Cynical, but not as corrosive as Mary McCarthy's Groves of Academe, this is again an interior view of life within ivied...

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Cynical, but not as corrosive as Mary McCarthy's Groves of Academe, this is again an interior view of life within ivied walls and follows Giles Harmony in his first year at a midwestern college where he has been imported to improve the intellectual tone of the English department. The social and academic friction which prevails; the professional hypocrisies- subterfuges and concessions; the scholastic standards which are lowered to meet enrollment figures- all this is part of Giles' own course of learning. And for Giles too, there is the resolution of his troubled emotional progress as the memory of Marcia leaves him with bitterness, and the affair with Eloise- his superior's wife- leaves him with a sense of guilt and shame which almost closes off the possibility of a future with Maria.... No high honors, perhaps, but a pleasantly assured first novel which differentiates its problems and people with a knowledgeable accuracy.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Little, Brown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1953

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