Why so glum chum?

Joseph Epstein wonders why academics are such a gloomy lot.

[A]s someone who came late to university teaching, I used to wonder why so many people in the racket were so obviously disappointed, depressed, and generally demoralized. Granted, until one achieves that Valhalla for scholars known as tenure--which really means lifetime security, obtainable on no other job that I know--an element of tension is entailed, but then so is it in every other job. As a young instructor, one is often assigned dogsbody work, teaching what is thought to be dull fare: surveys, composition courses, and the rest. But the unhappier academics, in my experience, are not those still struggling to gain a seat at the table, but those who have already grown dour from having been there for a long while.

Ostensibly a none-too-favorable review of Faculty Towers: The Academic Novel and Its Discontents by Elaine Showalter, which is itself a survey of novels about academia, the article touches on Epstein's favorites of the genre and his own experiences and opinions about the grove of academe. Read it.

And if you haven't done so before, get a hold of a copy of Lucky Jim, closet yourself somewhere where no one can hear you laughing out loud to yourself and enjoy. Other fun books with an academic setting (not mentioned by Epstein): Pnin by Vladimir Nabakov and Anglo-Saxon Attitudes by Angus Wilson.