The Real Animal House: The Awesomely Depraved Saga of the Fraternity That Inspired the Movie

Actually, I sympathize rather with Chris Miller. He spent much of the seventies trying to get his ‘serious’ work published by Quality Lit publishers (as well as a prototype of this book). His work with National Lampoon was grossly hilarious and very underestimated by those who would dismiss anything associated with the publication as ‘sophomoric.’ As Nile Southern observed, humour in literary magazines was pretty much blacklisted from the seventies on(as if humour and high seriousness were somehow antithetical – Swift and Rabelais live in vain!). Most literary types were into this boring soap opera stuff about ‘relationships’ in the seventies and eighties(believe me, in respect to the latter, I know!). I can imagine he had a great deal of trouble with the Quality Lit types. This book, in academic terms, poses a bit of problem. Is it a novel? Is it a fictionalized, or semi-fictionalized, memoir? While Miller’s book is not as cartoonishly broad as the film “Animal House’, it clearly has nothing to do with the Reality Principle either(how do people like this pass their courses? , etc. When Miller says some of these people went on to bourgeois respectability, one suspects a sly commentary on the same). There is none of the political underpinning of the film(as outlined best by Tony Hendra in “Going Too Far”) and the book suffers occasionally from insufficiently distinguished characterization. There is also the odd turn of phrase out of sync with the times – the peril of artists living too long, alas. Still, if you’re expecting good taste from Chris Miller, well, it’s sort of like expecting the sun not to shine. Come on! The man was a stated disciple of Terry Southern(the ‘God’ of bad taste humour) and his work with National Lampoon was deliciously decadent(anyone remember the bit about the guy trying to hump the telephone? it’s a classic of something or another!). By far the best scene is the one set in the black whorehouse – a minor masterpiece of observation and raunchy humour. Terry Southern was absolutely have loved it. While a bit more Reality Principle might have been welcomed as ‘spice’ or counterpoint in the novel(remember the Karen Allen character in the film voicing the Reality Principle? do you really want to spend the rest of your life living like this?, etc.), the book floats merrily above such things. For those who loved Miller’s work back in his Nat Lamp days, there’s nothing else quite like this. Needless to say, people who party too hard at university usually end up blowing their marks or ending up with substance abuse problems. Still, let’s enjoy this for what it is – a comic fantasy with one foot in reality, as it were. And if you don’t like it, feel free to boot….Greg Cameron, Surrey, B.C., Canada

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