7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Mix(ed bag) of humor, terror, and academic life, January 1, 2002
This review is from: Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror (Paperback)
Hynes offers up an at-times macabre blend of witchcraft, paranoia, and petty campus politics in three short stories/novellas. My conclusions are equally mixed.
As one with no special love for cats, for me the first story was frustratingly driven by an irksome feline, although producing more comic relief than terror. The second story, very much an homage to Edgar Allen Poe (and acknowledged by the author to be based on another, earlier short story), became transparent early on, stripping the story of surprise and leaving the rest of the story to reveal the grisly details. The third work, remarkably woven into the first two, a la David Lodge, was the best of the three, although witchcraft had more to do with the results than any academic talent or story.
Characters are well drawn and the context provides a realistic setting for the work: offices, conferences, professors' lodging, and campus landmarks. Hynes obviously has spent a lot of time on campus.
Universities provide fertile ground for stories. Professors use their skills, especially in the humanities, to build their resumes and to poke fun at the foibles of academic life. And, given that there seems to be more time absorbed by sex and sordid affairs than by teaching or doing any research, writing anything at all must seem miraculous to the reader. But rare be the campus treatise that captures the life of an academic. "Luck Jim", "Groves of Academe" and others have been popular but quite unrealistically overdrawn. Richard Russo's deft "Straight Man" is the best and funniest university novel I've read. As an academic myself, the concept of "Perish" had a dark appeal and, while I read it quickly, I felt more relieved than rejuvenated at the end.
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12 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
If Poe Had a PhD., October 16, 2002
This review is from: Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror (Paperback)
If Edgar Allen Poe were a junior faculty member in a highly political department, this might be the kind of collection he'd write. James Hynes takes the old adage "publish or perish" to its most extreme and literal conclusion in these three novellas. In all three stories, a character's quest for academic credibility puts him or her in peril. Also in all three stories, the postmodern juts up against traditional academia, sometimes with gruesome results.
This is a fast read, perfect for the chilly nights of late fall when the wind howls `round the window frames and your motivation to grade those midterm finals is waning. And unless someone at work is actively planning your death, it'll make you feel better about your own department politics, whatever they may be.
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8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fun and Creative, August 28, 1997
I've read the first and the last of the stories in this volume, and both have their pleasures. In some ways I am fascinated by the way Hynes has been very imitative (his academic satire is cut very much from the David Lodge cloth and his spooky stuff comes straight from Poe and M.R. James), but, by combining imitations of two usually separate genres, he has produced something quite original. Anyone who has been to grad school in the humanities or social sciences since the early '80's will have a lot of fun with this book. But don't neglect to read the real "Casting the Runes" by M.R. James, one of the great ghost stories, which contains some sly academic humor too
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