A recommend

The Young Hegelian, who, for those of you who don't know, was resurrected on a Sunday, describes Lars' most recent posts as 'like David Lodge meets Thomas Bernhard'. Now he means this in a favourable way, and so he should. Here's an example:

In the end, a new breed will appear, as I said, as it is already ppearing: the administrator-academic, the all-purpose university robot, I said, adept in the languages of funding proposals and quality management. Fluent in all the tounges of Capital, I said. Ready for all weathers and all terrain, I said. With little caterpillar tracks instead of feet, I said, rolling around from here to there, I said, efficient and ever ready I said. We'll keep them in empty lecture rooms, I said, switching them off at night and on in the mornings. And they'll roll about, I said, ready for every challenge, I said.

. For anyone inside academia, realising with creeping dismay that the university is (increasingly) no longer - if it ever was - some little enclave, some little parenthetical place where thought is possible, realising that it is increasingly included in something more corporate, and that, therefore, one's initial justification for entering into it has been eaten away, leaving one sequestered on a little imaginary island - for any such person (and not just for such a person either, since if the university is caught in the same logic as everything else, then anyone caught in this logic can also share the joke), i can heartily second the Young Hegelian's recommendation. Of course, there is categorically no similarity between the attitude of disaffection outlined above and the attitude of the present author.