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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 17, 2014
A marvelous novel which with great wit describes university politics in all of its smallness. A wickedly humorous book.
"...the faces of the students he ought to be lecturing right now reminded him of nothing so much as row upon row of babies' bottoms--just soft, smooth, pink, healthy flesh--faces quite unscarred by thought. Damn it, he thought, you ought not to have to lecture to a person unless you could tell one end of him from the other....the kind of lecture we give around here will never teach them anything....Imitation pearls before real swine, as the saying goes?"
"...the faces of the students he ought to be lecturing right now reminded him of nothing so much as row upon row of babies' bottoms--just soft, smooth, pink, healthy flesh--faces quite unscarred by thought. Damn it, he thought, you ought not to have to lecture to a person unless you could tell one end of him from the other....the kind of lecture we give around here will never teach them anything....Imitation pearls before real swine, as the saying goes?"
August 25, 2025
Review to follow.
January 21, 2014
The female characters would change a bit or at least there would be more of them in academic roles, but the backbiting, pettiness, and fierce competition over the wrong goals haven't altered much from 1959 to 2014. Amusing precursor to David Lodge and all the other send ups of academic life. Plus wonderful descriptions of the things people actually said during the cold war and the Red scare written during the middle of it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews