Gentlemen & Players
Encyclopedia
Gentlemen & Players is a novel by Joanne Harris
first published in 2005
. Set in the present during Michaelmas term
at St Oswald's, an elite
public school
for boys somewhere in the North of England, the book is a psychological suspense novel about mysterious goings-on at the school which, as the term progresses, increase in both frequency and seriousness.
At first, no one thinks of connecting the seemingly isolated incidents with each other, but gradually a pattern emerges, and it becomes clear that someone with inside knowledge is intent on bringing down the school, possibly out of revenge
. In conceiving Gentlemen & Players, Harris seems to have been influenced by her years of teaching at Leeds Grammar School
.
, the Gentlemen v Players
game was a first-class
cricket match regularly played from 1806 until 1962 between a team made up of amateur
s (the "Gentlemen") and one made up of professional
s (the "Players"). In Harris's novel, the perpetrator sees all the destructive work as a game of chess
where each player reacts to each preceding move.
"Gentlemen and Players" is also the title of a short story by E. W. Hornung, starring Raffles, "the gentleman thief".
" as he is about to complete his 100th term at St Oswald's, where he has been teaching for 33 years. Having never married, he lives alone in a house near the school—as St Oswald's is a day school
, no one with the exception of the Porter
lives on the school premises—where his sitting room walls are full of pictures of "his boys". He is slightly overweight and ugly by conventional standards (his nickname
among his pupils is "Quaz", short for "Quasimodo
"). Popular with the students, he adheres to the old principle of being "firm but fair" where teaching and disciplinary matters are concerned. An incurable optimist
, Straitley is only uncomfortable when he has to deal with the other sex. He is a keen observer, and hardly anything connected with life at the school, however insignificant, ever escapes his notice, and his recollection is excellent. A firm believer in the advantages and importance of a classical education
, he shuns computer
s, resorts to Latin to swear and insult his colleagues (which they do not understand), and opposes the idea of any competition between schools other than the kind which is carried out on the playing field
s. Smoking
Gauloise
s in smoke-free zones such as his empty form room is his only act of rebellion and his "one concession to the influence of the Modern Languages".
The other masters are mostly set in their ways, St Oswald's having made an indelible imprint on their lives. There is Pat Bishop, the Second Master, who has also remained unmarried and who occasionally, at busy times, spends the night in his office doing administrative work. Always intent on mediating between rivalling factions, Bishop has been able to keep his affair with his secretary, a former parent, a secret so as not to blemish the school's reputation. There is Bob Strange, the Third Master, a bureaucrat
unpopular with the pupils who has been trying for years to get rid of Straitley and force him into early retirement ("Young blood is cheaper."). There are the members of the German department ("Teutons", according to the old Latin master), among them Geoff and Penny ("League of") Nations, a married couple described by Straitley as hypocrites
and sycophant
s. There is Tony Beard, head of computer science and eo ipso
Straitley's natural adversary. And there is Isabelle Tapi, a part-time French teacher who is said to have made passes at each new male addition to the staff.
At the beginning of the new term, it is these "freshers" on whom Straitley focuses his observations. There are five of them, among them Jeff Light, a Games master who has become a teacher because he thinks it is an easy and undemanding job; Chris Keane, who teaches English but actually wants to be a novelist; and Dianne Dare, an attractive young woman who teaches French and who occasionally flatters
Straitley, which leaves the Latin master wondering what she might want from him, as he, although a senior member of staff, is very far down in the hierarchy
of power at St Oswald's.
The new term starts with minor yet inexplicable occurrences. For the first time in his life, Straitley's register goes missing without ever turning up again. Also, his coffee mug is no longer at the place in the Common Room
where it has sat for many years. Things get worse when pupils report that various objects are missing from their classrooms or lockers. In particular, a 13 year-old Jewish boy from Straitley's form deplores the alleged theft of his expensive fountain pen
, a Bar Mitzvah present. Presently, the boy's mother accuses the school and especially Straitley of anti-Semitism
, and it takes only a short time for caricature
s to appear all over the place depicting him as a Nazi
. On a more mysterious note, one day Straitley finds a small notebook lying on the floor and immediately realizes that it is Chris Keane's as it contains the budding author's notes for his first novel—mainly character sketches of the teachers at St Oswald's. The Latin master decides not to read anymore and puts it at the back of a drawer of his desk there; he figures since Chris Keane teaches a class in that room, he will notice it and retrieve it.
One morning, a computer virus
is detected in the school LAN
so that computer classes have to be cancelled and administrative work has to be postponed. More or less at the same time the police arrive at the school because child pornography
has been downloaded onto Pat Bishop's computer and paid for with his credit card
. Bishop is immediately suspended
from his job, which causes yet more upheaval and near chaos. Subsequently, the same thing also happens to a number of other male teachers, while at the same time the local newspaper
publishes an inside story in which it is insinuated that St Oswald's is run by a ring of paedophiles and which spreads other malicious rumours as well. This time Straitley, who has never touched a computer in his life, is spared.
Events lead up to a tragic finale with the disappearance of a 13-year-old pupil. Some days later the Old Gatehouse, the residence of the Porter, burns down, but the police soon thwart all attempts by the school authorities to marginalize the incident by establishing that it was arson
. What is more, the missing boy's schoolbag is found amongst the rubble, leading people to believe that the boy must have borne a grudge against the school and that it was he who set fire to the building. Eventually, the action culminates in the knifing
of a teacher.
There is a twist ending to the novel which may or may not satisfy readers who long for poetic justice
or, as it has also been called, a "Hollywood ending".
—its pros and cons, its beauty and its dangers. For example, in the novel a male teacher is accused by a malicious pupil, who only wants to divert attention from the student's own truancy
, of having an affair with a 15-year-old girl. The ploy works, the unpleasant teacher is suspended and never seen again ("Mud sticks."). On a different note, in recent years the paradox has cropped up of having to view pupils as "paying customers" whose wishes have to be respected at all times and at the same time as individuals in their formative years who must not only be encouraged and praised but also punished for their misbehaviour.
Secondly, the novel gives an insight into the power structure which dominates a large institution of learning, where an individual teacher can never be sure whether a perceived attack on their own well-being has happened out of malice
or sheer stupidity
, or a combination of both. Siding with the winners or those in power to prevent such nuisances from happening or to advance one's own career is only one of the many human weaknesses which are on display in a professional environment where teamwork
is actually supposed to be a prerequisite.
Finally, Gentlemen and Players highlights class differences and class consciousness
in Britain at the turn of the millennium. Compared to the pupils at the local comprehensive
, the boys attending St Oswald's are a privileged group. In their world, if there is peer pressure
, it is to fit in, learn and succeed rather than to misbehave, ridicule ambition
and eventually drop out.
. One of them is Roy Hubert Straitley, a 65-year-old Latin
master who has devoted all his life to St Oswald's and who now, nearing the end of his professional career, finds himself the last surviving member of the dying breed of classics
teachers. The other narrator is the perpetrator, whose identity is only revealed in the final part of the book, and whose plotting the reader is able to follow first hand. Time and again, flashbacks detail the second narrator's childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, thus giving a fully rounded picture of a deranged mind and explaining why someone should want to demolish a school's reputation and do harm to members of the staff.
An incomplete list of mystery novels.
Joanne Harris
Joanne Michèle Sylvie Harris is a British author.Biography=Born to a French mother and an English father in her grandparents' sweet shop, her family life was filled with food and folklore. Her great-grandmother had an odd reputation and enjoyed letting the gullible think she was a witch and healer...
first published in 2005
2005 in literature
The year 2005 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*February 25 - Canada Reads selects Rockbound by Frank Parker Day as the novel to be read across the nation....
. Set in the present during Michaelmas term
Michaelmas term
Michaelmas term is the first academic term of the academic years of the following British and Irish universities:*University of Cambridge*University of Oxford*University of St...
at St Oswald's, an elite
Elite
Elite refers to an exceptional or privileged group that wields considerable power within its sphere of influence...
public school
Independent school (UK)
An independent school is a school that is not financed through the taxation system by local or national government and is instead funded by private sources, predominantly in the form of tuition charges, gifts and long-term charitable endowments, and so is not subject to the conditions imposed by...
for boys somewhere in the North of England, the book is a psychological suspense novel about mysterious goings-on at the school which, as the term progresses, increase in both frequency and seriousness.
Plot introduction
St Oswald's, a long established boys' grammar school in the northern part of England. A new academic year has just begun and change is afoot. Roy Straitley, the Latin master, and a veteran of St Oswald's, is contemplating retirement, in part because of the encroachment of suits instead of uniform, increased paperwork and use of computers. A fifteen-year-old grudge is about to surface.At first, no one thinks of connecting the seemingly isolated incidents with each other, but gradually a pattern emerges, and it becomes clear that someone with inside knowledge is intent on bringing down the school, possibly out of revenge
Revenge
Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group in response to a grievance, be it real or perceived. It is also called payback, retribution, retaliation or vengeance; it may be characterized, justly or unjustly, as a form of justice.-Function in society:Some societies believe that the...
. In conceiving Gentlemen & Players, Harris seems to have been influenced by her years of teaching at Leeds Grammar School
Leeds Grammar School
Leeds Grammar School was an independent school in Leeds established in 1552. In August 2005 it merged with Leeds Girls' High School to form The Grammar School at Leeds. The two schools physically united in September 2008....
.
Explanation of the novel's title
"Gentlemen and Players" refers to class differences and snobbery. In cricketCricket
Cricket is a bat-and-ball game played between two teams of 11 players on an oval-shaped field, at the centre of which is a rectangular 22-yard long pitch. One team bats, trying to score as many runs as possible while the other team bowls and fields, trying to dismiss the batsmen and thus limit the...
, the Gentlemen v Players
Gentlemen v Players
The Gentlemen v Players game was a first-class cricket match that was generally played on an annual basis between one team consisting of amateurs and one of professionals . The first two games took place in 1806 but the fixture was not revived until 1819. It was more or less annual thereafter...
game was a first-class
First-class cricket
First-class cricket is a class of cricket that consists of matches of three or more days' scheduled duration, that are between two sides of eleven players and are officially adjudged first-class by virtue of the standard of the competing teams...
cricket match regularly played from 1806 until 1962 between a team made up of amateur
Amateur
An amateur is generally considered a person attached to a particular pursuit, study, or science, without pay and often without formal training....
s (the "Gentlemen") and one made up of professional
Professional
A professional is a person who is paid to undertake a specialised set of tasks and to complete them for a fee. The traditional professions were doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and commissioned military officers. Today, the term is applied to estate agents, surveyors , environmental scientists,...
s (the "Players"). In Harris's novel, the perpetrator sees all the destructive work as a game of chess
Chess
Chess is a two-player board game played on a chessboard, a square-checkered board with 64 squares arranged in an eight-by-eight grid. It is one of the world's most popular games, played by millions of people worldwide at home, in clubs, online, by correspondence, and in tournaments.Each player...
where each player reacts to each preceding move.
"Gentlemen and Players" is also the title of a short story by E. W. Hornung, starring Raffles, "the gentleman thief".
Plot summary
When the new schoolyear starts in September, Roy Straitley is looking forward to becoming an "Old CenturionCenturion
A centurion was a professional officer of the Roman army .Centurion may also refer to:-Military:* Centurion tank, British battle tank* HMS Centurion, name of several ships and a shore base of the British Royal Navy...
" as he is about to complete his 100th term at St Oswald's, where he has been teaching for 33 years. Having never married, he lives alone in a house near the school—as St Oswald's is a day school
Day school
A day school—as opposed to a boarding school—is an institution where children are given educational instruction during the day and after which children/teens return to their homes...
, no one with the exception of the Porter
Porter (college)
The majority of colleges at the universities of Cambridge, Durham and Oxford, as well as newer collegiate universities such as York and older universities like University of Bristol and St David's College, have members of staff called porters. There is normally a head porter and a team of other...
lives on the school premises—where his sitting room walls are full of pictures of "his boys". He is slightly overweight and ugly by conventional standards (his nickname
Nickname
A nickname is "a usually familiar or humorous but sometimes pointed or cruel name given to a person or place, as a supposedly appropriate replacement for or addition to the proper name.", or a name similar in origin and pronunciation from the original name....
among his pupils is "Quaz", short for "Quasimodo
Quasimodo
Quasimodo is a fictional character in the novel The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo. Quasimodo was born with a hunchback and feared by the townspeople as a sort of monster but he finds sanctuary in an unlikely love that is fulfilled only in death. The role of Quasimodo has been played by...
"). Popular with the students, he adheres to the old principle of being "firm but fair" where teaching and disciplinary matters are concerned. An incurable optimist
Optimism
The Oxford English Dictionary defines optimism as having "hopefulness and confidence about the future or successful outcome of something; a tendency to take a favourable or hopeful view." The word is originally derived from the Latin optimum, meaning "best." Being optimistic, in the typical sense...
, Straitley is only uncomfortable when he has to deal with the other sex. He is a keen observer, and hardly anything connected with life at the school, however insignificant, ever escapes his notice, and his recollection is excellent. A firm believer in the advantages and importance of a classical education
Classical education movement
The Classical education movement advocates a form of education based in the traditions of Western culture, with a particular focus on education as understood and taught in the Middle Ages. The curricula and pedagogy of classical education was first developed during the Middle Ages by Martianus...
, he shuns computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s, resorts to Latin to swear and insult his colleagues (which they do not understand), and opposes the idea of any competition between schools other than the kind which is carried out on the playing field
Playing field
A playing field is a field used for playing sports or games. They are generally outdoors, but many large structures exist to enclose playing fields from bad weather. Generally, playing fields are wide expanses of grass, dirt or sand without many obstructions...
s. Smoking
Tobacco smoking
Tobacco smoking is the practice where tobacco is burned and the resulting smoke is inhaled. The practice may have begun as early as 5000–3000 BCE. Tobacco was introduced to Eurasia in the late 16th century where it followed common trade routes...
Gauloise
Gauloise
Gauloise may refer to:* The French name for someone from Gaul* Gauloises cigarettes* a range of Belgian beers, brewed by Brasserie Du Bocq...
s in smoke-free zones such as his empty form room is his only act of rebellion and his "one concession to the influence of the Modern Languages".
The other masters are mostly set in their ways, St Oswald's having made an indelible imprint on their lives. There is Pat Bishop, the Second Master, who has also remained unmarried and who occasionally, at busy times, spends the night in his office doing administrative work. Always intent on mediating between rivalling factions, Bishop has been able to keep his affair with his secretary, a former parent, a secret so as not to blemish the school's reputation. There is Bob Strange, the Third Master, a bureaucrat
Bureaucrat
A bureaucrat is a member of a bureaucracy and can comprise the administration of any organization of any size, though the term usually connotes someone within an institution of a government or corporation...
unpopular with the pupils who has been trying for years to get rid of Straitley and force him into early retirement ("Young blood is cheaper."). There are the members of the German department ("Teutons", according to the old Latin master), among them Geoff and Penny ("League of") Nations, a married couple described by Straitley as hypocrites
Hypocrisy
Hypocrisy is the state of pretending to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that one does not actually have. Hypocrisy involves the deception of others and is thus a kind of lie....
and sycophant
Sycophant
Sycophancy means:# Obsequious flattery; servility.# The character or characteristic of a sycophant.Alternative phrases are often used such as:-Etymology:...
s. There is Tony Beard, head of computer science and eo ipso
Eo ipso
Eo ipso means "by the thing itself" in Latin and is similar to the sense expressed by the English idioms, "by the same token," "of itself" or "on its own account". It is often used in various schools of philosophy to demonstrate the possibility/impossibility of propositions from their nature...
Straitley's natural adversary. And there is Isabelle Tapi, a part-time French teacher who is said to have made passes at each new male addition to the staff.
At the beginning of the new term, it is these "freshers" on whom Straitley focuses his observations. There are five of them, among them Jeff Light, a Games master who has become a teacher because he thinks it is an easy and undemanding job; Chris Keane, who teaches English but actually wants to be a novelist; and Dianne Dare, an attractive young woman who teaches French and who occasionally flatters
Flattery
Flattery is the act of giving excessive compliments, generally for the purpose of ingratiating oneself with the subject....
Straitley, which leaves the Latin master wondering what she might want from him, as he, although a senior member of staff, is very far down in the hierarchy
Hierarchy
A hierarchy is an arrangement of items in which the items are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another...
of power at St Oswald's.
The new term starts with minor yet inexplicable occurrences. For the first time in his life, Straitley's register goes missing without ever turning up again. Also, his coffee mug is no longer at the place in the Common Room
Common room
The phrase common room is used especially in British and Canadian English to describe a type of shared lounge, most often found in dormitories, at universities, colleges, military bases, hospitals, rest homes, hostels, and even minimum-security prisons. It is generally connected to several...
where it has sat for many years. Things get worse when pupils report that various objects are missing from their classrooms or lockers. In particular, a 13 year-old Jewish boy from Straitley's form deplores the alleged theft of his expensive fountain pen
Fountain pen
A fountain pen is a nib pen that, unlike its predecessor the dip pen, contains an internal reservoir of water-based liquid ink. The pen draws ink from the reservoir through a feed to the nib and deposits it on paper via a combination of gravity and capillary action...
, a Bar Mitzvah present. Presently, the boy's mother accuses the school and especially Straitley of anti-Semitism
Anti-Semitism
Antisemitism is suspicion of, hatred toward, or discrimination against Jews for reasons connected to their Jewish heritage. According to a 2005 U.S...
, and it takes only a short time for caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
s to appear all over the place depicting him as a Nazi
Nazism
Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...
. On a more mysterious note, one day Straitley finds a small notebook lying on the floor and immediately realizes that it is Chris Keane's as it contains the budding author's notes for his first novel—mainly character sketches of the teachers at St Oswald's. The Latin master decides not to read anymore and puts it at the back of a drawer of his desk there; he figures since Chris Keane teaches a class in that room, he will notice it and retrieve it.
One morning, a computer virus
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
is detected in the school LAN
Län
Län and lääni refer to the administrative divisions used in Sweden and previously in Finland. The provinces of Finland were abolished on January 1, 2010....
so that computer classes have to be cancelled and administrative work has to be postponed. More or less at the same time the police arrive at the school because child pornography
Child pornography
Child pornography refers to images or films and, in some cases, writings depicting sexually explicit activities involving a child...
has been downloaded onto Pat Bishop's computer and paid for with his credit card
Credit card
A credit card is a small plastic card issued to users as a system of payment. It allows its holder to buy goods and services based on the holder's promise to pay for these goods and services...
. Bishop is immediately suspended
Suspension (punishment)
Suspension is a form of punishment that people receive for violating rules and regulations.- Workplace :Suspension is a common practice in the workplace for being in violation of an organization's policy...
from his job, which causes yet more upheaval and near chaos. Subsequently, the same thing also happens to a number of other male teachers, while at the same time the local newspaper
Newspaper
A newspaper is a scheduled publication containing news of current events, informative articles, diverse features and advertising. It usually is printed on relatively inexpensive, low-grade paper such as newsprint. By 2007, there were 6580 daily newspapers in the world selling 395 million copies a...
publishes an inside story in which it is insinuated that St Oswald's is run by a ring of paedophiles and which spreads other malicious rumours as well. This time Straitley, who has never touched a computer in his life, is spared.
Events lead up to a tragic finale with the disappearance of a 13-year-old pupil. Some days later the Old Gatehouse, the residence of the Porter, burns down, but the police soon thwart all attempts by the school authorities to marginalize the incident by establishing that it was arson
Arson
Arson is the crime of intentionally or maliciously setting fire to structures or wildland areas. It may be distinguished from other causes such as spontaneous combustion and natural wildfires...
. What is more, the missing boy's schoolbag is found amongst the rubble, leading people to believe that the boy must have borne a grudge against the school and that it was he who set fire to the building. Eventually, the action culminates in the knifing
Knife
A knife is a cutting tool with an exposed cutting edge or blade, hand-held or otherwise, with or without a handle. Knives were used at least two-and-a-half million years ago, as evidenced by the Oldowan tools...
of a teacher.
There is a twist ending to the novel which may or may not satisfy readers who long for poetic justice
Poetic justice
Poetic justice is a literary device in which virtue is ultimately rewarded or vice punished, often in modern literature by an ironic twist of fate intimately related to the character's own conduct.- Origin of the term :...
or, as it has also been called, a "Hollywood ending".
Characters in Gentlemen & Players
- Roy Straitley – unmarried Latin master, called "Quaz" by his pupils
- Pat Bishop – the Second Master, also remained unmarried
- Bob Strange – the Third Master, a bureaucrat unpopular with the pupils
- Geoff and Penny Nations – a married couple, part of the German department
- Tony Beard – head of computer science and Straitley's adversary
- Isabelle Tapi – a part-time French teacher
- Jeff Light – a Games master
- Chris Keane – a young man who teaches English but wants to be a novelist
- Dianne Dare – an attractive young woman who teaches French
Major themes
Apart from the thrilling plot, Gentlemen and Players offers rich food for thought. Firstly, there is ample discussion of the teaching professionTeacher
A teacher or schoolteacher is a person who provides education for pupils and students . The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person who wishes to become a teacher must first obtain specified professional...
—its pros and cons, its beauty and its dangers. For example, in the novel a male teacher is accused by a malicious pupil, who only wants to divert attention from the student's own truancy
Truancy
Truancy is any intentional unauthorized absence from compulsory schooling. The term typically describes absences caused by students of their own free will, and usually does not refer to legitimate "excused" absences, such as ones related to medical conditions...
, of having an affair with a 15-year-old girl. The ploy works, the unpleasant teacher is suspended and never seen again ("Mud sticks."). On a different note, in recent years the paradox has cropped up of having to view pupils as "paying customers" whose wishes have to be respected at all times and at the same time as individuals in their formative years who must not only be encouraged and praised but also punished for their misbehaviour.
Secondly, the novel gives an insight into the power structure which dominates a large institution of learning, where an individual teacher can never be sure whether a perceived attack on their own well-being has happened out of malice
Malice (legal term)
Malice is a legal term referring to a party's intention to do injury to another party. Malice is either expressed or implied. Malice is expressed when there is manifested a deliberate intention unlawfully to take away the life of a human being...
or sheer stupidity
Stupidity
Stupidity is a lack of intelligence, understanding, reason, wit, or sense. It may be innate, assumed, or reactive - 'being "stupid with grief" as a defence against trauma', a state marked with 'grief and despair...making even simple daily tasks a hardship'....
, or a combination of both. Siding with the winners or those in power to prevent such nuisances from happening or to advance one's own career is only one of the many human weaknesses which are on display in a professional environment where teamwork
Teamwork
Teamwork is action performed by a team towards a common goal. A team consists of more than one person, each of whom typically has different responsibilities....
is actually supposed to be a prerequisite.
Finally, Gentlemen and Players highlights class differences and class consciousness
Class consciousness
Class consciousness is consciousness of one's social class or economic rank in society. From the perspective of Marxist theory, it refers to the self-awareness, or lack thereof, of a particular class; its capacity to act in its own rational interests; or its awareness of the historical tasks...
in Britain at the turn of the millennium. Compared to the pupils at the local comprehensive
Comprehensive school
A comprehensive school is a state school that does not select its intake on the basis of academic achievement or aptitude. This is in contrast to the selective school system, where admission is restricted on the basis of a selection criteria. The term is commonly used in relation to the United...
, the boys attending St Oswald's are a privileged group. In their world, if there is peer pressure
Peer pressure
Peer pressure refers to the influence exerted by a peer group in encouraging a person to change his or her attitudes, values, or behavior in order to conform to group norms. Social groups affected include membership groups, when the individual is "formally" a member , or a social clique...
, it is to fit in, learn and succeed rather than to misbehave, ridicule ambition
Motivation
Motivation is the driving force by which humans achieve their goals. Motivation is said to be intrinsic or extrinsic. The term is generally used for humans but it can also be used to describe the causes for animal behavior as well. This article refers to human motivation...
and eventually drop out.
Narrative technique
The story is told by two alternating first person narratorsFirst-person narrative
First-person point of view is a narrative mode where a story is narrated by one character at a time, speaking for and about themselves. First-person narrative may be singular, plural or multiple as well as being an authoritative, reliable or deceptive "voice" and represents point of view in the...
. One of them is Roy Hubert Straitley, a 65-year-old Latin
Latin
Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
master who has devoted all his life to St Oswald's and who now, nearing the end of his professional career, finds himself the last surviving member of the dying breed of classics
Classics
Classics is the branch of the Humanities comprising the languages, literature, philosophy, history, art, archaeology and other culture of the ancient Mediterranean world ; especially Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome during Classical Antiquity Classics (sometimes encompassing Classical Studies or...
teachers. The other narrator is the perpetrator, whose identity is only revealed in the final part of the book, and whose plotting the reader is able to follow first hand. Time and again, flashbacks detail the second narrator's childhood, adolescence and young adulthood, thus giving a fully rounded picture of a deranged mind and explaining why someone should want to demolish a school's reputation and do harm to members of the staff.
Quotes
- "Ecce, stercus pro cerebro habes." [Lo, you have shit for brains] (Straitley to Jeff Light, who has just expressed his dislike of Latin by calling the Romans "queers in togaTogaThe toga, a distinctive garment of Ancient Rome, was a cloth of perhaps 20 ft in length which was wrapped around the body and was generally worn over a tunic. The toga was made of wool, and the tunic under it often was made of linen. After the 2nd century BC, the toga was a garment worn...
s") - "Hic magister podex est." [This teacher is an arse] (Straitley's favourite graffitiGraffitiGraffiti is the name for images or lettering scratched, scrawled, painted or marked in any manner on property....
about his own person) - "Devine sees me as a subversive and a pupil-poacher, has no interest in Classics and doubtless thinks carpe diemCarpe diemCarpe diem is a phrase from a Latin poem by Horace that has become an aphorism. It is popularly translated as "seize the day"...
means 'fish of the day'." (Straitley about the Head of the German department)
Release details
- 2005, UK, Doubleday (ISBN 0-385-60366-5), Pub date 1 October 2005, hardback (First edition)
- 2005, UK, Corgi Audio (ISBN 0-552-15376-1), Pub date 2 October 2005, audio book cassette (narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi)
- 2005, UK, Corgi Audio (ISBN 0-552-15366-4), Pub date 2 October 2005, audio book CD (narrated by Sir Derek Jacobi)
- 2006, UK, Black Swan (ISBN 0-552-77002-7), Pub date 5 June 2006, paperback
- 2006, USA, William Morrow (ISBN 0-06-055914-4), Pub date ? Jan 2006, hardback
- 2006, USA, Thorndike Press (ISBN 0-7862-8551-6), Pub date 20 April 2006, hardback
See also
- School and university in literatureSchool and university in literature-School in literature:*Thomas Bailey Aldrich: The Story of a Bad Boy*Laurie Halse Anderson: Speak*Christine Anlauff: Good morning, Lehnitz*F...
An incomplete list of mystery novels.
External links
- A link to various reviews of the novel (Caveat lector: The review by Mario Bruzzone in the San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco Chroniclethumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
gives away the whole plot of the book, including its twist ending, so it will be best to avoid even skimming it before finishing the book.) - A reading guide