Novelists as Schoolmasters(thearticle.com)
thearticle.com
Novelists as Schoolmasters
https://www.thearticle.com/novelists-as-schoolmasters?ref=thebrowser.com
6 comments
Hmm. Anthony Burgess seems to have done a creditable job as schoolmaster, in England and in Malaysia. He did finally give up in what I think must now be Indonesia, lying down on the floor of the classroom and not getting up. But his was a much longer run than the others'.
Brunei .. and that was an odd story.
Might have been heat stroke, might have been slipped a mickey .. but he was, reportedly, diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour or some such and advised to leave the country by the best physician in the country who worked directly for the Sultan.
The odd part was this being shortly after Devil of a State was published .. nominally about a fictious African country, transparently dishing dirt on society and rule in Brunei.
Clockwork Orange gets all the recognition but I still applaud his opening sentence in Earthly Powers, his parodic mockumentary of a (specific?) stereotyped British author.
Might have been heat stroke, might have been slipped a mickey .. but he was, reportedly, diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour or some such and advised to leave the country by the best physician in the country who worked directly for the Sultan.
The odd part was this being shortly after Devil of a State was published .. nominally about a fictious African country, transparently dishing dirt on society and rule in Brunei.
Clockwork Orange gets all the recognition but I still applaud his opening sentence in Earthly Powers, his parodic mockumentary of a (specific?) stereotyped British author.
Odd phrase here:
[They had recalcitrant and comatose students, witnessed bullying and homosexuality, and were still subject to the hazardous authority]
[They had recalcitrant and comatose students, witnessed bullying and homosexuality, and were still subject to the hazardous authority]
Not at all odd if you have taught in such private schools. It's a matter of seeing things going on that in principle the teacher is supposed to put a stop to but in practice you ignore, hoping that no one in future looking for a scapegoat points a finger at you for ignoring the thing.
Also, it has been a very long time since I read Lucky Jim, but I don't remember it mentioning Wales or the Welsh. Amis's The Old Devils is set in Wales, and makes a certain amount of sport of both.
Along this theme, one could also list James Joyce and Robert Graves.