I really envy all the kids heading to college this fall. Independence, new friends, no parental supervision—just 15 hours of classes per week, afternoon naps, and all the bad cable TV you can watch. As an adult, I’m lucky if I spend only 40 hours a week at the office. Instead of strolling home at noon to watch crappy TV, I fight traffic to get home after 6:00 p.m. to watch a cranky toddler.
Yes, college sounds pretty good right about now, and my best shot at reliving it is through literature. Below, find a list of seven books set on college campuses, all great reads whether you’re an eager freshman or looking to relive your glory days.
Fangirl, by Rainbow Rowell:Earlier this year, Rainbow Rowell perfectly captured high school angst in Eleanor & Park; her new book brings the same sense of verisimilitude to the experiences of awkward college freshman Cath, who feels more comfortable holed up in her dorm room writing fanfiction about her favorite Harry Potter-esque fantasy series than she does hitting the quad and making new friends. Luckily, Cath turns out to be better than I was at opening her eyes to the new world around her (but then, in my day, an always-on internet connection was still a really big deal).
Tam Lin, by Pamela Dean: The definitive fantasy novel for English majors, this retelling of the Scottish legend is set on the campus of fictional Midwestern liberal arts college, where the characters spend most of their time having those deep-into-the-night discussions of literature and philosophy than only happen at college (and maybe after a few illicit drinks). The fantasy narrative is subtly updated, but the campus atmosphere is truly transporting. Dean described the book as a “love poem” to her college days and the study of English literature.
Wonder Boys, by Michael Chabon: Kids aren’t the only ones having adventures at college. For instance, there are professors like Grady Tripp. The once-successful novelist has been struggling with writer’s block for years; he inadvertently gets involved in the life of a suicidal student and winds up driving around with his boss’s dead dog in the trunk of his car. Chabon’s funniest novel, Wonder Boys was made into apretty great movie starring Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire.
Lucky Jim, by Kingsley Amis: Arguably the first “campus novel,” Amis’ most popular work is a treatise against the pretensions of acedemia. Jim Dixon, a history professor at a British university, is trying to secured a tenured position but keeps running afoul of the snobby department head. His attempts to impress the world with his academic credentials do not go well, culminating in a rather unfortunate drunken public lecture and an ironic ending.
The Rules of Attraction, by Bret Easton Ellis: A story of the intersecting lives of a bunch of sex-and-drug-obsessed college students. I was in college when the movie version (the only adaptation of his work the author likes) was released, and I read a lot of pearl-clutching articles saying the film proves kids were throwing our educations away, living debauched lives of drug use and promiscuous sex. Of course, I was reading those articles rather than doing anything of the sort, so I can hardly gauge their accuracy. The book is pretty raunchy, but strikes me as an exaggerated black comedy in the same vein as Ellis’ American Psycho. (Assuming that book was also supposed to be funny.)
The Secret History, by Donna Tartt: Tartt’s landmark debut follows the lives of an incestuously close group of friends at an elite northeastern university. The characters’ various obsessions eventually devolve into murder and a coverup. Along the way, they spend a lot of time contemplating Greek philosophy, social structures, and truth versus beauty, as you do when you are a pretentious undergrad. Usually without the ritual murder.
The Big U, by Neal Stephenson: Neal Stephenson’s debut novel starts as an imaginative satire of college life (the entire school is enclosed in one giant building, creating a fully insulated college ecosystem known as American Megaversity) and gets weirder from there, pitting different factions of students and social cliques against each other in a plot that expands to involve genetically-engineered lab animals and homemade super weapons. Stephenson reportedly doesn’t like the book and was initially happy to let it go out of print, but don’t let that stop you.
Resource: barnesandnoble.com
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