The Lecturer's Tale
by Vicki Urquhart What British Lit instructor hasn’t given the assignment to create another Chaucerian tale? In The Lecturer’s Tale, James Hynes has a rollicking good time telling his own bawdy, fantastical, and mysterious tale. Alternately a satire and allegory, this bizarre portrayal of a dysfunctional English department will offend some academicians and amuse others. From power-hungry eccentrics to lesbian feminists, Ivory Tower scholars, and Serbian intellectuals, the English department at Midwestern University in Hamilton Groves, Minnesota, has it all. Hynes’s story shamelessly oozes with symbolism and literary allusion, as these professors vie for promotion to higher, more coveted positions in […]