The History Man, by Malcolm Bradbury

 Ugh. Campus novel, sure. But was it good? 

Spoilers:

Howard Kirk is an asshole. Truly. Sure it's the 70s, but he can still be an asshole. Swinging times. Typical prof sleeping with his students. Or female professors. Wives taking weekends in London to go sleep with their boyfriends. Both husband and wife knowing this. And apparently okay with it. Gross.

The writing was good. I had read one of his short stories in The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories and it was good. This one reminded me a bit of Saramago, as all the dialog was continuous in paragraphs, meaning something like this:

'Isn't that debatable, Dr Kirk?' he asks, 'I mean, are you sociology?' 'Yes,' says Howard, 'for the present purpose, I am.' (p143)

It is a critique of academia of the 1970s, and I'd say it could be a critique of today's academia, too, except for not as much (any?) sex on today's campuses. A preview of the gender and pronoun craziness of today:

'I got up to offer her my seat,' says Dr Macintosh, 'and then I suddenly realized that in this radical climate there's no way to address her. Finally I said: "Excuse me, person, would you like to sit down?".' (p158)

Plenty of protest as well. 

'This lecture [guest speaker] is forbidden by radical opinion.' The audience had roared its assent, 'Forbidden, forbidden,' and 'Fascist, fascist...' (p228)

 Glad to be done. It got repetitive. 3.5 stars, if I'm giving stars. (Considering not in the future.)

Spoilers done.

There was a movie, the author writes about it in the afterword.