Female Science Professor is revisiting an old topic, namely, the academic novel:
I was thinking about the general topic of academic novels because I was looking for some books to read and was looking through the lists in the links above. And then I wondered: Why do I want to read an academic novel during the summer? Why do I want to read an academic novel at all? What is it that I like about (some of) them?
This seems like a good opportunity to both have a discussion and do some science. There are three steps to the experiment:
- Leave a comment here saying what your favorite academic novel is.
- Go over to FSP and leave a comment saying why you like or dislike academic novels.
- Based on the data from the first two steps, decide which comment system is more annoying: Blogger's login/captcha/multi-click thing, or ScienceBlogs' apparent timeout thing. I'll put up another post later to determine the results.
(Please be aware that, despite the timeout message, comments submitted to this blog almost always go through the first time. Do not re-post the comment without first hitting "Refresh" to see whether it's shown up.)
- Log in to post comments
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I probably should've included a mention of my own favorite academic books, which would probably be a toss-up between Russo's Straight Man and Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis. The Russo is a little more familiar, being about modern American academia, but I like the narrative voice in the Amis better.
I'll go even further back than Lucky Jim and put in a vote for Dorothy Sayers' Gaudy Night.
As She Climbed Across the Table by Lethem. Yearly reread for me.
Anything by David Lodge; Small World if you want to pin it down further.
Anything that isn't the Wordpress comment system is annoying.
Oh, I forgot about Porterhouse Blue by Tom Sharpe, since you people on the left hand side of the Atlantic will probably fail to mention it. However, if you want to get the humour, it helps if you have some experience of the Oxbridge system.
Having just left a comment at FSP, I have to say that the Scienceblogs bug (and it should definitely be called a bug) is more annoying (but you should still all just use Wordpress anyway).
How about Pnin?
Pnin is good; though I liked Pale Fire better, it (and Lolita, for that matter) seem less like academic novels, per se.
Not exactly a novel--my favorite is Robert Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
Baroque Cycle.
Closely followed by Timescape.
History Man and MOO also deserve a mention, and I endorse Porterhouse Blues and Lodge's Trading Places sequence.
I was thinking Russo's Straight Man even before seeing your comment.
I guess it depends on your definition, but I'm fond of Pamela Dean's Tam Lin (English lit ... plus magic, eventually) and Susanna Clarke's Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell (alternate world early 1800s England with magic as a largely theoretical science). The latter book is replete with footnotes and imaginary references--so far the people I've found who've enjoyed it the most have been people who've been through grad school and encountered feuding academics; otherwise much of the subtle humor is lost. Both books are good for people who don't usually read quote-unquote fantasy novels, (although I do).
The Lecturer's Tale by James Hynes is a hoot.
I can't say that I've read a full-fledged academic novel. Timescape comes closest. I also enjoy the glimpses at Unseen University in various Discworld novels--most particularly The Last Continent, in which a bunch of UU faculty head off to Fourecks (which of course is absolutely not a stand-in for Australia) in search of a magician on the run.
My favorite is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears which is set in Oxford in 1663. The story is a mystery retold by three different narrators.
My favorite is An Instance of the Fingerpost by Iain Pears which is set in Oxford in 1663. The story is a mystery retold by three different narrators.
I think that Gaudy Night may be the only academic novel that I regularly re-read.
Possibly part of it is that (a) I am a librarian living and working in academia, and (b) I don't like administration and academic feuding and all the stuff that goes on around and outside the vocation. It has to be done, I admit that, but it's support structure to the reality of the work. (And maybe I like Gaudy Night so much because Sayers had much the same attitude... or maybe my attitude is what it is because I read enough of Sayers, and still read her. Causation is a frighteningly complex thing.)
So academic novels are often mostly about stuff I'm fundamentally not interested in. Which means I find them dull and boring.
(The Baroque Cycle is partly about the birth of modern science, and less about administration etc., on top of which it has Stephenson's phenomenally fun-to-read writing, so I love it. But then I don't consider it primarily an "academic" novel; it's a novel about all the world, not just about the stuff going on inside the ivory tower.)
Lucky Jim is also one of my favorites.
I definitely liked Lucky Jim. Didnât C.P. Snow write some academic novels too? Iâve never read them, but would be curious to hear what others thought of them if they had.
Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean, is my favorite.
Gaudy Night is a close runner up.
Another I enjoyed that hasn't been mentioned yet: Moo, by Jane Smiley.
If I'm allowed genre fiction, Jonathon Strange and Mr. Norrell, followed by all of Benford's academic novels. If not, I nominate The Archivist, by Cooley.
I don't know if any of these are considered academic novels but that's what they invoke for me...
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff
Publish or Perish by James Hynes
White Light by Rudy Rucker
I don't know if any of these are considered academic novels but that's what they invoke for me...
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff
Publish or Perish by James Hynes
White Light by Rudy Rucker
I don't know if any of these are considered academic novels but that's what they invoke for me...
The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Fool on the Hill by Matt Ruff
Publish or Perish by James Hynes
White Light by Rudy Rucker
My apologies for the triple comment. Feel free to nuke a couple of them.