It's not her best novel, but still worth a read. Instead of focusing on and examining a specific aspect of academic life or a character or two, Smiley is covering Academia and its denizens with the broadest possible brush. Abby Lovitt doesnt realize how unprepared she is when she takes her beloved. At an unnamed Midwestern state university familiarly known as Moo U., the academic year 1989-90 is not going well. Champion Horse, the latest in Jane Smileys popular horse novels.
Nevertheless, the novel is enjoyable if you go into it recognizing these limitations. MOO by Jane Smiley RELEASE DATE: ApA comic novel proves an agreeable change of pace for the ordinarily serious-minded Smiley ( A Thousand Acres, 1991, etc.). All the characters are broadly-drawn and no one individual could be called a "main character." I had a hard time keeping track of who was who, which detracted from my enjoyment of the novel. Even the lunch lady from the cafeteria has a part to play, as well as the owner of a big corporation who, with possible evil motives, is dangling the offer of research money to the cash-strapped university. Most are stand-ins for particular campus types, and include students, professors, and administrative officials (including a super-human administrative aid who really runs the whole university). It's a satire of life at a midwestern agricultural university. Jane Smiley brings her extraordinary giftscomic timing, empathy, emotional wisdom, an ability to deliver slyly on big themes and capture the American spiritto the seductive, wishful, wistful world of real estate, in which the sport of choice is the mind game. A lot of people haven't liked this offering from Jane Smiley.
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