Non British authors, fantasy novels and Oxbridge

[HibiscusCoffee]

This is probably only annoying to me. But I have read two authors recently who have chosen to set their fantasy books in Cambridge. Presumably they do this because they want to benefit from all of the atmosphere Cambridge brings, the history, beautiful architecture, a sense of elitism or academia etc. But in both cases they show such a tendency to write as if they have set it at Yale or Harvard or Princeton that it just makes me think why didn't you?!

Both are set in alternative worlds of course because they involve magic so I suppose you could just say well in this reality Cambridge is just like an American university, but honestly, why set it in Cambridge if that's the case. If I have to read one more reference to "campus" or "tenure" or "dormitories" or "majoring" in a subject I will set fire to the book. Campus is the one that really gets my goat. Cambridge doesn't have a campus! Its what we mock tourists for asking "where's the university" - it's all around you! You can't eat in a lovely quirky cafe on campus, there isn't a campus.

The most recent one, the author actually studied at Cambridge apparently so how she can not know this I don't know. She has gone to the trouble to use Cambridge slang, to namedrop specific pubs, but she still talks about bloody campus about a hundred million times. I am talking about Katabasis by RF Kuang and the Emily Wilde books by Heather Fawcett, and I am including that info in case they ever Google themselves as I would like them to bloody explain themselves.

I find this so annoying that it can put me off the book completely. It just feels so incongruous.
I've seen (American) authors do this with other UK university settings too, although Oxford and Cambridge are certainly the most popular.

Why assume that the language used in US university culture would be used everywhere? Arrogance? Laziness?

I am glad it is not just me! I actually really liked the Emily Wilde books to the extent I read all three but I literally did throw one across the room at one point. I believe the author is Canadian but same issue applies. It is like it is so engrained in them that they just can't believe we don't have the same system. I would have thought editors would have picked it up though.

I think sometimes editors Americanise these things on purpose, especially if the target audience is expected to be American. It’s possible that those terms were added to supposedly “clarify” for American readers that the cafe in question was in the midst of uni buildings. It then doesn’t travel well when sold into the UK market.

This has some interesting thoughts at the end about Americanisation of fictional worlds: https://deannahoak.com/2006/11/the-americanization-of-novels/

I’ve bought a few books secondhand that turned out to be the American edition of British authors and terms like freshman and mayor had been edited in (I later compared with the UK edition). So I can well imagine it’s publisher driven.

Kuang has a really nice intro to Babel (set in Oxford where she has also studied) that addresses just this question.

Interesting - I read Babel and liked it very much but don't remember reading the intro so maybe I skipped it. What does she say? Also I don't recall being annoyed by Oxford not seeming like Oxford - but then I don't know Oxford as well as Cambridge so I might have not noticed, or it might not have been so obvious as the eleventy million references to campus in Katabasis.

I've just read a bit where the main character is asked if she has ever been off campus and is going to say yes ,when she went to the station, but then realises that two colleges are down there so that also counts as campus. If that's the case, judging by where Girton is, the entire city of Cambridge is a campus, which includes many housing estates with inhabitants that I am sure would be surprised to learn they live "on campus", plus a number of primary and secondary schools, shops, etc.

I don't mind books being Americanized for an American audience although I think it can be a shame, I remember the glamour and mystery of things like "grilled cheese" and the "goodwill truck" and "bologna sandwich" when reading Judy Blume etc. But I do think the UK edition of a book shouldn't be Americanizing UK things, it's just weird.

That's interesting and I didn't realise how widespread localisation is. I've read plenty of translated novels where the translator is American and the British edition has kept the Americanisms. That's way more disruptive to the reading experience (because when reading about Denmark I don't expect to suddenly get shifted to America as they speak about e.g. 'math') than reading a British book by a British author with Britishisms surely?

And, as @HibiscusCoffee says, part of the charm of reading American novels are those foreign details. Like the watermelons and fire hydrants in Richard Scarry books. We didn't have either of those in rural Scotland in the 70s!

As far as fantasy novels go I don't mind Americans going a bit quaint when describing Oxbridge - even Philip Pullman did it in Lyra's world, although we then had the fun of the comparison with Will's realistic Oxford. And in neither did he speak about the campus 😄.

@HibiscusCoffee is just a short frontispiece that says something along the lines of "this is a work of fiction; the Oxford it is placed in is a work of fiction; and I have taken liberties with the real Oxford and I know some people will care because they love Oxford so much; but fundamentally this is a work of fantasy fiction so suck it up." It made me smile because she is SO RIGHT when you know somewhere really well and really love it the anomalies in any kind of fiction can really annoy you (Morse in Oxford is particularly disconcerting geographically); and particularly those of us who studied at either Oxford or Cambridge (or both of them) might have a strong streak of pedantry in us. I know Oxford well and Cambridge some; but wasn't bothered at all like you were regarding the use of the word campus not least because I have also spent time at US unis and can see how an American in Cambridge might describe it so (and the main character in Katabasis is American and can therefore be forgiven her American voice and American way of describing things and how she makes sense of Cambridge).

It is true about the American character POV (although she's been there four years and is desperate to fit in so I would have thought she would have noticed the complete lack of campus 😀) but even in the chapter from the POV of a British character it talks about his third grade class and mentions that he attended a lecture as an undergraduate which made him want to "go into" that subject, rather than physics or maths which he had been planning on -that's something you might easily do in America where I believe they study a range of subjects at university and then "major" in one, but in the UK would involve a/ going to a lecture which isn't the subject you are doing a degree in (which I suppose you might if you are a genius) and b/ changing your degree subject (which can be done but would be a hassle).

I do get the "it's fantasy" argument, and I don't at all mind liberties taken with geography, weirdly (like Dorothy Sayers plonking a women's college on Balliol's cricket pitch or wherever it is she says she has put it) but it just does feel like, when you go to the trouble of name dropping the Pick and Fifth Avenue, sending the characters to Magdalene rather than a madeup college name, you want people to feel the story is rooted in Cambridge, not taking place in some kind of made up transatlantic academy.

Anyway, I rant from a place of love, if I didn't like the book I wouldn't care!

Ha ha. I read that as Peter going to an open day lecture and then changing his mind about what he was doing. I was gobbling the book up at high speed by then and have a bad habit of filling in (and I have kids doing open days and lurching from English Literature to Physics and then changing A'levels!) so it seemed totally plausible to me LOL. I liked (?) the conceit of the whole book that Hell is in fact Cambridge. I was too charmed by the unashamed philosophy that was thrown about in exuberant delight. I liked her Poppy Wars too (though haven't read the whole trilogy) but LOATHED Yellow Face.

Just to be nosey: what did you read after Katabasis and would you recommend it? I am between books ... have just re-started the Book of Doors but remain unconvinced the second time, too.

I think sometimes editors Americanise these things on purpose

They did it with the first Harry Potter book(s). Even changed the title of the first one because obviously Americans couldn't be expected to know about the Philosopher's Stone, which was an actual thing, so we'll change it to the Sorceror's Stone, an entirely made up concept.

I mainly read psychological thrillers and find pretty much all books that are based at Cambridge university incredibly annoying. It just is not the Cambridge I remember at all. It is either balls and privilege or serious chip on shoulder about the fact that you do not have balls and privilege.

The Cambridge I went to was mainly about drinking tea in each others rooms until 3am and having work crises and hanging out in the college bar because it sold cheap alcohol. I went to two balls over my 3 years and they were good nights but not that good - probably not even in my top 10.

I also mostly remember the endless cups of tea and the bar after formal hall, but I’m not sure there’d be much of a plot in it. I met a couple of people who were very privilieged and one absolutely riven with class anxiety, not the majority of students, but they existed.
I remember enjoying Clive James’ book about his time at Cambridge, but that’s non-fiction.