I’ve spent my fair share of time on college campuses and they can be amazing places. There is a special feeling about places where people come together to learn and grow, to study and understand, and to come together as a community that shares common goals. Not all novels about college life are focused on those positive things. Here are a few stories centered on the diverse experience of college life.
Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis was book #3 on my 2025 reading list. The book description I read indicated that it was a comedic story – hilarious satire was noted in one case. Since comedy is subjective, I read through some Goodreads reviews to see if others thought it was funny. Many of the reviewers loved the book but others were not impressed, citing lack of funniness, sexist humor, and dislike of the characters. One of the other reasons I checked out the other reviews was that the Introduction of my version of the book (Kindle) was not appealing to me. The description of the author and his friend made them sound arrogant and egotistical, and not particularly pleasant to be around, i.e., guys who thought they were better, cleverer, and funnier than everyone else. Words and images that came to mind were frat boy and man-child and over-privileged – not my favorites.
Nevertheless, I started reading the book. After a few chapters, I had to agree with the reviewers who did not connect to the main character. He didn’t want to work but thought he deserved privileges and accolades. While he outwardly tried to ingratiate himself to others, he was condescending and disdainful on the inside. This conflict can be entertaining but it can also come across as being fake, contrived, and manipulative. What I had read of this book was a bit more the latter than the former and confirmed that was probably not a good fit for me, so I decided not to finish it. I added it here because it might be a good fit for others!
The Secret History by Donna Tartt is an interesting story and a nicely paced read, though is not a book I loved. The main character is Richard, a poor college student from California, who becomes part of a group of odd but smart students at a small Vermont college. They study “the classics” – Greek and Roman literature, etc. – with an odd old professor. Though the story is set in the 1980s, there is also an intentional underlying flavor of the 1920s and 1950s mixed in – something that is not quite modern. It also in some respects feels more like a boarding school than a college. These ambiguities are effective in adding to the uncertain/strange atmosphere of the story.
As the book opens, one of the students (Bunny) has died – it emerges that he has been taking advantage of the others because he knows that four of the students (Henry, Francis, Charles and Camilla) did something horrible. The story that follows includes some background on how the group came together (Richard joined later so was not a party to some of the others’ activities) and how they spiral out of control. What is described is, for the most part, compelling, though some sections could be trimmed to provide tighter descriptions, and some of the students’ interactions could be consolidated to be less repetitive. In addition, some elements – e.g., the “shocking” relationship between twins Charles and Camilla; the NYC drug connections – felt like they were thrown in and were heavy handed. Annoying or negative aspects of the students’ personalities come to the fore under extreme stress and few positive aspects were explored. For the most part, characters started off as odd and prickly and became irritating, selfish and uninteresting, at least to me.
My main problems with the story is that there are some interesting threads that are not explored. One of these is the relationship with Julian, who is their teacher. He requires that they take all/most of their courses with him and they are his only students. At the end of the book, the students revere him and talk about him as their father and almost a mythical figure – the problem is that we have not seen those relationships develop. I just didn’t buy it, particularly when Julian takes off at the end, which was just odd given that he was such a force in their lives. Another partial thread is about what happened in the woods when the four students do their horrible deed – we get hints and clues, but no real description. The mystery would have been fine, but I felt like I was being teased. Tell me or don’t tell me, but don’t keep hinting and then not telling – it was annoying. Third, the question of a “supernatural” aspect of the story was not really pursued – this is part of the mystery element. The dabbling but not committing one way or the other didn’t really work for me. Finally, the character of Henry was particularly mysterious but (IMO) not very compelling – the descriptions felt very disjointed.
This is a story that I probably would have enjoyed more when I was younger (20s or so), as I would have been able to identify more with the characters and would have been intrigued by situations. Now, I don’t have as much patience with behaviors that are inconsistent across time and with their goals. They want to keep things quiet, yet they are always drinking to excess and then wondering whether they said something they shouldn’t have. I believed that they would be getting on each other’s nerves, but the actions seemed out of sync with earlier descriptions of the characters. Rather than adding complexity, the discrepancies just added noise and led to a mixed reaction to the book.
Stoner by John Edward Williams in 1965 is my favorite of the campus-based stories listed here. It is a quiet story and many of the characters are unhappy (the phrase “lives of quiet desperation” could have been invented for this book), but it was interesting to me. The acceptance of sadness, desperation, apathy, loneliness, nothingness, etc. harkens back to The Heart is a Lonely Hunter, Of Human Bondage, and other books that I’ve read in recent years. This is beyond embracing the challenges of life – it is the stoic acceptance of the mundane, the sameness, the drudgery that seems both alien and familiar to me.
In this book, Stoner’s parents, wife, daughter and (to some extent) Stoner himself accept disappointments rather than working for something more positive or inspirational. Stoner’s parents are simple farmers who step out of the box to send their son to college – and, aside from a couple of visits, he doesn’t come back. I found that to be sad, perhaps because there were times when I called but did not visit my mother, who made many sacrifices for me. Stoner’s wife is an odd woman – perhaps she has a mental health condition, perhaps/likely she was abused by her father – she alternates between being cold, angry, hysterical and remote. The scene in which she destroys the gifts given to her by her father is chilling, moving, and sorrowful. Unfortunately, she uses her daughter as a weapon against Stoner. The daughter is a quiet, intelligent child who could have had a chance had circumstances been different, but ends up settling for a fairly empty life.
Stoner is generally a passive person, who has flashes of energy or even rebellion. These characters remind me of people I knew growing up – I didn’t really understand them and, in some ways, still don’t. Katherine, a student/instructor with whom he has an affair, is one of the few who seems both driven and positive. Of course, she is also quite shy and withdrawn at times. Colleagues Finch and Lomax are ambitious, but with a certain toxic element (especially the latter). Seeing both Stoner’s work and his personal life under attack was so very sad – like someone kicking a puppy. But in addition to protective feelings, I wanted to shake him to make him more responsive. What I enjoyed about this book is that it is not a “feel good” book – it’s fairly depressing, even though Stoner does experience contentment at various points in the story. It reminds me that not everyone is happy, even when they appear to be, and sometimes those who may seem to have little in their lives are actually contented with their lot in life.
Not everyone aspires to the same thing. Stoner is a character to which I related. He’s shy and quiet, feels that people either won’t like him or will find him boring/odd/etc., and does not really plan out his life.He is content to let things play out. He just wants a little space to call his own – the description of him creating his study is one of my favorite sections of the book. In some ways, he’s not sure what he thought his life would be and he seems both contented and disappointed. It is a story about people who are complex yet straightforward, contented yet unhappy, seeking companionship yet pulling away from people. It felt like the unfortunate and hidden reality for some people who seem to be in the shadows of life and aren’t sure whether they want to come out and join the party or stay home and read a book.
