The Academic Novel
The "academic novel" is a work studded with so many obscure
literary allusions and arcane bits of erudition that a Ph.D. in
in literature is required to figure out the point that the author
is making. Think of a novelization of T.S. Eliot's The Wasteland
and you begin to get the picture. The primary purpose of the academic
novel is not to create a readable work, it is to impress the
English Department faculty. Such a work is usually undertaken as
a masters' thesis in a program leading to an M.A. in writing. Outside
the ivory tower it is an extremely difficult genre.
Only John Barth and Erica Jong have had partial success. Most of the
successful practitioners have disguised their academic underpinnings.
For example, Hemingway's The Big Two-Hearted River doesn't
require a degree in mythology to appreciate.
We are not absolutely ruling out academic novels, however, we
are warning you that they must tell an interesting story.
Because academic novels are nearly "unpublishable" does not, however, mean
that we want to see their opposite, Stephen King trash.
Erudition is like temperance ... or, to quote Mark Twain, "Temperate
temperance is best, intemperate temperance is apt to be troublesome."
