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Doctor Criminale
Francis Jay, a nineties person, embarks on a quest to find one of the greatest philosophers and thinkers of the modern age, the elusive Dr Bazlo Criminale. From European congress to congress, from woman to woman, from muse to muse he pursues the doctor, while the truth is slowly revealed.
352 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1993
5 people are currently reading
174 people want to read
About the author
Malcolm Bradbury
108 books89 followersSir Malcolm Stanley Bradbury CBE was an English author and academic. He is best known to a wider public as a novelist. Although he is often compared with David Lodge, his friend and a contemporary as a British exponent of the campus novel genre, Bradbury's books are consistently darker in mood and less playful both in style and language. His best known novel The History Man, published in 1975, is a dark satire of academic life in the "glass and steel" universities—the then-fashionable newer universities of England that had followed their "redbrick" predecessors—which in 1981 was made into a successful BBC television serial. The protagonist is the hypocritical Howard Kirk, a sociology professor at the fictional University of Watermouth.
He completed his PhD in American studies at the University of Manchester in 1962, moving to the University of East Anglia (his second novel, Stepping Westward, appeared in 1965), where he became Professor of American Studies in 1970 and launched the world-renowned MA in Creative Writing course, which Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro both attended. He published Possibilities: Essays on the State of the Novel in 1973, The History Man in 1975, Who Do You Think You Are? in 1976, Rates of Exchange in 1983, Cuts: A Very Short Novel in 1987, retiring from academic life in 1995. Malcolm Bradbury became a Commander of the British Empire in 1991 for services to Literature, and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to Literature.
Bradbury was a productive academic writer as well as a successful teacher; an expert on the modern novel, he published books on Evelyn Waugh, Saul Bellow and E. M. Forster, as well as editions of such modern classics as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and a number of surveys and handbooks of modern fiction, both British and American.
He also wrote extensively for television, including scripting series such as Anything More Would Be Greedy, The Gravy Train, the sequel The Gravy Train Goes East (which explored life in Bradbury's fictional Slaka), and adapting novels such as Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape and Porterhouse Blue, Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends and Kingsley Amis's The Green Man. His last television script was for Dalziel and Pascoe series 5, produced by Andy Rowley. The episode 'Foreign Bodies' was screened on BBC One on July 15, 2000.
He completed his PhD in American studies at the University of Manchester in 1962, moving to the University of East Anglia (his second novel, Stepping Westward, appeared in 1965), where he became Professor of American Studies in 1970 and launched the world-renowned MA in Creative Writing course, which Ian McEwan and Kazuo Ishiguro both attended. He published Possibilities: Essays on the State of the Novel in 1973, The History Man in 1975, Who Do You Think You Are? in 1976, Rates of Exchange in 1983, Cuts: A Very Short Novel in 1987, retiring from academic life in 1995. Malcolm Bradbury became a Commander of the British Empire in 1991 for services to Literature, and was made a Knight Bachelor in the New Year Honours 2000, again for services to Literature.
Bradbury was a productive academic writer as well as a successful teacher; an expert on the modern novel, he published books on Evelyn Waugh, Saul Bellow and E. M. Forster, as well as editions of such modern classics as F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and a number of surveys and handbooks of modern fiction, both British and American.
He also wrote extensively for television, including scripting series such as Anything More Would Be Greedy, The Gravy Train, the sequel The Gravy Train Goes East (which explored life in Bradbury's fictional Slaka), and adapting novels such as Tom Sharpe's Blott on the Landscape and Porterhouse Blue, Alison Lurie's Imaginary Friends and Kingsley Amis's The Green Man. His last television script was for Dalziel and Pascoe series 5, produced by Andy Rowley. The episode 'Foreign Bodies' was screened on BBC One on July 15, 2000.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
February 25, 2025
Told from the perspective of UK journalist trying to save/boost his career Francis Jay, this tells the story of his attempt to put together a biography/piece on the hard-to-find, lauded by all shades of the European political spectrum, East and West, celebrity philosopher Doctor Bazlo Criminale. Bradbury uses this vehicle to document, and at times satirise, the post fall of Berlin Wall Europe taken shots at art, philosophy, politics, media, the EU and the 'freed' Eastern Bloc, with deft writing, neat humour and a raft of gorgeously defined weird characters of their time. To top this all off, I picked this book up thinking it was Ray Bradbury :D A well deserved Three Star, 7 out of 12 jam.
2025 read
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July 31, 2007
I cannot remember exact details about this book (even though I read it not too long ago) but I know that I enjoyed it. I chose it out of a lengthy list of books to write a term paper over because my professor kept talking about what a funny book it was. I am so glad that I chose it because a) it was very entertaining for a book that I had to write a term paper over and b) I think that writing on Doctor Criminale is what got me an "A" in that class! Apparently my professor had been friends with Bradbury. She (my professor) said that this book was semi-autobiographical, and that she was the inspiration for one of the female characters in the book. She didn't tell me any of this until after I had read it and written a brilliant paper over it ... so I am glad that I genuinely liked it and had written favorably about it ... otherwise she probably would have failed me.
It's about this young journalist named Francis Jay who is looking for (or just digging up dirt on) one Doctor Bazlo Criminale for a BBC special program. Criminale apparently played both sides during the Cold War and seemed to come out all right on top. Through Francis' adventure Bradbury writes (satirizing I guess) about post-Cold War politics and attitudes.
In case you are wondering what class I read this for was about: it was the history of Eastern Europe and what Westerner's mistakenly refer to as "the Balkans." My professor was (and is) a Bulgarian obsessed with her job and correcting history. That is, correcting the Western version of Cold War history not from the perspective of either Communist or Defector ... but simply as a witness. I'm not sure how she manages to stay objective but she was a great professor and so she made sense.
Read this book if you're interested in a fictional but still believable depiction of the post-Cold War world.
It's about this young journalist named Francis Jay who is looking for (or just digging up dirt on) one Doctor Bazlo Criminale for a BBC special program. Criminale apparently played both sides during the Cold War and seemed to come out all right on top. Through Francis' adventure Bradbury writes (satirizing I guess) about post-Cold War politics and attitudes.
In case you are wondering what class I read this for was about: it was the history of Eastern Europe and what Westerner's mistakenly refer to as "the Balkans." My professor was (and is) a Bulgarian obsessed with her job and correcting history. That is, correcting the Western version of Cold War history not from the perspective of either Communist or Defector ... but simply as a witness. I'm not sure how she manages to stay objective but she was a great professor and so she made sense.
Read this book if you're interested in a fictional but still believable depiction of the post-Cold War world.
October 13, 2024
Tries to be two things: a light-hearted pursuit story across Europe and a satire on European politics and philosophy in the early 90s. It's less effective as a satire as few of the book's points felt like they had weight to them, rather that the author had invented a version of something he disliked to describe in a silly way. While the writing moves along reasonably well as an easy to read caper it's full of national stereotypes and horribly dated characterisations of female characters. As the only character with much voice, the narrator has the irritating self-satisfaction of a mouthpiece of an author's views in a fictional world designed to vindicate them - this is made even worse by every woman in the book wanting to sleep with him for unexplored reasons.
February 12, 2010
Maybe a little dated (c. 1992). But an interesting view of the postmodern Europe from an early 1990's perspective.
December 14, 2019
I had to think about this novel for quite a few days before I was able to form even a preliminary opinion. Needless to say, the book created conflicting impressions in my mind, in part because Bradbury is hanging so many (so many!) weighty issues and themes on such a flimsy plot structure. He deals with the past, present, and future of politics, society, philosophy, art, and human consciousness in a almost slight story whose premise revolves around the pre-production research for an English TV biography of a world-famous philosopher and writer that turns into a semi-obsession for our journalist protagonist.
Francis jay, said protagonist, is the least-well-drawn of the many otherwise colorfully entertaining and enlightening characters (particularly the philosopher's past and current wives and lovers) that appear somewhat sequentially throughout. Jay is not colorful by his own admission, nor is he particularly entertaining; he is, in fact, too credulous and a bit boring. He primarily serves as a blank canvas on which the other characters can paint their complex worldviews. He does claim to learn and grow from such encounters throughout the course of the novel, and he continually and coherently recounts the lessons imparted, but this claim sounds somewhat false. He remains such a bland, passive, neutral character that is hard to see why he sleeps with so many of the beautiful women that populate the novel. One or two ambiguous actions at the end of the story indicate some maturation by Jay, but perhaps the ambiguity arises from my lack of comprehension of the author's over-arching theme. There is growth here in understanding, but so much of that understanding concerns the ambiguity of human history, society, and reality that perhaps it is appropriate that the main character becomes more ambiguous in his actions as he gains insight. As I said, this one is going to take awhile to sink in completely as the ideas presented are complex and nebulous.
Speaking of complex and nebulous, the best character is the enigma at the center of the novel, the philosopher Bazlo Criminale. Of somewhat uncertain east-European origins, he has achieved fame in both the east and the west as a profound philosopher, brilliant author, friend of the famous and powerful, and an advisor to governments and institutions worldwide. He has successfully straddled the cold-war divide, but are there secrets in his past? What compromises did he have to make to achieve his unique position in the world?
Jay's encounters with Criminale are the most rewarding and entertaining parts of the book, and more, or at least longer, encounters would have shored up the novel considerably. Bradbury does such a good job of putting words in Criminale's mouth that this reader had no trouble accepting the character as the leading intellectual of the modern age. Perhaps someone more cognizant of post-modernist philosophy would disagree. How much of my conviction is ignorance and credulousness and how much the result of the author's craft, I can't say. Interesting topic for a discussion: The Credulous Reader.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book despite some drawbacks, and I believe I will be thinking about some of the ideas it presented for quite some time. I can confidently recommend it to anyone who enjoys a modern european novel with quite a few intellectual aspirations. Also, the writing can be very bright and inventive at times, both in dialogue and description. I leave you with Bradbury's description, or rather lack thereof, of a (perhaps) sexual encounter with a woman:
"In any case, the fact is that most sex in stories is only for the children anyway. Adults know perfectly well what happens in such cases, when anything happens at all. There is ordinariness, and something exceptional. There is talk, there is silence. There is pleasure, there is disappointment. There is attachment, there is separateness. There is self, and loss of it. There is thought, there is rest. There is being, there is nothingness. There is the room here, the bigger world out there. There is growing up, and staying the same. These are issues the philosophers usually discuss for us, or they did when we had any. And if they had troubles with such matters, why should I or anyone else do better? In any case, surely, even in this tolerant, permissive, late, liberal, over-investigated world of ours, we all have a right to occasional silence."
Francis jay, said protagonist, is the least-well-drawn of the many otherwise colorfully entertaining and enlightening characters (particularly the philosopher's past and current wives and lovers) that appear somewhat sequentially throughout. Jay is not colorful by his own admission, nor is he particularly entertaining; he is, in fact, too credulous and a bit boring. He primarily serves as a blank canvas on which the other characters can paint their complex worldviews. He does claim to learn and grow from such encounters throughout the course of the novel, and he continually and coherently recounts the lessons imparted, but this claim sounds somewhat false. He remains such a bland, passive, neutral character that is hard to see why he sleeps with so many of the beautiful women that populate the novel. One or two ambiguous actions at the end of the story indicate some maturation by Jay, but perhaps the ambiguity arises from my lack of comprehension of the author's over-arching theme. There is growth here in understanding, but so much of that understanding concerns the ambiguity of human history, society, and reality that perhaps it is appropriate that the main character becomes more ambiguous in his actions as he gains insight. As I said, this one is going to take awhile to sink in completely as the ideas presented are complex and nebulous.
Speaking of complex and nebulous, the best character is the enigma at the center of the novel, the philosopher Bazlo Criminale. Of somewhat uncertain east-European origins, he has achieved fame in both the east and the west as a profound philosopher, brilliant author, friend of the famous and powerful, and an advisor to governments and institutions worldwide. He has successfully straddled the cold-war divide, but are there secrets in his past? What compromises did he have to make to achieve his unique position in the world?
Jay's encounters with Criminale are the most rewarding and entertaining parts of the book, and more, or at least longer, encounters would have shored up the novel considerably. Bradbury does such a good job of putting words in Criminale's mouth that this reader had no trouble accepting the character as the leading intellectual of the modern age. Perhaps someone more cognizant of post-modernist philosophy would disagree. How much of my conviction is ignorance and credulousness and how much the result of the author's craft, I can't say. Interesting topic for a discussion: The Credulous Reader.
All in all, I really enjoyed this book despite some drawbacks, and I believe I will be thinking about some of the ideas it presented for quite some time. I can confidently recommend it to anyone who enjoys a modern european novel with quite a few intellectual aspirations. Also, the writing can be very bright and inventive at times, both in dialogue and description. I leave you with Bradbury's description, or rather lack thereof, of a (perhaps) sexual encounter with a woman:
"In any case, the fact is that most sex in stories is only for the children anyway. Adults know perfectly well what happens in such cases, when anything happens at all. There is ordinariness, and something exceptional. There is talk, there is silence. There is pleasure, there is disappointment. There is attachment, there is separateness. There is self, and loss of it. There is thought, there is rest. There is being, there is nothingness. There is the room here, the bigger world out there. There is growing up, and staying the same. These are issues the philosophers usually discuss for us, or they did when we had any. And if they had troubles with such matters, why should I or anyone else do better? In any case, surely, even in this tolerant, permissive, late, liberal, over-investigated world of ours, we all have a right to occasional silence."
October 18, 2024
This breezy, cosmopolitan novel is a clever examination of postmodernism and globalisation from the early 1990s. Bradbury writes with wit and ease about history, literature, and philosophical ideas.
I just didn't find it that engaging overall. There was some good travel writing and some interesting background context. But the main characters and plot were quite dull, and it was somewhere between a comedy of ideas and something more serious. It might have appealed to some journalists, academics, and literati from the 1990s, but beyond that, it's hard to imagine it having much appeal.
Some of the 1990s context is interesting in a time capsule sort of way, talking about the EU twenty plus years before Brexit, for instance. But that's mostly incidental to the novel itself.
Very tongue-in-cheek and perhaps self-satisfied at times, too, it never quite tickled me or intrigued me beyond a three-star rating, despite Bradbury's competence in the medium and message.
I just didn't find it that engaging overall. There was some good travel writing and some interesting background context. But the main characters and plot were quite dull, and it was somewhere between a comedy of ideas and something more serious. It might have appealed to some journalists, academics, and literati from the 1990s, but beyond that, it's hard to imagine it having much appeal.
Some of the 1990s context is interesting in a time capsule sort of way, talking about the EU twenty plus years before Brexit, for instance. But that's mostly incidental to the novel itself.
Very tongue-in-cheek and perhaps self-satisfied at times, too, it never quite tickled me or intrigued me beyond a three-star rating, despite Bradbury's competence in the medium and message.
February 23, 2020
I can't even begin to think of what category to select for this book, other than fiction. It's a weird book that I want to have read, but I don't really want to read. I gave it 140 pages (out of 340), which is way more than I typically give a book that I'm not enjoying, but I just kept waiting for it to get better or for something interesting to happen! It got good reviews, but it's just not for me. I can't even think of anyone to pass it on to, so I'll just give it to the library!
May 11, 2021
Extremely dated and minimally inspired British academic humor. Firmly grounded in 1992, this was probably passably entertaining during its first weeks after publication, but there's little to recommend it now.
May 4, 2024
Well written, as would be expected of Malcolm Bradbury, and carefully observed behavior of 1960s academics and intellectuals. The plot and characters are strongly tied to the 1960s so if you are not familiar with that period, much of the book would mean little. If, however, you are familiar, it is an interesting reminder of what happened then. Worth reading, but if you are expecting another History Man, you will be slightly disappointed.
March 19, 2013
I see one review says this is 'a little dated'. Well, so is Shakespeare, Dickens, Goethe, etc etc. It was written from the perspective as it was then, and none the worse for that.
Very amusing, beautifully drawn characters. Lavinia, producer for the proposed TV programme which starts the narrator on hos quest for the eponymous Dr, Criminale. Living the high life on the money advanced for the production. Professor Codicil of Vienna who seems to spend his life on the conference circuit, never teaches and has a exaggerated sense of his own importance. The Italian, Professor Monza who spends his time organising conferences at a luxurious villa on what (I think) is a thinly disguised Lake Como. Ilonka, the enigmatic Hungarian lady who, in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of communism is determined to spend, spend, spend on western goods.Then, the equally enigmatic character of Dr Baszlo Criminale himself. Does the author let the reader discover the truth about him?
The author must have known the literary conference circuit very well. At one such the narrator refers to 'an English writer of campus novels'. Surely Bradbury himself.
Very amusing, beautifully drawn characters. Lavinia, producer for the proposed TV programme which starts the narrator on hos quest for the eponymous Dr, Criminale. Living the high life on the money advanced for the production. Professor Codicil of Vienna who seems to spend his life on the conference circuit, never teaches and has a exaggerated sense of his own importance. The Italian, Professor Monza who spends his time organising conferences at a luxurious villa on what (I think) is a thinly disguised Lake Como. Ilonka, the enigmatic Hungarian lady who, in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of communism is determined to spend, spend, spend on western goods.Then, the equally enigmatic character of Dr Baszlo Criminale himself. Does the author let the reader discover the truth about him?
The author must have known the literary conference circuit very well. At one such the narrator refers to 'an English writer of campus novels'. Surely Bradbury himself.
March 1, 2025
In the introduction, the narrator recounts that a university lecturer had proved to me conclusively that all literature had been written by the wrong people, of the wrong class, race and gender, for entirely the wrong reasons. I'd read this quote in one of the papers as part of a class when I was at uni, so I bought and read the book with recounts the narrator's pursuit of and attempts to interview and thus profile Doctor Criminale, an academic with almost mystical stature in whatever field he was in. It was an enjoyable read, for one who reads little fiction, although the ending was a little drawn out.
August 16, 2012
not finish but i like here words:
playful both in style and language. His best known novel The History Man, published in 1975, is a dark satire of academic life in the "glass and steel" universities – the then-fashionable newer
February 8, 2013
Not the best, but quotable:
There are no travelers now, only tourists. A traveler comes to see a reality that is there already. A tourist only comes to see a reality invented for him, in which he conspires.
There are no travelers now, only tourists. A traveler comes to see a reality that is there already. A tourist only comes to see a reality invented for him, in which he conspires.
August 21, 2013
Роман длинный, неспешный, вдумчивый. Читать его надо очень внимательно, никуда не торопясь, получая удовольствие от стиля автора. Вот только для меня в конце этого удовольствия стало слишком много:). Мне стало немного скучно.
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May 28, 2013I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11940385
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11940385
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews