Book identification help?

[marydell]

This is hopeless, because my memory of the thing is so vague, but what the heck:

The memory of this (unread) book has been haunting me recently; I don't know why. It was shelved in the SF section of the library, back in 1982 or so. It's one I picked up often, tried to start once, but it was written in some kind of odd style that made it inaccessible to me when I was an adolescent.

The dust jacket had, as I recall, artwork showing a brick building overgrown with plants--maybe just an overgrown brick wall. The setting was, I think, a university, or the remains of a university in a post-apocalyptic time. The story sounded cool from the description on the jacket, but the actual reading part was too confusing for me. (I gravitated toward straightforward yarn-spinners--Larry Niven, Rex Stout)

That's all I've got. Post-apocalyptic, university, unusual-confusing-or-high-literary style, cool dust jacket that evoked the overgrown-university-building setting, probably written in the late 70's or very early 80's.

Does that ring any bells?

In lieu of an I.D., suggestions for good post-apolcalyptic stories (set at universities if possible) are welcome. Via the fluorosphere, I have added Dhalgren, Telempath, and Kampus to my eventual-maybe-read list, but they are not the book I remember, alas.

Comments

[fadethecat.livejournal.com]

Did it involve a university professor who discovers he's actually someone From The Future who's had his current life sort of implanted over his actual memories?

Because if so, I can't remember the title either, and have been wondering for quite a while now...

[browngirl.livejournal.com]

I doubt this is it, but this reminds me of the cover of the edition of Logan's Run I read.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

A Secret History of Time to Come by Robie Macauley? (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/m/robie-macauley/secret-history-of-time-to-come.htm)

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Huh. Actually looking at my copy makes me think I never actually read it and was remembering parts of the plot of The Sheriff of Purgatory.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Ooo, I think that may be it. Thank you! I figured you were the most likely of everyone to be able to guess. Although there is no university in it, I'm going on a 25-year-old memory here, and it does have dorm-ish looking buildings on the cover. That cover pic would have totally hooked me, and based on this plot description (http://www.geocities.com/athens/academy/6422/rev0712.html) it could well have seemed unreadable. Does it have a normal story opening, or a weird, confusing one? Because that's chiefly what I remember about it - cool, overgrown cover, maybe interesting flap text, and confusing, insufficiently expository first pages.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

Well, I glanced at the beginning and it starts off with a black guy who has just spent the afternoon at the dentist having a tooth extracted learning that while he was busy, Race War has broken out in America:

"Are they mobilizing? I mean the Black Republican Army."

"What do you think? But its new name is BLAC, Black Liberation Army Corps -- which signals that the hot war just started."


and later on:

"[...] we can't absolutely be sure the country's coming apart."

"Ifn he don, still gon be a bad-ass place fo niggers for the next few years. Remember Chile? Yugoslavia after Tito died? Spain when the Reds came in? Court-martial executions, concentration camps, mass graves."


Chapter two is about some dude on a horse riding through what seems to be an empty landscape so apparently the race war thing didn't go well.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Wow that sounds...kind of awesome, actually. I'm sure it's atrociously dated and cringe-inducing but I may track down a copy anyway. It doesn't sound all that experimental though. I wonder if I've conflated it in my mind with Riddley Walker That was recommended to me by someone whose kids I babysat, and I remember finding it extremely confusing, and giving up on it quickly.

[aedifica]

Have you tried whatwasthatbook?

No idea what the book you're looking for is, but yay for Dhalgren!

Have you read A Canticle for Leibowitz? It's (very) post-apocalyptic and I liked it.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I think James has named it for me, but thanks for the tip about whatwasthatbook, I'm gonna start watching that.

I haven't read Leibowitz, but I think I have it around here someplace. I need to read more post-apocalyptic stuff.

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I haven't read Leibowitz

!

[marydell.livejournal.com]

I know! Back in my teens I wasted most of my reading time on Trek and Xanth books. (And all of Known Space, several times, which I actually don't regret). I was mostly unaware of the classics. Then I ruined my love of reading with college and grad school, so it's only in the past few years that I've been reading fiction regularly again.

I used to have a big list of classic SF/F that I wanted to read, and as I work through it I find that my tastes have changed a lot, so I need to remake it with more apocalypses and fewer horses.

[boxofdelights]

Not the book you're looking for, but Richard Grant's Views from the Oldest House has post-apocalyptic, university, unusual-confusing-or-high-literary style, and even a cool dust jacket.

[marydell.livejournal.com]

Cool, I'll add it to my list. Thanks!