Intellectual's
Dilemma
Like a missionary fallen among cannibals, Stuart Treece was too dazed to appreciate the irony of the
situation. A middle-ageing professor at a university in the English Midlands, he
was a liberal intellectual caught hopelessly in the dilemma of his generation.
Back in the Thirties he had believed that Utopia was just around the corner.
Now here he was, surrounded by an uncongenial, if not hostile, horde of mannerless, aggressive, amoral young men and women who
strutted and strummed their way meaninglessly through an alien world. He had
clung to his principles, "stabbing as few people in the back as
possible" and doing a minimum of harm, but, apart from that, he felt there
was nothing to be done. Worse still, with the savages
shrilling and the pot coming to the boil, he realized, with a vague sense of
shock, that there was nothing he really wanted to do.
Meanwhile he went bumbling along, tolerating the interruptions
of impertinent students, failing his motor-scooter driving tests, having a
split-second affair with a practical-minded lady professor (who seemed to have
boy friends because they could build bookcases and transplant cacti). He also
found himself trying to console a neurotic West African ("I am despised by
all," he would complain in a deep, clipped voice). He was taken on Dantean tours of crowded espresso bars (with an earl
plunking the guitar in the Honi Soit
Qui Mal Y Pense Skiffle
Group). Reluctantly, he forced himself to entertain a protean member of the
Beat avant-garde ("This time he was the Marlon Brando type, with his hair
slicked down an the cares of the world upon his sullen
shoulders.") Along the way, he somehow lost the
love of a mixed-up but good-natured girl who was writing her Master's thesis on
the fish imagery in Shakespeare's tragedies.
Malcolm Bradbury (who has taught in universities on both sides
of the Atlantic and is a regular contributor to Punch) has written a brilliant
first novel. Here is a tragi-comedy which sometimes
sputters into farce (when it seems like a parody of "Lucky Jim") but,
at its best, fuses sensitivity and irony and becomes a significant social
satire, a Roman candle that illumines the surrounding landscape. Moreover, the
author's flair for character and his recognition of the human predicament give
the narrative a saving grace. Mr. Bradbury certainly has a lethal wit; but,
with him, familiarity never breeds contempt.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/01/04/01/specials/bradbury-eating.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Other interesting articles about Eating People Is Wrong: [Next] [1] [2]
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Universitat de Valčncia Press
Creada: 06/110/2008
Última Actualización: 06/11/2008