University

THE UNIVERSITY by Bentley Little is the story of a how a typical large state university - in this case, the fictional University of California at Brea - gets taken over by an amorphous evil entity. Violence and perversion of all types erupt amongst the students, faculty, and staff. There's also a strong racist streak in many of those affected by the evil. Most of the university community seems to be wholehearted participants in the gruesome festivities, and detect nothing wrong or abnormal at the University. However, a small band of students and faculty are - for whatever reason - not wholly brainwashed by this evil. They realize something is wrong and, under the tutelage of a former professor who has dealt with similar situations in the past (by blowing up evil campuses), the group decides things are going too far and they go on the offensive against the University. Comparing this book to the two other novels by Little that I've read so far - which are THE WALKING and THE STORE - I'd say it's better than the former but not as good as the latter. This is a typical Bentley Little book in at least two ways. First, it contains a lot of obvious social commentary and social satire. As someone who has been both a student and a faculty member at multiple colleges and universities, I thought that Bentley Little did an excellent job of characterizing and satirizing university life, from both the students' and faculty's perspective. Second, this is textbook Little in that it's chock full of explicit, unorthodox sex - but it's much more pervasive in THE UNIVERSITY than in the handful of other books by Little that I've read. Be forewarned, if you're even remotely prudish, you will be offended and/or grossed out. Sometimes Little pushes sexual taboo buttons in ways that are critical to the story and the point he's trying to make without getting carried away with it (I thought that's what he did in THE STORE.) Sometimes, though, it can get excessive. To be honest, I have mixed feelings about this in regards to THE UNIVERSITY, and have been going back and forth over whether or not the myriad perversions depicted in the novel were crucial to its point (some, I think, were, maybe not all) or were simply wanton; I still don't have a definitive answer: let's just say it's definitely somewhere on the hazy frontier between necessity and gratuitousness, and with a bit of a tilt towards the latter. Again, prudes beware! (I don't consider myself all that prudish, and I was definitely grossed out multiple times reading this book...) One thing that definitely vexed me: I thought Little could've come up with a more creative form for the campus's `evil' to take than he did - generic racism and violence just seem like a lazy way out to me (almost, but not quite, as lazy as making the villains actual Nazis or Klansmen, which way too many stories continue to do.) If violence itself is evil, how come our heroes end up using it to fight against evil? The

Is this worth paying $20 for? Yes. Now that we got that out of the way we can review it. University is not your typical "haunting of famous building" novel. The university itself is still in business but a lot of bad things have been happening around the campus lately. Rapes, animal murder, killings, suicides, kidnappings, abuse of property, you name it. As it turns out, UC Brea is inhabited by a living organism that feeds off the students minds and makes them commit horrific atrocities and deeds. And, like "The Day Of The Triffids" we are shown scenes of homicidal plants doing things you probably wouldn't want to know. The only negative thing is the bizzare ending for this book.

At the time I read the book it was under the name "NIGHT SCHOOL", University is the best *Little* book i've had the previlege to read, *Richard Laymon* used to be the only writer I would read untill I came across *Bentley Little*. *Little* has like a kinship with *Laymon* at being not able to write a bad or boring book, I've seen the reviews saying *Little* is no good, but i think thats a personnal opinion, anyone liking *Laymon* will in no way be disserpointed with the almost at times freakish style that is *Bentley Little*.

I've read all the reviews for this book, and I don't think there's a single one that gives it three or four stars: everybody either loves it or hates it. The people who hated it talk about how they thought the violence was too graphic, there was a lack of subtlety, or the characters were too shallow. All true, to an extent. And the very notion of defeating supernatural demons with high explosives, though comforting, is awfully unimaginative.However, those complaints don't diminish the sheer power this book has. Its horror is so strong that some people are put off by it (hence many of the negative reviews). Bentley is brilliant at slowly moving from the real-life horrors of modern teen apathy and violence to the darker and more brutal paranormal stuff later in the book. I've never seen someone who captures the terror of violence as well as Little does. I am a college student, and what scared me the most about this book was its plausibility. That's right. At my school, violent incidents have been on a steady upswing. Crimes have been getting more frequent, and much sicker and more brutal. The most frightening factor of University is just how closely its first few chapters mirror real life.

This book deserves 5 stars, but thats just what I think. I like how each chapter switched with each character. Then you get to see how UC Brea affects the student body in different ways. Anyway, I got this whole thing planned out. This could be a movie and I got this great soundtrack for it. Maybe I am not as sophisticated as the other reviewers on this page, but I think this book is definitely worth reading. It sure beat listening to teachers in class