''Pictures from an Institution: a Comedy'' is a 1954 novel by American poet

Randall Jarrell Randall Jarrell (May 6, 1914 – October 14, 1965) was an American poet, literary critic, children's author, essayist, and novelist. He was the 11th Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress—a position that now bears the title Poet ...

. It is an academic

satire Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming ...

, focusing on the oddities of academic life, in particular the relationships between the

characters Character or Characters may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Literature * ''Character'' (novel), a 1936 Dutch novel by Ferdinand Bordewijk * ''Characters'' (Theophrastus), a classical Greek set of character sketches attributed to The ...

and their private lives. The nameless

narrator Narration is the use of a written or spoken commentary to convey a story to an audience. Narration is conveyed by a narrator: a specific person, or unspecified literary voice, developed by the creator of the story to deliver information to the a ...

, a Jarrell-like figure who teaches at a women's college called Benton, makes humorous observations about his students and his fellow academics; especially the latter, and in particular the offensively tactless novelist Gertrude, modeled on Mary McCarthy. Some believe Benton was modeled after

Sarah Lawrence College Sarah Lawrence College is a Private university, private liberal arts college in Yonkers, New York. The college models its approach to education after the Supervision system, Oxford/Cambridge system of one-on-one student-faculty tutorials. Sara ...

, where Jarrell taught but in an interview with the ''New York Times'', Jarrell stated that "Benton is supposed to be just a type ... I've taken things from real places, but mostly have made them up".

Characters

* Unnamed narrator, a professor of literature * Gertrude Johnson, a visiting novelist * President Robbins, a former Olympic diver * Gottfried Rosenbaum, composer in residence * Constance, a longtime friend of the narrator, a beautiful music student

Awards

''Pictures from an Institution'' was a finalist for the National Book Award.National Book Foundation
"National Book Awards - 1955"
2007, accessed April 1, 2011.

References

External links

from the book at the

University of Chicago Press The University of Chicago Press is the largest and one of the oldest university presses in the United States. It is operated by the University of Chicago and publishes a wide variety of academic titles, including ''The Chicago Manual of Style'', ...

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''New York Times'' review
by Orville Prescott (1954) 1954 American novels Satirical books Campus novels Alfred A. Knopf books {{1950s-novel-stub