Aqui vão umas pepitas reluzentes, garimpadas na mais vitriólica farsa sobre o establishment académico britânico, Porterhouse Blue, de Tom Sharpe.+++
Discutindo as propostas de um Master reformista recém-chegado ao bastião mais tradicionalista de Cambridge, o ficcionado Porterhouse College, e propondo uma estratégia de "amiable inertia":
"There's nothing like prevarication", the Dean agreed, "I have yet to meet a liberal who can withstand the attrition of prolonged discussion of the inessentials" (p. 16)
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Um general militarão, antigo aluno de Porterhouse, desabafa:
"Scholars? That's half the trouble with the world today, scholarship. Too many damned intellectuals about who think they know how things should be done. Academics, bah! Can't win a war with thinking. Can't run a factory on thought. It needs guts and sweat and sheer hard work. If I had my way I'd kick every damned scholar out of the College and put in some athletes to run the place properly. Anyone would think Varsity was some sort of school. In my day we didn't come up to learn anything, we came up to forget all the damned silly things we'd had pumped into us at school." (pp. 66-67)
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O Dean de Porterhouse diagnostica que o mal da Universidade reside na "American Infection":
"Doctoratitis. The assumption that a man's worth is to be measured by mere diligence. A man spends three years minutely documenting documents if you understand my meaning, anyway, investigating issues that have escaped the notice of more discriminating scholars, and emerges from the ordeal with a doctorate which is supposed to be proof of his intelligence. Than which I can think of nothing more stupid. But there you are, that's the modern fashion. It comes, I suppose, from a literal acceptance of the ridiculous dictum that genius is an infinite capacity for taking pains." (p. 214)
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Li o segundo volume, Grantchester Grind, mas não está à altura do primeiro: mesmo a farsa tem limites de verosimilhança e de gosto, na minha modesta opinião...
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