Comments on: Williams in Fiction

By: &

& — Fri, 29 Jun 2007 02:32:00 +0000

One of my favorite things to do in Williamstown is to spend a few hours looking at the books on the New Acquisitions shelves at Sawyer. The “Williams mention”/”based on Williams” books and films would make a great display, either there or down in the lobby/entrance cases. Perfecto for homecoming or reunion weekend.

The display could even travel to the Williams Club. And there could be a little brochure or sheet listing out the titles. And we could put the list up on Willipedia and Ephblog. Get excited.

Is there a Williams librarian in the house?

By: an eph

an eph — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 23:10:47 +0000

“And Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, of course. Williams isn’t used by name, but geographical details of the fictionalized campus make it obvious.”

The college in the movie was referred to as “mediocre” by the narrator. I don’t think that Williams should be proud.

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 21:44:28 +0000

Should I remind you that Moses attended Williams College before he descended from his mount to instruct his rabble about the intentions of their divine headmaster regarding their porcine behavior.

If you do not believe me, ask DeMille!

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 18:21:34 +0000

And Philip Roth’s The Human Stain, of course. Williams isn’t used by name, but geographical details of the fictionalized campus make it obvious.

By: &

& — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:37:38 +0000

or who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf. Or is that just a rural legend?

By: Aidan

Aidan — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:30:02 +0000

I’m surprised nobody has mentioned The Graduate (novel and film) yet.

By: frank uible

frank uible — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:25:30 +0000

Forgettable - I looked it up - my instincts told me forgetable wasn’t quite right.

By: frank uible

frank uible — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 17:15:22 +0000

Then there is the classic Three in the Attic in which a Williams man is the central character and which was made into a forgetable feature length movie of the same name. As Casey Stengel used to say, “you can look it up”.

By: Eislerman

Eislerman — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 12:35:10 +0000

The greatest author to use Williams in a story is Thomas Pynchon in “The Secret Integration”, where an academic institution attended by one of the main characters is (favorably?) analogized to Williams. Not the amount of attention received by Harvard in Gravity’s Rainbow, but at least the attention is far less sinister.

By: Noons

Noons — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 06:15:49 +0000

Speaking of fictional representations of Williams, I believe that the College is briefly namedropped in Professor Gene Bell-Villada’s novel “The Carlos Chadwick Mystery.”

I recommend that some Ephblog readers take a look at that book.

By: [space]

[space] — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 05:03:53 +0000

Thanks for crushing my dreams, Frank.

By: frank uible

frank uible — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:32:19 +0000

Every fraternity had a “goat room” which was its secret meeting place. The prevailing “goat room” story was a facetious myth purportedly used by fraternities everywhere to terrorize fraternity pledges but which the pledges were too knowledgeable to believe, the lack of credibility being laughingly acknowledged by the fraternities.

By: [space]

[space] — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:09:03 +0000

Ever heard of the Perry “Goat Room”?

By: frank uible

frank uible — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 21:07:44 +0000

Because of the fraternities, By current standards the fraternities were refined.

By: anonymouse

anonymouse — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:56:33 +0000

Lucky’s, perhaps Chesterfields but better yet, a Sobranie.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 20:29:39 +0000

And Robert Penn Warren, writing All the King’s Men in the 1940s, knew of Williams — he has Jack Burden’s mother, trying to convince her son to attend a school better than the State University, tell him:

“‘Oh, Son,’ my mother said, ‘why don’t you be sensible and go to Harvard or Princeton.’ For a woman out of the scrub country of Arkansas, my mother had certainly learned a lot by that time about our better educational institutions. ‘Or even Williams,’ she said. ‘They say it’s a nice refined place.’”

Did Warren ever visit Williamstown?

Even if he didn’t, he’d heard it was “refined” (in spite of the fraternities). Maybe it was too “refined” for Jack (he smoked Luckys, after all).

By: frank uible

frank uible — Wed, 27 Jun 2007 19:56:22 +0000

On Oblong Road in south Williamstown at what for a long time after his ownership was known as the Carmelite Monestary.