A hilarious college caper lampoons critical theorists, spoofs the New York publishing scene, and parodies seventeen separate literary forms as it follows a search for the missing Professor Adam Snell and his book.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this avant-garde comedy, first novelist Grudin ( Time and the Art of Living ) takes up a plot about a nasty tempest in a college English department, but his real preoccupation is with language and the reflexive nature of literary forms; his novel is a burlesque of itself and of all bookishness. When English professor Adam Snell vanishes from the University of Washagon, his stuffy, jealous colleagues judge him in absentia, trashing his writing, chiefly his novel, Sovrana Sostrata. Spite also motivates Snell's would-be murderer, literary theorist Frank Underwood, also known as Libricide. Snell, however, survives. His editor will be his adoring bride, while his lascivious mistress--in time-honored tradition--is his book. The story emerges in an array of subgenres (e.g., memo, epigraph, marginal gloss, college guide). Interlarded passages from the magisterial 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica serve as a straight text that bespeaks an innocent, premodern trust in the permanence of words. Grudin's satire targets book people from poets to publishers to nouvelle critique freaks, and if his work is too much of an in-joke to appeal to every reader, its playful elegance, wit and authority make it a gem of its type.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
This skillful satire, set at the University of Washagon, pits "evil" literary theorists against classical scholars: someone is trying to kill English professor Adam Snell and his novel. Grudin's concern about the lack of support for creativity in an academic setting, previously explored in the nonfiction work Grace of Great Things ( LJ 5/15/90), here gets a fairy-tale resolution, with fame, wealth, and love coming to Snell as a result of his truth-telling novel Sovrana Sostrata. Funny and perceptive, Book parodies literary forms (there's a revolt among the footnotes) and the power struggles within university life. This unique, well-constructed blend of truth, humor, and suspense is essential for academics: fun to read, but with real sustenance.
- Rebecca S. Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ., Highland Heights
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- Rebecca S. Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ., Highland Heights
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Absolutely Friggin Genius,
By Jay (Philadelphia) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Book (Paperback)
One of the best books I've ever read. Brilliant. Funny. Ironic. Both serious and funny, genre and parody, surreal and genuine. I just finished reading it for the second time. (Gotta love those rebellious footnotes!)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Academic's "Confederacy of Dunces",
By
This review is from: Book (Paperback)
If you have sullied your shoes in the quagmire of academic politics, you will find this book amusing. (If you haven't, it's still pretty darned funny, although it does require an appreciation for in-jokes of the academic kind.)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A hilarious satire and all-around fun read,
By A Customer
This review is from: Book (Paperback)
It will be a sad day when this novel goes out of print. (Read Book and you'll understand.) The satire is specific to English departments, but anyone who hates pretension or who has dealt with the inside politics of higher education will really savor it. The writing is clever and inventive, a pleasure to read from the very first page.
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