I have always been fascinated by closed societies: monasteries and convents, boarding schools and to some extent universities, although one gets the feeling that most of the latter are more open now than in times past. I think the interest stems from the idea that these places can and do create their own rules, traditions and culture. Of course there is always possible danger involved where people feel they may be hidden and not accountable.
I have just read The Secret History by Donna Tartt, set in a fictional Vermont university and I actually found it quite scary. Some commentators call this book part of the dark academia sub genre of campus novels. Labelling and classifying can become quite complicated!
Anyway, a group of classics students, all extremely clever but coming from disparate backgrounds find themselves involved in the murder of a fellow student. Some of this group are bewildered as to quite how they themselves became part of this. The geographic isolation of the university and the severe weather conditions add to the tension of this story. I thought the writing was excellent but I was surprised to find it quite so threatening in its tone.
I wonder why a university setting sets up so many possibilities for fiction. Young people trying to shrug off adolescence and for the first time experiencing freedom from parents and home, maybe meeting others with whom they can share ideas and thoughts are the raw material for interesting characters and plots. The need to attend lectures, produce essays and be able to speak articulately in tutorials give a commonality to the university experience. And then there are the lecturers, all manoeuvring to get tenure ( a permanent contract in English terms) and seeing the young coming up behind them. All good fodder for novels.
Stoner by John Williams is very different. Here focusing on an English literature teacher and his life seen through the eyes of his colleagues and the institution. For me this book was beautifully written in restrained, careful prose with emotions held firmly under control.
It is a sad story with somehow the feeling of waste and of ‘what might have been’.
William Stoner leads a small life and when circumstances change and offer him greater joy, he is, for various reasons, unable to take advantage. Maybe growing older one can sometimes look back in surprise and find a great portion of life gone. What has been done with it? Was it worthwhile?
The author Alison Lurie was herself a lecturer in Cornell University, New York State and her novel The War between the Tates is loosely based on this place. The story is set in the late 1960s so it comes with a heavy political background of Vietnam, racial unrest and nascent feminism. In amongst this turmoil, the husband Brian Tate has an affair with a student and so off the story goes.
The list of these sorts of stories is a long one, mostly American but not all. Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis immediately comes to mind. The language can be a bit rich but it is very English and hilariously funny. Evelyn Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited is definitely a university novel but would usually come into one of those sub genres: varsity novels.
I particularly like the writing of Jean Hanff Korelitz. Admission, her story of a Princeton admissions officer is a very good read.
Enjoy the stories, relishing the fact that you don’t have to write the essay.