Moo Review
Dec. 17th, 2010 04:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
alobearI picked up Moo by Jane Smiley on BookMooch, as part of a multi-book deal from overseas.
I was a bit apprehensive, since the blurb sounded rather silly and the reviews on the cover contained words like "uproariously funny", "acid humour", "hilarious", and suchlike.
On reading the book, I found it very well written and highly enjoyable, but I never found it actually funny.
Since the plot surrounds faculty members and students at a Midwest university, I wonder if my time at my current place of employment has so jaded me to the ridiculous antics of higher education institutions, that the cast of characters inhabiting Moo University seem mundane and entirely believable by comparison.
Or perhaps it's just my age old lack of sense of humour with regard to certain things.
Who knows? Regardless, I was expecting something wacky and outlandish, and what I got was a compelling study of ambition and disappointment.
Unfortunately, the ending didn't quite fit the tone of the rest of the book. If it *had* been outlandish and wacky, the fact that the penultimate chapter was titled "Deus Ex Machina" and the conclusion involved a complete and rather unexpected reversal of fortune for nearly all the character would not have been out of place. As it was, it seemed very jarring and forced.
Still, I'm not generally one to complain about happy endings, and overall the book was very entertaining.
I was a bit apprehensive, since the blurb sounded rather silly and the reviews on the cover contained words like "uproariously funny", "acid humour", "hilarious", and suchlike.
On reading the book, I found it very well written and highly enjoyable, but I never found it actually funny.
Since the plot surrounds faculty members and students at a Midwest university, I wonder if my time at my current place of employment has so jaded me to the ridiculous antics of higher education institutions, that the cast of characters inhabiting Moo University seem mundane and entirely believable by comparison.
Or perhaps it's just my age old lack of sense of humour with regard to certain things.
Who knows? Regardless, I was expecting something wacky and outlandish, and what I got was a compelling study of ambition and disappointment.
Unfortunately, the ending didn't quite fit the tone of the rest of the book. If it *had* been outlandish and wacky, the fact that the penultimate chapter was titled "Deus Ex Machina" and the conclusion involved a complete and rather unexpected reversal of fortune for nearly all the character would not have been out of place. As it was, it seemed very jarring and forced.
Still, I'm not generally one to complain about happy endings, and overall the book was very entertaining.
