Published 1970; this edition from Bello 2018 (Pan Macmillan).
Third book in the Kate Fansler series
ISBN 978-1-5098-2005-4
157 pages
Genre: crime
Keyword: university, higher learning, reforming of teaching; poetry by W.H. Auden, marriage; woman’s position in society, Kate Fansler, very funny, murder, aspirin,
Grade 5/5 stars
Will I read more by this author: absolutely.
A cozy crime although a murder happened by bleeding out immediately after having ingested one pill of aspirin, perhaps not the most accurate medical line of events.
Kate is a professor of literature at a big university in New York; her specialty Victorian literature. The students like her as she knows how to make her lectures sexy and interesting.
It is the time after the student riots that have revealed a lot of problems of the teaching and administration at the university; leading to restructuring of the everything, how to be more relevant, more diverse. In this book there are discussions surrounding literature studies; but the same discussions are taking place in my university today 50 years later at the medical faculty.
There is a very funny discussion about where to find a professor who can teach literary works in Swahili; Kate thinks that if the big countries in Africa have so many different dialects, and they use English to communicate, then it would be more relevant to educate teachers to teach English in Swahili for Africa than teach Swahili to English speakers in New York.
Kate considers the undergraduate students as immature boys, who took it for granted that they would graduate without doing the work; but only play sports, drink, get laid and not grow up. Kate only teaches the graduate students who have “grown out of youth, of being arrogant, spoiled, discourteous, incapable of compromise and unaware of the prize of everything they want to destroy”.
The University College is a part of the University for mature students who want to return and complete an academic education they had not dreamed of; they award only bachelor degrees but they want to be accepted as a regular part of the university and the graduate school. The director of the regular faculty is very much against it as it would devaluate the value of the ‘ordinary students’ degrees; but the mature students do not have time to waste, do serious studying and research; a curious fact is that they not take part in the riots.
Kate was unaware of the existence of the University College until she meets a friend of Kate’s mother, Polly, who is studying at the University College because she needed to have to do something serious so her children would not use her for free, always available baby-sitting of the grandchildren, instead she is studying, doing a PhD and working as a teaching assistant. It hilarious the way it is written, but so real and logical.
For some years already Reed, the lawyer, has proposed to Kate, but Kate has not agreed to it (similar to Peter Whimsey in Dorothy L Sayers’ books). However, the riots at the university have caused Kate to feel insecure and uncertain about herself and her work. So, in a very funny chapter she suggests they move to live together, but he wants to get married. In Kate’s opinion she is “an aging, cantankerous woman, given to illogical skirmishes and drinking of too much wine” Reed could find a much younger and beautiful woman to take of him. In the end she agrees to get married. When the secretaries at the university heard about her getting married they make a party to celebrate that she is becoming a womanly woman because the greatest achievement for a woman is to “lead a man to the alter, not the fact that she has earned a PhD, taught reasonably well, written books, travelled, been a friend and lover”; “an unmarried woman is an offense against nature”.
Through out the book there is a long list of quotes by WH Auden that fit in very well with the overall story. I did not know him. According to Kate, Auden “wrote a good bit of clever poetry; that gave her a new awareness of life”.
My thoughts
I like Kate, she is a professional and I find her very likeable. There are so many very funny dialogs in the book; I imagine how the author has been sitting and laughing at what she had been writing; my dear though me daft at how I laughed out loudly at many situations in this book.
The book is full of university politics that even today is very relevant and as I have experienced at my university is still ongoing. In the book there is a lot of discussion on women’s place in society and professional life, things that today is unquestionably guaranteed by law, although the last few years of ‘me-too’ have shown there is still a long way to go. As a side line there is a murder that Reed as the knight in shining armor investigates; reminds me of Gaudy Night by Dorothy L Sayers.
In book two of this series, I got to know James Joyce; in this book it is Auden; so, it is literary history lesson covered in a nice murder (he deserved it), in a very enjoyable way.
All in all, this 50 years old novel is very relevant today about discussions of higher learning, university, studying and research and for me a great enjoyment!
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