman. This work is given a limited print run and is initially received very poorly. Unbelievably, as the story picks up, he is sexually acknowledged in some way by every female character in the book. This even goes as far as a female colleague kissing him when he is in the hospital, and then nothing really comes of it until she conveniently falls for some other guy who just showed up, leaving him free to pursue the (younger, hotter) literary agent instead. For her part, rather than getting him the mental health assistance he clearly needs, the literary agent instead enthusiastically republishes his work and then marries him. And so on. Regardless, it's clear that the author has no understanding of how relationships actually work. This element of the work is distracting and, by today's standards, borderline offensive.

There are other limitations to the work, such as the fact that it paints a world in which every character is literate and everyone else simply doesn't exist, and in which a work as obscure and self-indulgent as Snell's can become a bestseller. I also felt that too much time was dedicated to developing the antagonist's character, only to have him have no interactions whatsoever with the protagonist short of blind rage and then dying offscreen. And so on.

The bottom line is that the author clearly understands academia and stylistic form, but he doesn't understand real life. I can still appreciate and find somewhat inspirational the elements of stylistic parody in the work, but everything else is either uninteresting, outdated, or borderline offensive by modern sensibilities. I have no intention of getting rid of that old yellowed copy of this book because its better structural elements might inspire again in the future, but neither do I have any burning desire to read it ever again in its entirety, either.

[Ryo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I randomly picked up this book after finding it on a list of metafictional novels. Maybe it was the super-plain name that attracted me. And while at times I found it a bit dense when it goes into the weeds about politics in academia, since I've never been in that world, I found this book very entertaining. The overarching plot is sort of like a thriller, where English professor Adam Snell is almost murdered, and he and others in his life must track down the killer before he strikes again. But the plot is sort of secondary to all of the satire and parody in this novel. There's a lot of criticism of academia and their reluctance to support creativity over theory, as well as parodies of multiple written forms like newspaper reports and plays and such. There's parts where footnotes try to take over the main text, which I appreciated as a sucker for metafictional devices like that. The author even inserts himself into the book at times, doing a Q&A and also adding a postscript where he's disappeared after writing this book. I was a bit disappointed in the ending, since it seemed like sort of a deus ex machina situation without a satisfying payoff, but perhaps that was also a parodic element of the book.

[Robert · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful, witty read--the chapter describing an English Department meeting, where the footnotes first take it on themselves to explain things to the reader, then fall out over the proceedings, become mutinous and take over the book--is an indictment of recent trends in extra-textuality, and great, great fun! This book should be more widely read. Its gentle humor is a curative.

[Cella · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was one of those books while entertaining it fails to deliver. The metafiction aspects were well thought out but the character development suffered for it. The libricide feels flat and one dimensional not offering enough of a true motivation despite of Grudin's best efforts.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would probably find myself usually in disagreement with Grudin in any faculty meeting, and yet...his characterization of literary theory during the "culture wars" is more on point than I'd like to admit. Regardless, a fun read.

[Give This · Rating 5 out of 5]

Despite all appearances, this is one of the happiest books ever. I was smiling the entire time.

[micaela · Rating 1 out of 5]

I tried! I really tried! But on page 4, when I thought, "wow, this is terrible," I said I would try through page 125, which is a solid third of the way through if not closer to half. This is an insufferable, terrible book along the lines of my nemeses The Magic Circle and The Harry Quebert Affair - maybe I'm just not smart enough for it, but I literally was avoiding reading this book.

The women were a problem: Sovrana Sostrata, who, for all the author's masturbatory efforts to present her as something "more" than "just a fantasy" was just a shell, mostly existing to rationalize some kind of weird complex about female sexuality. If she was supposedly so controversial and lifelike that she literally became an object of desire, was her only personality trait really just promiscuous?? It rang flat and fake. I know this was a satire of academia, and while I'm not an academic myself I have been around it my entire life due to a professor parent - I know it can be truly ridiculous, but I also know that even in that ivory tower, this is unrealistic. So is it a satire? Because at times it reads that way, but except for a few moments it reads like a straight mystery. Again, maybe I'm just not smart enough - maybe I have no patience for male writers who clearly are so obsessed with themselves they lose all objectivity and fall in love with their nasty characters.

I also despise the cop-out of having everyone repeatedly refer to the book-within-a-book Sovrana Sostrata as a work of genius even as they supposedly tore it apart, and then refusing to write any of that book besides small epigraphs which varied wildly in tone - if they were supposedly all from the same INCREDIBLE, LIFE-CHANGING BOOK, I'm not sold.

(For reference, Inkheart, a children's book, did this far better. I always believed at face value every compliment the book-within-a-book was given. So it's clearly possible.)

As I said, there were minor good moments - all the positive reviews here seem to revolve around the chapter where Gazza presents Adam's post-tenure review is actually a good few pages. It does indeed finally USE the book format as promised, subverting the structure with margin notes and sentient footnotes. Very cool, except Gazza is told as another hollow sexpot masquerading as an empowered woman, clearly written by someone who is flat out terrified of powerful women - even Sovrana is an object of fear when it comes down to it. And again, with no sense of conscious effort to subvert this gross stereotype - for all he may be satirizing academia, his women do not read as send-ups of anything, so they are just flat mystery creatures that do not resemble the incredibly respectable female professors that I know.

I gave this a really good chance, but almost a week to suffer through 125 pages is too much even for someone who hates abandoning books. I don't ever need to LIKE any character or find them completely sympathetic, and I have historically enjoyed satire quite a bit - but characters still need to be well drawn and dimensional, even the fantasy ones, if they are supposed to become victims of murder attempts and feel so real to be objects of desire..... In short, yuck. I tried. I tried.

[Gregory · Rating 4 out of 5]

From http://weeksnotice.blogspot.com/2012/...

Robert Grudin's novel Book (1992) is great fun, even more so if you are in academia. What I love about it is that it skewers parts of academia, but the author is an academic, with a wide variety of serious scholarly works to his credit, even some with titles he tends to make fun of in the novel. It takes a special kind of novelist to poke at what he clearly actually likes. This book is damned funny.

A controversial and not particularly well-liked English professor at a mid-sized university has disappeared. His claim to infamy is a novel he wrote that was published by a small press and quickly went out of print. Then it seems that all the copies of that book are disappearing too.

The book even has footnotes and glossaries, ostensibly for the non-academic reader, but hilarious. So, for example, right after "deconstructionist" he lists "defication," which means "deconstructionist term implying a connection between writing fiction and defecating" (p. 62). There is a quote from an article in the International Journal of Failed Results. He has footnotes talk about themselves as footnotes, angry about the message they are footnoting, and calling for more footnotes to join a rebellion. Over and over, Grudin pokes at academic rituals.

There was an unexpected layer of pure and wonderful irony to my reading experience. I had heard about the book and bought it used online. The copy I received had been marked up in places, ponderous and pompous, with references to Nietzsche and copious underlining. At first I found it annoying, but then it somehow became an organic part of the book itself. That anonymous previous reader was taking very seriously a text that was specifically intended to puncture seriousness.

Every profession has its perverse elements: just read a novel about Wall Street, for example. But in academia we tend to revel in it. Arcane jargon, infighting, insecurity about publication, concern about where you are on various totem poles and, yes, copious use of footnotes to denote erudition (not to mention using words like "erudition"). Every so often, it's useful to step back and think about which parts of these rituals are just ridiculous.

[Philip · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt like this book tried to be so many different things and couldn't quite find its way through any one of them: a satire on literary theory; a celebration of the imagination; a critique of the bureaucracy that goes on in the academic department of a University; a glimpse into another realm, wherein dwells a mysterious perfect woman who weighs any man's worth; a murder mystery; a championing of authors over their respective critics (reminiscent at times of Shyamalan's "Lady in the Water"); a fantasy about books coming to life; an agricultural treatise; hell, maybe even a romance, let's not tie ourselves down too soon.

It tells the story of Adam Snell, a University teacher whose bizarre novel has outraged a lot of people. Its detractors respond in two ways: most of them try to oust him from his job, while one literally destroys every copy of his book and then tries to kill him. The book transitions quite rapidly through different formats, featuring stageplay dialogues, journal entries, newspaper reports, minutes from a character's daily itinerary, and footnotes that revolt against the content they could not stand to augment.

Richmond Lattimore once wrote that Euripides's greatest flaw was attempting to squeeze too much into a single work (i.e. Andromache, The Phoenician Women). But this book makes Euripides look like Ernest Hemingway. The first novel of a Harvard-graduate who then earned a Ph.D. in comparative literature, "Book" sadly waxes pretentious, trying to make a grand philosophical statement about the power of literature while barely developing half of its characters and becoming so ludicrous at times that I wonder if it would have worked better if printed as a sort of mock-critical edition or scrapbook, with illustrations and extra footnotes that deliberately go nowhere. I have never read anything like this before, and if I ever do again, I hope the author will have taken the time to make it either more accessible or more over-the-top.

[KrisAnne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Solid 3.5. This was actually a surprisingly fun book that I'd really only recommend to academics with a sense of humor OR people who've been in that world and are now out of it and understand how bullshitty it can be. I don't know that anyone else would appreciate Book, though maybe I'm wrong about that. Anyway, the blurby description makes it seem all subversive and dark but really Book is as loopy as a Tom Robbins novel, and the character names are Dickensian and hilarious. I wasn't crazy about the way Grudin wrote the women characters, but it's honestly hard to tell whether he was consciously doing common trope stuff to fit into his whole literary meta wonderland OR whether he was just falling into the usual traps.

[Cdh0061 · Rating 5 out of 5]

The plot is very well constructed, being written my an English Professor. The characters are believable but the action is not to be taken over-seriously. The greatest thing about book is that it is an exercise for the minds of those who like to think while they read and a genuine source of joy to anyone who had to struggle through all the bull at a university. I could hardly stop distracting my wife while reading and I certainly didn't want to stop until I was, a very well earned 5 stars.

[Kestrell · Rating 4 out of 5]

What could be more mysterious and filled with feuding than the convolutions of literary theory?

A handy list of terms is provided, so this book might appeal to the ambitious general reader who is wondering what Literary theory is all about but, for the most part, it is the jaded individual who has survived grad school who will probably find this book most entertaining. I thought that the postscripts dragged a bit, but there is special joy for lovers of footnotes.

[gwen g · Rating 3 out of 5]

Smart and creative -- I love the playfulness of the format, which uses footnotes and encyclopedia entries and scripts and newspaper articles and imagined conversations with the author to tell the story. I didn't feel particularly attached to any of the characters or the plot, but then again, maybe that's not the point of good satire. A fun read.

[Jen Kledis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am so glad that I was able to encounter this book. It's funny and the way it plays with the layout of the book is very entertaining (Footnotes fighting and side notes summing up what is going on during the scene.)

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Delightful! A 'mystery' (not a lot of mystery) that skewers academia, academics, literary theory, and everything else within reach. I especially enjoyed the helpful marginalia in the post-tenure review scene, and the revolt of the footnotes shortly thereafter.

[Angie · Rating 5 out of 5]

i read this book over a decade ago, squeezed with a whole lot of stuff going on in my life, and forgot about it until just now, when thoughts of the book im currently, Alice in Wonderland, lead me meanderlingly to this memory of it. i think i need to read it again, to enjoy it all over again.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this one - every friend I have recommended it to has enjoyed it. Pokes sly fun at academe.

[Cherie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A- Interesting tale of Theory vs Lit in one English dept--very academic!