Moo (1995)

I really enjoyed reading this book. The vast panorama of characters is constantly giving us different points of view, keeping the story well-paced and interesting.

I liked Smiley's cynicism about the bureaucratic workings of a state university. Yes, higher education is a noble thing, but the purveyors of a higher education are often far less noble. In fact, they can be crass, vindictive and money-grubbing with few compunctions about throwing higher education under the bus in favor of the institution.

Smiley used two symbols that I loved. The first was the secret garden hidden in the very heart of campus which was destroyed. The second was poor old Earl Butz, the forgotten hog in the heart of campus, whose unforeseen and untimely appearance forced irrevocable changes to the university itself. ( )

I liked the concept - 1990 culture of a small liberal arts college. But the actual book was more about mediocre descriptions of relationships, and not enough about the college details. And the big pig - WTF? ( )

A lot of people haven't liked this offering from Jane Smiley. It's a satire of life at a midwestern agricultural university. There are dozens of characters. Most are stand-ins for particular campus types, and include students, professors, and administrative officials (including a super-human administrative aid who really runs the whole university). Even the lunch lady from the cafeteria has a part to play, as well as the owner of a big corporation who, with possible evil motives, is dangling the offer of research money to the cash-strapped university. All the characters are broadly-drawn and no one individual could be called a "main character." I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, which detracted from my enjoyment of the novel. There is also very little plot. It is more of a "slice of life" novel.

Nevertheless, the novel is enjoyable if you go into it recognizing these limitations. Instead of focusing on and examining a specific aspect of academic life or a character or two, Smiley is covering Academia and its denizens with the broadest possible brush. It's not her best novel, but still worth a read.

3 stars ( )

I think being in academia might help one to get through this. Huge numbers of fairly boring characters with no real plot noted in the first 100 pages. I did care about the pig and that's about it. Too bad as I have enjoyed the authors other books. ( )

I first read this book when it was released back in the 1990s, and I remember thinking it was hilarious. Although I had little experience on a college campus at that time, having dropped out after a lackadaisical year to work my dream job in the only profession I was ever going to pursue (ha!), my time growing up in a rural community helped me recognize the humorous aspects of a secret project to see just how huge a hog can get if it is allowed unlimited food and no physical exertion. That the hog was named Earl Butz after President Nixon's embattled Secretary of Agriculture was even funnier.

Fast forward to 2017, and I'm re-reading [Moo] because I recommended it for our fledging book club at work. Given that I work at a large state university (although one that is not focused on agricultural sciences) I expected the satire to be even sharper than my original reading. And it was, but parts of it hit a little too close to the bone to be really funny — the mindless drive for private research grants where the size of a donor's bank account is more important than the content of their character, the endless promoting of administrators far beyond their capabilities, and especially the lack of support from the state government for its flagship of higher education — had me wincing more than guffawing.

Smiley attended the University of Iowa's famed Writers' Workshop, and she taught for a number of years at Iowa State University, the real Moo U., and her insider knowledge shows on every page. She knows just where to stick the knife to skewer the university archetypes where it hurts, and I don't think any department is left unscathed. If I have one criticism, it's the sheer size of this novel — its girth gives ole Earl Butz a run for his money. And in her eagerness to leave no campus corner unridiculed, she created an enormous cast of characters who were sometimes hard to keep straight, especially since I read the book over the course of a month. But overall, I thoroughly enjoyed this look at the absurdities of life in higher education, and impressed that it didn't really feel dated at all. ( )