Eating People is Wrong

I've read a ton of Bradbury books, this is a gem too.

A first novel with the kind of uneveness that you might expect, but a very good read, and often very funny -- especially if you've spent some time around universities. Liberal academics are the target here, although the book is not unsympathetic or mean-spirited; he's writing about Britain, but it connects with the US scene pretty seamlessly. "Liberal" here refers to the 1950s version (the book came out in 1959) of the well-meaning socialist left, with its ideological moorings in the 1930s and beginning to entertain guilty doubts about the perfectibility of either man or society. Bradbury was writing before the appearance of the New Left, Black Power, militant feminism, and political correctness, but his antennae were up and humming. He saw what was coming, and something about why it would all find a home among university liberal arts faculty. There is a fascinating Afterword, where Bradbury writes about the context of the times, and how he came to write the book.

The best thing going for this book is its title--which, in many ways, is also the funniest thing about the book. I enjoyed sitting in front of my dorm reading it, to have people ask "what are you reading?" to which I replied, "Eating people is Wrong." "That's true," they'd say.There are many funny passages in this book. Many funny moments. Malcolm Bradbury has a sharp wit--he's the author. The plot is fairly simple--a college professor in a British school has a sort-of mid-life crisis as he interacts with the arrogant-madman Louis Bates and as they both fall in love with the gentle and mildly attractive Emma Fielding. Things happen, but I felt somewhat claustrophobic in the book as it didn't move around much. It was confining.But maybe that's the point. Reading this book made me feel like the protagonist, Stuart Treece, probably felt---weary, disillusioned, and not wanting to go on but feeling compelled to (with the book, at least).There are great passages, and I underlined a few. "Life is catalysed by knowing interesting people. That's where the vivid moments come from. And there just isn't time for bores and fools" (193). I agree with that."Moreover, all his life, Treece had been doing things that he did not exactly want to do, journeying off on holidays he had no intention of taking, watching plays he did not wish to see, playing sports he detested, simply because someone had gone to the trouble to persuade him, simply because he felt they cared, simply...well, simply because he could not say no. He always thought what a hard time of it he would have had if he had been a woman; he would have been pregnant all the time" (149).There were moments that I loved this book, that I laughed and reread the passage aloud. Then there were moments where I found myself lost in a paragraph, completely uninterested, irritated that I was stilling reading this, asking myself, "is this going anywhere?" So I'm not sure if I recommend it. If any of this sounded interesting to you, then you should read it. If not, then don't. I'm not passionate about it or anything...but in the end, I'm glad I read it. After all, like Treece, since Bradbury had gone to the trouble of writing it, I couldn't say no.

"Eating People Is Wrong" is a social satire set in academe among the faculty and students of a provincial university in 1950s England. Malcolm Bradbury, who would later become a professor of literature like his protagonist Stuart Treece, took nearly a decade to write the novel, beginning when he was a student and finishing it as a professor. This makes his insight all the more remarkable, since Bradbury's understanding of faculty politics and middle age was limited when he started the book. Perhaps that is why his observations of students and student-faculty parties are so keen. The result is insightful, literate, and hilarious, with an uncommon sympathy amid the candor.Stuart Treece is a professor of English literature, come to the provinces to bestow beneficent guidance on his working class students so that they might advance themselves through merit. He is an idealist, a liberal humanist formed in the 1930s, now pushing middle age in the 1950s and unsure where a person of his ideals fits in these days. There doesn't seem to be a lot to actually do to actively advance his values. He tries to help his more eccentric students -an African man, the son of a chief, who's having trouble adjusting, and Louis Bates, an unstable but brilliant writer who struggles fiercely with social ineptitude. And Treece has an eye on Emma Fielding, a graduate student of like mind who is always pursued, always rejecting men, and always feels terribly guilty about it."Eating People Is Wrong" is unique among satires in its compassion for its characters. It sympathizes with people as it makes fun of them. Treece, Louis, Emma, and the more pragmatic professors are all treated with great humanity. We understand them; we sympathize; it makes them no less ridiculous, just as they remark that Louis Bates is so good at literature but so bad at living that it makes him ridiculous. The satire is no less insightful or absurd for this, but it is less harsh than it might be. Bradbury is a brilliant observer of modern humanity's foibles but also sensitive to people's intentions. The result is a humane satire that nevertheless shows up the quandary of an earnest man who feels duty-bound to be a protector of civilization amid post-War prosperity and provincialism.

A book so full of itself is very tedious indeed.

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