Welcome, Scholar

English Ph.D. Derek Rosenblum, the hero of this comic, often shocking novel, can t land a full-time teaching position. After too many years of marginal employment, he wonders: is Dulness, the moronic presiding deity of Alexander Pope s great satiric Dunciad, somehow responsible for the series of misadventures that make up his life? She s only a fiction, Derek tells himself, but he senses her presence everywhere. The authoritative figures he encounters Lucia Luteplucker, his unhelpful adviser at Heartland U, Iron Lady Margaret Thatcher impress him as her fleshly incarnations. They and others constantly thwart Derek, until he discovers just what the goddess wants and gives it to her. Soon he s offered the job of his dreams, and happily tenured Full Professor Rosenblum spends thirty comfortable years boring students. Then, as Welcome, Scholar concludes, final catastrophe arrives.