Author: | Javier Marías | ISBN: | 9780307951083 |
Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group | Publication: | April 23, 2013 |
Imprint: | Vintage | Language: | English |
Author: | Javier Marías |
ISBN: | 9780307951083 |
Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
Publication: | April 23, 2013 |
Imprint: | Vintage |
Language: | English |
By one of the most important voices in contemporary world literature, a darkly comic novel about that most British of institutions, Oxford University.
In All Souls, a visiting Spanish lecturer, viewing Oxford through a prismatic detachment, is alternately amused, puzzled, delighted, and disgusted by its vagaries of human vanity. A bit lonely, not always able to see his charming but very married mistress, he casts about for activity; he barely has to teach. Yet so much goes into simply "being" at Oxford: friendship, opinion-mongering, one-upmanship, finicky exchanges of favors, gossip, adultery, book-collecting, back-patting, backstabbing. Marías demonstrates a sweet tooth for eccentricity in this sly campus novel and love story.
By one of the most important voices in contemporary world literature, a darkly comic novel about that most British of institutions, Oxford University.
In All Souls, a visiting Spanish lecturer, viewing Oxford through a prismatic detachment, is alternately amused, puzzled, delighted, and disgusted by its vagaries of human vanity. A bit lonely, not always able to see his charming but very married mistress, he casts about for activity; he barely has to teach. Yet so much goes into simply "being" at Oxford: friendship, opinion-mongering, one-upmanship, finicky exchanges of favors, gossip, adultery, book-collecting, back-patting, backstabbing. Marías demonstrates a sweet tooth for eccentricity in this sly campus novel and love story.