This provincial university is filled with characters: "Mr. Eborebelosa, of Africa, who locks himself for long periods in public lavatories; grotesque Louis Bates, hovering between being a working-class genius and a full-time madman; sweet Emma Fielding, who is writing a thesis about fish imagery in Shakespeare's tragedies; [and] Professor Treece, too fogged by his liberal ideas to be a Lucky Jim."--Cover.