The History Man

This is the best Bradbury book I have read so far (after Doctor Criminale and Eating People is Wrong). The target of his satire is the class of 1970s academics preaching radical action while ensconced rather happily in their bourgeois lifestyles. These are people who justify their adherence to fickle fashions and engagement in superficial pleasures with the need to remain in step with fast-changing history, while destroying their ideological opponents who happen to speak out against this "revolution" of self-ingratiation. For example, while spreading the gospel of radical equality and the end of exploitation, Professor Kirk's wife keeps a number of unpaid female student "servants" to help her run her rather ordinary middle-class household. Similarly, Kirk himself is quite adamant to guard his privacy while announcing that there is no such thing, and use administrative procedures of the "oppressive regime" to dispense with uncomfortable foes. Of course, now I sound as though this is an awfully heavy book, but in reality it's a light satire, full of sarcasm and irony which aren't all that hard to spot, and may even apply to contemporary academics. After all, it is an isolated, guild-like hierarchy of self-proclaimed revolutionaries, whose most radical action often extends no further than an occasional wine-and-cheese "happening," while the gullible armies of undergraduates are quite happy to enact the sometimes absurd theories--in the name of some sort of misguided self-realization, social acceptance, or maybe a euphoric high. Except that Kirk was not merely a deluded ideologue; instead, he acted like a fully conscious manipulator for the achievement of his own little projects of social engineering which for him, more often than not, culminated in an orgasm.

The campus novel, written both by British and American writers, became a recognized subgenre in the last 50 years. Most of these books, produced by writers with academic appointments, are not very interesting. This book, however, is a real exception. This is simply the best campus novel and a devastating sendup of academic pretense and radical chic. In many ways, this book is also the best novel of the 60s as well. A key feature of this book is that Bradbury's characters are not caricatures; he is very careful to mix real elements of sympathy with his satire.

Hilarious book, with many shades of humor, from outright farce to gentle satire. Some home truths about academic life and radical chic mixed in. Wonderful characters and situations, but never wordy. Worth reading for the absurd staff meeting alone. I laughed out loud as I was reminded of similar afternoons in the company of not-so-learned colleagues and feckless students.

What a marvellous satire

Bradbury exposes academic socialism by measuring it with its own values and dialectic. Howard Kirk, self-proclaimed revolutionary, is ridden to the core with the middle class values he campaigns against. The "History Man" of the title, he strives to avoid all change in his life despite his progressive stance. "The History Man" is biting satire of British university life, sparing no one, staff and students alike. The book is very funny, but there is nobody to like - just as the characters don't care what happens to each other, it is hard to care what happens to them. The humour is vicious, and if you've ever been part of an institution you won't stop laughing.