When the British writer David Lodge wrote his campus novels in the 1970s and ’80s, he satirized universities of the day, mocking how seriously some academics took themselves. Those fictional professors, often inspired by scholars who could in some cases be recognized by readers, exchanged homes (as well as wives and lovers) while on sabbatical. Changing Places, Small World, and Nice Work, which form his campus trilogy, made fun of the isms of those years and casual sexual relations in ways that might raise eyebrows today.
Randy Boyagoda’s Lords of Serendipity does not have Lodge’s mordant style, but his depiction of contemporary quandaries confronting North American universities certainly blends humour and irony, with a relatively sombre undertone. Some of the events are too tragic to be considered satire, particularly the bittersweet ending.
Boyagoda’s latest novel weaves together multiple narrative threads that take...
Catherine Khordoc is a professor in Carleton University’s Department of French, where she teaches contemporary Québécois literature.
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