- Paperback: 302 pages
- Publisher: Harcourt Publishers Ltd; 1st Harvest/HBJ Ed edition (Sep 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0156372118
- ISBN-13: 978-0156372114
- Product Dimensions: 20.1 x 13.5 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,426,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Synopsis
When literature instructor Henry Mulcahy is informed that he will not be reappointed for the following year at Jocelyn College, he is convinced that he is being made the victim of the president's academic witch-hunt.
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First Sentence
The author wishes to thank The New Yorker for permission to reprint Chapter One, and the Guggenheim Foundation for the fellowship that made some of this work possible. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
The author wishes to thank The New Yorker for permission to reprint Chapter One, and the Guggenheim Foundation for the fellowship that made some of this work possible. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a "wickedly funny" satire about the socio-political in-fighting and backstabbing over minor achievements and petty rewards on a college campus. A side-splitter of a book especially for those involved in academia.
Format:Paperback
At a progressive college in 50s America an inept and egotistical teacher schemes to keep his job by claiming he's the target of a McCarthyite witch-hunt. While the villain is creepy to the point of eeriness in his mendacity and self-approval ('One begins by persuading oneself, and this germ of persuasion is infectious... It's a rare asset; it could be useful to him in politics') and destructive to all about him, the more noble faculty members are unable to act decisively against him due to their left-liberal guilt and reluctance to judge anyone. A splendid comedy of academic catfights and angsty intellectuals tying themselves into ethical knots trying to do the right thing, it has some laugh-out-loud moments and points that remain telling today.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
7 reviews
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Not McCarthy's best...
13 Feb 2003
Format:Paperback
I am an alum of the small college "Groves" is based on. I am also an academic and great fan of McCarthy's novel "The Group". I should have found "The Groves of Academe" engaging on these three facts alone. Sadly, the book left me cold. As a satire the novel is dissatisfying on several levels -- where we spot the familiar, the recognition is only sad, not humourous; and the plot, even for an academic who can be expected to find campus politics interesting, is deadly dull. If you aren't familiar with McCarthy, start with her far more interesting and accessible "The Group" instead. If you are new to academic satire, start with "The Lecturer's Tale" for a far more entertaining and cunning critique of academic culture.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Flat and uninteresting
12 Feb 2003
Format:Paperback
As an academic, I anticipated liking this book very much. I find the day-to-day petty politics of the university amusing in real life and thought such a satire would be enjoyable. The Groves of Academe, however, proved to be lifeless and long-winded. The protagonist is so entirely unlikeable that I found myself wishing he'd just leave and get it over. None of the other characters were particularly engaging either; they tended to be rather flat stereotypes (e.g. the dried-up spinster), which usually work in a satire, but really needed to be more human to counteract the distaste inspired by Mulcahy.
The setting in the post-war, commie witch-hunt days really turns out to be less important than anticipated. While it provides some interesting strategies for our anti-hero, it could be replaced with any number of "isms" without changing the essential effect.
McCarthy's style is excruciatingly dry and her dialogue is stilted to the point of being stylized. The sheer boredom of plowing through her prose deadens the mind to the point that any satirical effect is largely lost.
The jabs at "progressive" education were mildly entertaining, thus two stars rather than a mere one.
15 of 23 people found the following review helpful
Language more literary than illuminating
31 Dec 2001
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
With my interest in the academic genre -- David Lodge is good, light humor, Richard Russo's "Straight Man" was a wonderful, comedic treat -- Amazon directed me to "Groves", where I quickly proceeded to become lost among the trees.
Like Kingsley Amis' "Lucky Jim", a book I found to be absent much appeal, McCarthy offers a highly literate analysis of the travails of a male professor struggling at university after World War II. McCarthy's Henry Mulcahy is strapped by poverty, with a sickly wife and four children, in a temporary teaching position offered, in part, out of a sense of guilt by the college president. Then Mulcahy gets the dreaded and unexpected "non-renewal" letter.
Some aspects of academic life have not changed in fifty years: petty squabbles and politics, the longing for job security, the poor wages of some professors, the need for intrinsic interest in teaching, the complaints about students' habits. But the focus on communism and loyalty oaths as a basis for job insecurity is a distant memory to most people. And Mulcahy's own dishonesty (or grasp of reality) left me confused rather than sympathetic. Rather I found myself attuned to Mulcahy's nemesis, the president.
The story is simple yet the tone of the book put me off. There was more philosophy than conversation, and when academics did speak, they spoke in a fashion most would find hard to expect in conversation. I grew bored. The characters weren't that interesting despite their intelligence, and I found myself speed reading the last thirty pages. And I found myself as displeased with "Groves" as I had been with "Lucky Jim".
Sometimes very literate and well-educated authors don't translate well to my level, to meet my self-admittedly need for a clearer, more linear story and engaging characters.
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