# Novels in academic settings? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [April 3, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106 "2006-04-03T17:35:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![phungi](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/phungi/32/395_2.png) [@phungi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/phungi)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/1 "2006-04-03T17:35:32Z")
As an academic, I have been exposed to countless controversies, politically-based character assassinations, tenure denials, a few student-professor affairs, etc. Where are the novels that portray this mixed up group of barefoot shoemakers? ---
**Author:** ![Snooooopy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Snooooopy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snooooopy)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/2 "2006-04-03T17:38:01Z")
_A Separate Peace_ was set in academia, although I don’t recall any tenure denials or affairs. ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/3 "2006-04-03T17:44:35Z")
i understand that A.R. Gurney’s **Entertaining Strangers** is set in academia, and talks about such relationships. I haven’t read it. Gurney is better known for his plays ( **Love Letters** , especially), but he wrote three novels. One of my professors is supposed to be in here, in disguised form. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/4 "2006-04-03T17:47:08Z")
**Wonder Boys** by Michael Chabon. ---
**Author:** ![Glory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/7cd45c/32.png) [@Glory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Glory)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/5 "2006-04-03T17:52:27Z")
Moo by Jane Smiley Secret History by Donna Tartt ---
**Author:** ![cher3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/da6949/32.png) [@cher3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cher3)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/6 "2006-04-03T17:55:05Z")
David Lodge has written several. Jane Smiley’s _Moo_ was also set on a college campus. Amanda Cross’s mystery series features Prof. Kate Fansler as the detective type and usually has an academic theme. ---
**Author:** ![Judith\_Prietht](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/b19c9b/32.png) [@Judith\_Prietht](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Judith_Prietht)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/7 "2006-04-03T18:06:15Z")
Try James Hynes’ **Publish and Perish: Three Tales of Tenure and Terror** and **The Lecturer’s Tale**. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/8 "2006-04-03T18:07:38Z")
I really enjoyed [Publish and Perish](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1576730670/sr=8-4/qid=1144087549/ref=sr_1_4/002-6123879-2419236?%5Fencoding=UTF8) by Sally S. Wright. It’s a mystery novel, but I think it could appeal to non-mystery fans. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/9 "2006-04-03T18:09:36Z")
The _Inspector Morse_ books are set in Oxford, many of them featuring academics aqnd some of them set in the University. ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/10 "2006-04-03T18:15:11Z")
_Lucky Jim_ is a classic of this genre, as are David Lodge’s _Changing Places_, _Small World_, _Nice Work_, and _Thinks…_ ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/11 "2006-04-03T18:16:45Z")
> [@phungi](#): > > As an academic, I have been exposed to countless controversies, politically-based character assassinations, tenure denials, a few student-professor affairs, etc. > > Where are the novels that portray this mixed up group of barefoot shoemakers? One the best, and most hilarious, novels concerned with academic foibles is Pnin by Vladimir Nabakov. > [@](#): > > One of the best-loved of Nabokov’s novels, Pnin features his funniest and most heart-rending character. Professor Timofey Pnin is a haplessly disoriented Russian émigré precariously employed on an American college campus in the 1950s. Pnin struggles to maintain his dignity through a series of comic and sad misunderstandings, all the while falling victim both to subtle academic conspiracies and to the manipulations of a deliberately unreliable narrator. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/12 "2006-04-03T18:30:25Z")
Check out _Hearts In Atlantis_, by Steven King (the movie from a few years back covers only the first third or so). The second part centers mostly around a group of students at a Northeastern state university, like the one that Stephen King attended, so presumably gives a reasonably accurate picture of the life there. ---
**Author:** ![gigi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a587f6/32.png) [@gigi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gigi)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/13 "2006-04-03T18:42:50Z")
**White Noise** by Don DeLillo–the narrator is chairman of Hitler Studies at a midwestern university. And it just gets funnier from there. He pokes fun at tweed jackets and suede elbow patches and the whole college scene. ---
**Author:** ![TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/51bf81/32.png) [@TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TLDRIDKJKLOLFTW)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/14 "2006-04-03T18:42:53Z")
I just read Francine Prose’s [Blue Angel](http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0060953713/sr=8-1/qid=1144089277/ref=pd_bbs_1/103-2894904-6909460?%5Fencoding=UTF8), and found it pretty funny. I generally find academia to be an irritating subculture, but the book seemed to take that attitude too; the characters are more archetypes than anything, and there’s a lot of lampooning going on. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/15 "2006-04-03T18:46:09Z")
A number of Horror novels & short stories by H. P. Lovecraft are in academic settings, notably Miskatonic University. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/16 "2006-04-03T18:46:19Z")
Richard Russo’s **Straight Man** , which is one of the funniest books every written anyway – times two if you’ve spent time in academia. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/17 "2006-04-03T19:36:35Z")
A lot of John Irving’s “The World According to Garp,” and some of Daniel Keyes’s “Flowers for Algernon.” ---
**Author:** ![Birdmonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/71e660/32.png) [@Birdmonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Birdmonster)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/18 "2006-04-03T19:38:50Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > Richard Russo’s **Straight Man** , which is one of the funniest books every written anyway – times two if you’ve spent time in academia. Twickster recommended this to me on when I asked for books that were just plain funny, nothing more. And I thoroughly second this rec. Great book, easy, yet interesting read, a total gem. ---
**Author:** ![Zsofia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/7bcc69/32.png) [@Zsofia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zsofia)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 7:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/19 "2006-04-03T19:52:14Z")
_The Big U_ is an early Neal Stephenson novel that’s just amazingly hilarious. There’s not much about the professors, but administration and student life is the source of a lot of the humor. (Seriously. Hilarious.) ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2006, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106/20 "2006-04-03T19:57:07Z")
_Gaudy Night_ is a mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers set in a women’s college at Oxford in the early 30’s. Highly entertaining and informative - basic plot is that it looks like one of the faculty is a poison-pen letter writer with a hatred for academics, possibly escalating to murder. Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey are the sleuths. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/novels-in-academic-settings/351106.md?page=2)