Reading List campus novels

Conversational Reading: A Reading List from Mark McGurl's The Program Era

In particular, McGurl has a little bit of fun working with the "campus novel" genre, and I'll put a few of his selections here: / /

* /The Big U/, by Neal Stephenson.
* /Japanese by Spring/, by Ishmael Reed. /
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* /Moo/, by Jane Smiley. /
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* /Straight Man/, by Richard Russo.
* "Westward the Course of Empire Makes Its Way," by David Foster
Wallace (from /The Girl with the Curious Hair/). /
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* /The Dean's December/, by Saul Bellow. /
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* /The Groves of Academe/, by Mary McCarthy. /
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* /Blue Angel/, by Francine Prose.
* /The Disguises of Love/, by Robie Macauley. /
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* /Galatea 2.2/, by Richard Powers. /
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* /The Professor of Desire/, by Philip Roth.
* /The Handmaid of Desire/, by John L'Heureux. /
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* /Pale Fire/, by Vladimir Nabokov. /
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* /The Professors Like Vodka/, by Harold Loeb.

He leaves out /Pictures from an Institution/, by Randall Jarrell, but you shouldn't--read that one first.

Orwell: Such, such were the joys

Orwell, Such, Such Were the Joys

"Such, Such Were the Joys" is a long autobiographical essay by English writer George Orwell, written in the 1940's, but not published until 1952, after the author's death. It tells a story based on Orwell's experiences, between the ages of eight and thirteen in the years before and during World War I, at St Cyprian's preparatory school for boys in Eastbourne, Sussex.



George Orwell: Such, Such Were The Joys
on-line

"Soon after I arrived at St Cyprian's (not immediately, but after a week or two, just when I seemed to be settling into the routine of school
life) I began wetting my bed. I was now aged eight, so that this was a reversion to a habit which I must have grown out of at least four years earlier. Nowadays, I believe, bed-wetting in such circumstances is taken for granted. It is normal reaction in children who have been removed from their homes to a strange place".