Moo

Rating:
Summary: A Terrific Send-Up
Review: Moo is Jane Smiley's terrific send-up of education, bureaucracy, racism, politics, love and just about everything else in the 1980s.

Set in a fictional Iowa university town, Moo U. is as much fun as a roller-coaster ride and features a cast of characters that are nothing short of hilarious. There is English professor, Tim Monahan, who is perpetually preoccupied with his always-imminent raise and promotion; provost Ivar Harstad, who is coping with the governor's cuts in university funding; and Bo Jones' secret experiment involving a hog named Earl Butz. Really!

And, it only gets better. There is Dr. Lionel Gift who gets hopelessly involved with a Texas billionaire named Arlen Martin. The two cook up a project to mine gold from the world's last virgin rainforest, a project that incurs the wrath Chairman X, a man so caught up in leftist ideology he forgets to marry the mother of his children...for more than twenty years. And best of all, there is Mrs. Walker, the plotting and conniving lesbian secretary to the provost who secretly runs everything at Moo U. with an iron hand.

If it seems like Smiley doesn't write much about education in this book about university life, then that's exactly right, for education has little to do with the day-to-day goings-on at Moo U. Moo U. and its cast of off-beat characters are really a microcosm of America under the Reagan Administration and Moo U. could be any university in the United States.

The only thing wrong with Moo is that, while it is supposed to be satire, it just misses the mark. Don't get me wrong, this is a hilarious book and a hilarious send-up, but I think true satire requires a harder heart than Smiley seems to have. The ending is a bit of a letdown, especially after the rollicking good ride Smiley has taken us on to get us there. Anyone who doesn't mind a bit of a letdown, however, will find Moo an enjoyable and hilarious book that makes fun of just about everything.

Rating:
Summary: A week four, but still a good book
Review: Jane Smiley know how to spin a good story and she is a good storyteller even sometimes a great one. She is also a entertainer with a sense of humor and can craft good stories. Moo university and its inhabitants is a charming placefor those who have been to a university: For those who should have liked to studied it may give some glimpse of how universities sometimes may be no more than a place for devious intrigues and plots. Smiley has a wicked wit which in my experience describes (some of) the kind of people one finds in these kind of "institutions". Jane has earlier won the Pulitzer price for A thousand Acres, which I also liked. Moo is also a book worth spending time and money on. Though on my harsh scale it gets week 4, which is still very good.

Rating:
Summary: Entertaining and even endearing
Review: <Moo> succeeds as a send-up of life at a large midwestern agricultural university. At its core is a motley group of distinct individuals with very diverse goals and motivations, including the lusty yet dispassionate creative writing professor/novelist Tim Monahan; the blindly ambitious and ingratiating fundraiser, Elaine Dobbs-Jellinek; Elaine's ex-husband, the self-absorbed Dean Jellinek, who is obsessed with notions of cloned livestock and calf-free lactation; the pale twin towers of academic success, Ivar and Nils Harstad; and many, many, many others.

Almost too many others. The author's portaiture of the girls of Dubuque House is largely uninspiring and detracts from the more interesting subplots. Smiley's attempt at tongue-in-cheek critique of campus racial relations via freshman student Mary is weak at best.

Still, a handful of the personalities will keep you turning the pages. The strong points are Mrs. Walker, the provost's secretary and the true power-wielder; and hotheaded idealist Chairman X of the horticulture department, who passionately rants against all forms of corporate domination and antagonizes more than one of his colleagues to comic ends.

Rating:
Summary: Mediocre
Review: Like her other writings, this novel is without anything remarkable or memorable. It's just fair. As an academic satire, it's mildly comic and somewhat sharp. However, Smiley CLEARLY is LOST when it comes to writing about students. She is witty and intelligent when examining teachers, administrators, secretaries ,and the intrigues among these parties. It becomes somewhat embarassing to read, though, when she tries to get into the minds of young people. These sections read like an old codger trying to prove she's "with it." Avoid this book. read K. Amis, R. Davies, D. Lodge, M. McCarthy or R. Jarrell if you're looking for academic satire.

Rating:
Summary: Moo is for you
Review: This book is as thought-provoking as it is entertaining. Jane Smiley's language and insight are both delightful and at times disconcerting. I plan to read all of this author's books, after having read Moo.

Rating:
Summary: Funniest if you know the University....
Review: While I can imagine this novel was pretty good to most people. I personally couldn't stop laughing because I went to the state university where she taught and it certainly could be considered a thinly veiled acount of certain instructors. While not her overall best work it certainly does strike a humorous chord.

Rating:
Summary: It's just fine!
Review: I have to agree with those who say that only a person within acadamia could appreciate this book. I swear I go to Moo U. I go to a mid-western big ten agricultural school and it even has the same initials. MSU. I may not identify with every single character but I would say that Jane Smiley did a great job of pegging the ones that I did recognize. It is definately not a book for people who can't slow down and appreciate the intricacies of this book. Don't just focus on the plot. Focus on her language and the unique personalities of each character. There are some phrases in the book that I will never forget. Especially the way she describes the midwest sky at dawn in the beginning of the book. How true.

Rating:
Summary: Dark and witty, but not what you might expect
Review: Originally I was perplexed by the number of unhappy reviewers of this book, which I definitely enjoyed, but I think the reason is that Moo is not what the dust jacket makes it out to be. There is plenty of humor in this book, but it's mostly dry wit and wry situational irony-- there's not much laugh-out-loud material. In fact, some of the story lines (Dean and Joy's, for example) are downright depressing. The small army of charcacters takes some getting used to, but I didn't have trouble keeping track of them once they were established. It's true that some of them were not as well-developed as they could have been, but had they been, the book probably would have been another 300 pages. I think Smiley's intention was to give the widest, not deepest, possible portrait of university life. The fact that some of the characters are not fully developed helps her achieve that goal--at a big university, those not in one's immediate social circle are by necessity often perceived as "types" or character sketches, because there's no way you can fully understand the 35,000 other people around you. Keeping the characters lightly defined makes them both funnier and more authentic, in my opinion.

As it is, I think Smiley keeps the focus on the right characters. I understand the reviewers who wanted to see more of the students rather than the administrators and faculty, especially since I am a college student myself and could probably relate to their experiences more than those of the professors. But like I said-- I think Smiley's going for breadth, not depth. That said, I found some of the storyline resolutions unsatisfying. Some characters don't even seem to get a resolution in their stories, they just drop out of the novel 30 pages before it ends. Even so, that didn't stop me from enjoying the rest of the book.

Moo is a witty and spot-on satire of university life, but it is neither a lighthearted piece of comedic fluff nor an example of Great Literature. Those looking for either of the above, or a repeat of what Smiley did in A Thousand Acres, will probably not enjoy Moo. Those willing to take it for what it is probably will.

Rating:
Summary: Amusing tale of university life.
Review: It takes patience to read Jane Smiley's MOO, but if you have the patience you will be aptly rewarded. MOO takes the reader on a different kind of journey, one through the minds of all the facets of university life--from administrators to students to the community and even to the lab subjects (Earl the pig). The jumping around from points of view did get a little confusing at times; a character map or chart would have been helpful. I would have liked to see more about the students, also. However, anyone who has been to or even grown up around a college would find this tale amusing; Smiley's wit and storytelling borders on that of Heller's Catch-22 style. It does take some work to plow through the first few chapters, but once you get used to the unique voice, the book becomes more enthralling. I believe this book would appeal to those who appreciate the playing with form and the value of dry wit.

Rating:
Summary: Loved it!
Review: For anyone who has been to college, and worked for one, this novel is a right-on comedy fest... I laughed so hard because she nailed the common uncommon characters from college life... The land grant college has a culture both interesting and entertaining that serve for the perfect setting for this novel. I'm just waiting for the movie!