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A review by otterno11
The Shakespeare Requirement by Julie Schumacher
funny
lighthearted
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Droll and relatable, The Shakespeare Requirement is a sequel to Julie Schumacher’s blisteringly academic farce Dear Committee Members. Stepping away from the epistolary format of the first novel and the correspondence of the disheveled, churlish professor Jason Fitger allows Schumacher to introduce more hapless denizens of the dysfunctional Midwestern liberal arts college Payne University during a contentious semester. As Fitger falls into the position of Chair of the English Department, a role he is as reluctant to take as he is ill-suited to lead, the perfidious Department of Economics upstairs jockeys to take everything from English through the tool of an academic nuclear option, the QAP. It also seems that Fitger may have met his match in terms of curmudgeonliness by the 90 year old Shakespeare specialist Professor Cassovin, incensed upon discovering that English undergrads need no longer take a course in the Bard.
As an audiobook, Schumacher read her work in a dry, acerbic tone that truly fit the mood of the work and caused me to laugh out loud on numerous occasions. Set during the early 2010s, Schumacher is working with many of the stark issues troubling higher education, both real and imagined, and it can feel like I was rooting for the rancorous snob Fitger only as much as the suave but calculating Dean of Economics Gladwell was far worse. Through the lens of her satire, Schumacher shares a fairly dire view of contemporary academia, though the amusing details that she keeps dropping, from a prof’s hobby farm raising miniature donkeys to the impertinence of students dressed as the college mascot, keep things from falling wholly into despair.
As an audiobook, Schumacher read her work in a dry, acerbic tone that truly fit the mood of the work and caused me to laugh out loud on numerous occasions. Set during the early 2010s, Schumacher is working with many of the stark issues troubling higher education, both real and imagined, and it can feel like I was rooting for the rancorous snob Fitger only as much as the suave but calculating Dean of Economics Gladwell was far worse. Through the lens of her satire, Schumacher shares a fairly dire view of contemporary academia, though the amusing details that she keeps dropping, from a prof’s hobby farm raising miniature donkeys to the impertinence of students dressed as the college mascot, keep things from falling wholly into despair.