Straight Man
Suggestion from an author, I think, something about this being better than other, award-winning, novels by the same guy. Apparently this was supposed to be a better text than the other book by this author, and that’s what another writerly person suggested. No idea. I wanted a break from what I’ve been reading; looked interesting.
“April is the month of heightened paranoia for academics, not that their normal paranoia is insufficient to ruin a perfectly fine day in any season.” Chapter 1.
April is the cruelest month?
What was the book, or was it a series? I think I had a teacher who had series set in a fictional — California (?) — university, with caricature teachers and department personalities.
- I remember one of the younger tenured professors looking at me, when he saw I had a copy of the text in hand, “Makes you wonder, who that is really drawn upon,” glancing either furtively or conspiratorially around.
But setting on a university, while noble, and all, is still ticklish and a mere step away from raw meta-fiction. That’s a slippery slope I tend to stay away from, myself.
“It’s the old stuff, the conflicts we’ve never come to terms with, that sneaks up on us, half forgotten, insisting upon action.” Chapter 2.
It is the old stuff, and a similar professor telling me writing about writing was dangerous. Do it in private; wash your hands when done.
It’s just literary enough to keep me entertained without overwhelming with symbolism and loaded tropes. It’s the internecine war at the department levels, the politics of academic life, which, to be honest, isn’t much different than any other group, just a tad more inbred, and the words are nicer. The rhetoric is more defined. The book itself? It’s an amusing tale, however, I was sorely pressed to get into it. I would read a passages, which would trigger an avalanche of thought, and I would be off, looking elsewhere for some point of reference.
Got me thinking and was left in spurts until I devoted an entire afternoon to finish reading it.
While they all lived happily ever after, there’s a scene, maybe halfway, too improbable to be true, but at that point in the tale? I was too invested not see it happening.
Light, breezy, effortless prose, set in a fictional backwater in a real Pennsylvania, with some of the trappings of small-time academic life playing a center role.
Like any other cultural placement, sub-culture, or just a large Petri-dish, things start growing.
