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The Professor
The Professor was Rex Warner's second novel, published in 1938, only a year after his groundbreaking first novel, The Wild Goose Chase. It is one of the most extraordinary and enduring political novels from the 1930s and further confirmed Warner's status as a major writer.
A Professor of Classics is appointed Chancellor of his (unnamed) country, under threat from both the government of a neighbouring country and its own fascist party. The Professor is a staunch believer in the liberal values his own country espouses but considers himself 'above politics', in contrast with his son, a revolutionary. The Professor's conviction that he must not enter into the political arena means that he finds himself unable to defend his liberal beliefs, even as he and his country are thrown into chaos. The consequences are violent and shocking.
- GenresFiction
171 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1938
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67 people want to read
About the author
Rex Warner
85 books24 followersRex Warner was an English classicist, writer and translator. He is now probably best remembered for The Aerodrome (1941), an allegorical novel whose young hero is faced with the disintegration of his certainties about his loved ones and with a choice between the earthy, animalistic life of his home village and the pure, efficient, emotionally detached life of an airman.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
July 6, 2019
The Professor, published in 1938, is a political tract and warning, undisguised despite taking the form of a novel. In this time of Anschluss and appeasement Warner was unusually clear-sighted about the Nazi threat. The character of the Professor stands for the intellectual progressive liberal believer in democracy and free speech caught between militaristic, nationalistic and antisemitic forces on one side and on the other the more activist worker-supporting'Reds', represented by the Professor's son, and the general good guy/protector Jinkerman. The situation could have been fashioned into a tense and justly shocking piece of fiction but unfortunately the result is instead static and stilted; many of the episodes, such as the shooting of former friend and dark-side convert Julius Vander, are unconvincing. Nevertheless, the book stands as a brave attempt to produce a call to conscience at a time when so many were hiding their heads in the sand.
May 26, 2011
Rather a charming tale of political upheaval and morality verging on dystopian disaster, albeit with a tendency to get bogged-down in the philosophical and psychological at times.
August 2, 2024
[John Lane The Bodley Head] (1946). HB. Uniform Edition. Reprint. Signed, dedicated (to Erwin Leiser*) and inscribed by the author. 294 Pages. Purchased from I. D. Edrich.
A rich, sketchy, politcal allegory exploring weakness, greed, treachery, hypocrisy, aggression, naivity, self-interest, duplicity, subterfuge, subversion, disingenuity, false flagging, complacency…
I found Julius Vander’s breezy assassinations to be most amusing, for instance:
“‘Now who are the supporters of your ‘wider’ morality? Not in many cases the official prophets. It has become clear that this practical application would entail the abandonment of privilege and power. Consequently the Bishops, who as a rule have always been men enough not to take their religion seriously, are almost unanimously against your proposal to force them to say what they believe… if your plans really did come off and if the world were to settle down amicably to centuries of picnics, boating expeditions, and cultural displays what would be the point of having any Bishops?’” (pp. 116-117)
Published in 1938, this novel’s reflective of Hitler’s contemporaneous annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Reich. As such, it resonates with the terrible plight of the Ukraine subject to Putin’s diabolical schemes.
An enjoyable, strange, stimulating book - typical qualities of Warner’s prose, though sorely lacking in his (for me) inpenetrable poetry. There are flashes of dark humour but the picture’s very bleak.
“How can you love the shade if you have never feared the sun? There is no love without fear.” (p. 215)
* Leiser (1923-1996) was the Swedish director of “Mein Kampf” (1960), a well-noted documentary on be rise of National Socialism in Germany (1933-).
A rich, sketchy, politcal allegory exploring weakness, greed, treachery, hypocrisy, aggression, naivity, self-interest, duplicity, subterfuge, subversion, disingenuity, false flagging, complacency…
I found Julius Vander’s breezy assassinations to be most amusing, for instance:
“‘Now who are the supporters of your ‘wider’ morality? Not in many cases the official prophets. It has become clear that this practical application would entail the abandonment of privilege and power. Consequently the Bishops, who as a rule have always been men enough not to take their religion seriously, are almost unanimously against your proposal to force them to say what they believe… if your plans really did come off and if the world were to settle down amicably to centuries of picnics, boating expeditions, and cultural displays what would be the point of having any Bishops?’” (pp. 116-117)
Published in 1938, this novel’s reflective of Hitler’s contemporaneous annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the Reich. As such, it resonates with the terrible plight of the Ukraine subject to Putin’s diabolical schemes.
An enjoyable, strange, stimulating book - typical qualities of Warner’s prose, though sorely lacking in his (for me) inpenetrable poetry. There are flashes of dark humour but the picture’s very bleak.
“How can you love the shade if you have never feared the sun? There is no love without fear.” (p. 215)
* Leiser (1923-1996) was the Swedish director of “Mein Kampf” (1960), a well-noted documentary on be rise of National Socialism in Germany (1933-).
January 4, 2023
A stunning 1938 novel with some contemporary resonance, by a forgotten writer who remains in the shadows of other exponents of political fiction in the run-up to the Second World War (1939-45). It has some of the disturbing notions that intrigued political philosophers & journalists: the seizure of power by rampant, uniformed extremists in an apparently democratic society when nothing, however, is as clear as the confusion of ostensibly new, but actually, age-old, ideas.
The professor, the eponymous 'hero', an elderly & naively-liberal academic of classical literature, fluent in Greek & Latin, briefly becomes the new Chancellor, before he is almost immediately over-thrown by a violent coup, backed by a neighbouring, foreign power, all this occuring in an un-named state but very similar to Great Britain.
In under 300 pages, Rex Warner dissects so much of turbulent, inter-war politics in Europe & draws a very depressing conclusion. The final chapters are very powerfully predictive.
George Orwell must have read this surprisingly well-written novel; there are so many hints of what was to come, & not just a dystopian classic called '1984'. Naturally, this book is never mentioned by contemporary experts of political turmoil satirised & made more public, by a dead, white male.
What did they ever know about anything?
The professor, the eponymous 'hero', an elderly & naively-liberal academic of classical literature, fluent in Greek & Latin, briefly becomes the new Chancellor, before he is almost immediately over-thrown by a violent coup, backed by a neighbouring, foreign power, all this occuring in an un-named state but very similar to Great Britain.
In under 300 pages, Rex Warner dissects so much of turbulent, inter-war politics in Europe & draws a very depressing conclusion. The final chapters are very powerfully predictive.
George Orwell must have read this surprisingly well-written novel; there are so many hints of what was to come, & not just a dystopian classic called '1984'. Naturally, this book is never mentioned by contemporary experts of political turmoil satirised & made more public, by a dead, white male.
What did they ever know about anything?
March 15, 2024
I found a free hardback version reprinted in 1946, so I like this book for its antiquity.
Written in 1938, Rex Warner writes a thinly disguised story of how fascists despise democracy and will subvert it when given the chance. This had already happened in Germany and the story deals with the Austrian anschluss. Much of what is written is common konwledge now following the collapse of Nazi Germany, but perhaps it wasn't at the time the book was written?
Written generations ago, the book is interesting in an unintended way: the way the public and academics view university scholarship. The professor is a master of ancient Greek and a world authority in Sophocles; another academic in the book was considered an ideal person for politics because he spoke 12 fluent languages. Today, little deference would be given to a scholar of classical literature, and knowing many languages is quite normal in places like continental Europe.
Written in 1938, Rex Warner writes a thinly disguised story of how fascists despise democracy and will subvert it when given the chance. This had already happened in Germany and the story deals with the Austrian anschluss. Much of what is written is common konwledge now following the collapse of Nazi Germany, but perhaps it wasn't at the time the book was written?
Written generations ago, the book is interesting in an unintended way: the way the public and academics view university scholarship. The professor is a master of ancient Greek and a world authority in Sophocles; another academic in the book was considered an ideal person for politics because he spoke 12 fluent languages. Today, little deference would be given to a scholar of classical literature, and knowing many languages is quite normal in places like continental Europe.
August 28, 2016
Review from https://darrengoossens.wordpress.com/2016/08/28/pretty-good-at-what-it-is-the-professor-by-rex-warner/.
The Professor, Rex Warner, Penguin 1944 (171 pages).
This is a decent novel and a fascinating artefact. First published in 1938, it is a direct response to the tide of totalitarianism that was then sweeping across Europe. My copy was published in 1944, when that trend had reached its dreadful apotheosis, and is distinctly of its time. Here I reproduce some of the adverts found on the back cover and inside the back of the book. 'The front' is a current metaphor for fighting the bristles on your chin; we have advice for extending the useful life of a nightie, and we're told to remember how useful a product is, even though right now it is in short supply.
The book itself is produced in accordance with the war economy standards, and the paper is noticeably thin and the cover rather floppy (yet here it is 70 years later, speaking something to what was considered a 'cheap' edition back then, and making me wonder whether some our standards might not be irrecoverably lower now than they were then). Having said that, the design is clearly pre-Tschichold, with it's penguin that looks ready to collapse and blobby 'Penguin Books' logo at the top. One would think that if a book company is going to save trouble by not designing the covers individually, the least they could do would be get the one design they were using right.
The cover of The Professor by Rex Warner.
Anyway.
To the story; it is a fable, taking place in an unspecified county (_not_ Britain) that shares a border with a great power -- rather like a Baltic state glancing fearfully at the Russians, say. The little country knows it cannot fight and win, and there are sections of its own population attracted to the certainty that dictatorship offers. As the government is in free-fall they try offering the Chancellorship (a position akin to the German position, or to a Prime Minister in a Westminster-type government) to The Professor, a respected academic whose work has centred on Greek and Latin literature, and the like. The Professor is intelligent but not worldly, and events soon overtake him. His options narrow, the people around him have their own agendas, and eventually the inevitable eventuates. On the way we meet a cross section of the community, we see how people cope with living under the imminent cloud of envelopment -- some embrace it, some disappear into fantasy and denial, many do not really understand it and so manage quite well.
The Professor himself is a somewhat unsatisfactory and pedantic figure. Some of the supporting cast, though the very fact of being drawn more economically and perhaps therefore bluntly, are more alive than he is. He never quite becomes more than the puppet the plot, and the philosophy behind the work, demand. The prose is... precise, bordering on pedantic. Every clause carefully set off, every verb correctly subjected, no infinitives even within a mile of splittedness; it is as if the words are designed to match the personality of the protagonist; prim, academic and correct.
These things add up to making The Professor a very interesting book if you like looking at books and how they work. It is not a story for the fan of plot and counter plot and subplot and action and suspense.
Is it a book that speaks to our times now? I suspect the inhabitants of Ukraine or Taiwan or Tibet would say, 'Yes, though Rex Warner doesn't know the half of it.'
It's short; if you see it kicking around, give it a go.
Or not.
The Professor, Rex Warner, Penguin 1944 (171 pages).
This is a decent novel and a fascinating artefact. First published in 1938, it is a direct response to the tide of totalitarianism that was then sweeping across Europe. My copy was published in 1944, when that trend had reached its dreadful apotheosis, and is distinctly of its time. Here I reproduce some of the adverts found on the back cover and inside the back of the book. 'The front' is a current metaphor for fighting the bristles on your chin; we have advice for extending the useful life of a nightie, and we're told to remember how useful a product is, even though right now it is in short supply.
The book itself is produced in accordance with the war economy standards, and the paper is noticeably thin and the cover rather floppy (yet here it is 70 years later, speaking something to what was considered a 'cheap' edition back then, and making me wonder whether some our standards might not be irrecoverably lower now than they were then). Having said that, the design is clearly pre-Tschichold, with it's penguin that looks ready to collapse and blobby 'Penguin Books' logo at the top. One would think that if a book company is going to save trouble by not designing the covers individually, the least they could do would be get the one design they were using right.
The cover of The Professor by Rex Warner.
Anyway.
To the story; it is a fable, taking place in an unspecified county (_not_ Britain) that shares a border with a great power -- rather like a Baltic state glancing fearfully at the Russians, say. The little country knows it cannot fight and win, and there are sections of its own population attracted to the certainty that dictatorship offers. As the government is in free-fall they try offering the Chancellorship (a position akin to the German position, or to a Prime Minister in a Westminster-type government) to The Professor, a respected academic whose work has centred on Greek and Latin literature, and the like. The Professor is intelligent but not worldly, and events soon overtake him. His options narrow, the people around him have their own agendas, and eventually the inevitable eventuates. On the way we meet a cross section of the community, we see how people cope with living under the imminent cloud of envelopment -- some embrace it, some disappear into fantasy and denial, many do not really understand it and so manage quite well.
The Professor himself is a somewhat unsatisfactory and pedantic figure. Some of the supporting cast, though the very fact of being drawn more economically and perhaps therefore bluntly, are more alive than he is. He never quite becomes more than the puppet the plot, and the philosophy behind the work, demand. The prose is... precise, bordering on pedantic. Every clause carefully set off, every verb correctly subjected, no infinitives even within a mile of splittedness; it is as if the words are designed to match the personality of the protagonist; prim, academic and correct.
These things add up to making The Professor a very interesting book if you like looking at books and how they work. It is not a story for the fan of plot and counter plot and subplot and action and suspense.
Is it a book that speaks to our times now? I suspect the inhabitants of Ukraine or Taiwan or Tibet would say, 'Yes, though Rex Warner doesn't know the half of it.'
It's short; if you see it kicking around, give it a go.
Or not.
January 12, 2016
Warner wrote three political novels in succession at the beginning of his writing career: The Wild Goose Chase, The Professor, and The Aerodrome. I’ve yet to read the first, but I observe that both Aerodrome and Professor exhibit an almost fabulist style of writing, where events and characters are emblems and types rather than naturalistically rendered unique individuals. This is more evident in The Professor, where the details of events are also smoothed over so that it is the general outline of things that is most evident.
This novel tells the story of a university professor of classics who in a small country besieged by its bellicose neighbor is appointed Chancellor. The professor is above politics in the sense that he will do what is reasonable and best for the people, but is unwilling to do anything underhanded or aggressive or harmful to uphold his views and protect his country. While his own son—and a large faction of the country’s population—are willing to take up arms to resist the threat of fascist takeover within and without, the professor will not waver in his conviction that any response to potential war or political threat must be undertaken rationally and peacefully.
The professor is betrayed by his lover who had been a spy, and the country’s government collapses from within as conspirators side with the invading country to ensure a peaceful and profitable incorporation into its fascist state. The professor is tricked one more time, and, in the belief that he is being freed by his fascist captors, he is shot down while “trying to escape.”
It’s a weirdly compelling, fast-paced novel that glides along in one’s mind in a semi-detached way, not ever demanding any real emotional investment. It’s as if Warner had been given a mental exercise, to extrapolate a given political scenario to see where it might lead. At the same time, there’s a curious conflict within the novel itself about the irresolution of principle and emotional ties, otherwise known as love. The same is evident in The Aerodrome: it is emotion that somehow is both poison and remedy in social and political arrangements. In The Professor, however, there is no remedy in sight, just the bleak aspect of a good man done in by mean and inhumane, politically fascist forces. Goodness in itself, apparently, is not enough of a bulwark…
This novel tells the story of a university professor of classics who in a small country besieged by its bellicose neighbor is appointed Chancellor. The professor is above politics in the sense that he will do what is reasonable and best for the people, but is unwilling to do anything underhanded or aggressive or harmful to uphold his views and protect his country. While his own son—and a large faction of the country’s population—are willing to take up arms to resist the threat of fascist takeover within and without, the professor will not waver in his conviction that any response to potential war or political threat must be undertaken rationally and peacefully.
The professor is betrayed by his lover who had been a spy, and the country’s government collapses from within as conspirators side with the invading country to ensure a peaceful and profitable incorporation into its fascist state. The professor is tricked one more time, and, in the belief that he is being freed by his fascist captors, he is shot down while “trying to escape.”
It’s a weirdly compelling, fast-paced novel that glides along in one’s mind in a semi-detached way, not ever demanding any real emotional investment. It’s as if Warner had been given a mental exercise, to extrapolate a given political scenario to see where it might lead. At the same time, there’s a curious conflict within the novel itself about the irresolution of principle and emotional ties, otherwise known as love. The same is evident in The Aerodrome: it is emotion that somehow is both poison and remedy in social and political arrangements. In The Professor, however, there is no remedy in sight, just the bleak aspect of a good man done in by mean and inhumane, politically fascist forces. Goodness in itself, apparently, is not enough of a bulwark…
June 26, 2015
Read a 1945 edition Orange penguin series number 482
This was written in 1938 yet the detail regarding a country coming under fascist control seems quite prophetic and you would assume was written post war. Warner has a brilliant political and philosophical brain that created a thought provoking,compelling and well crafted novel. It must have been a fascinating topical read at he time of publication and remans well worth visiting after all this time.
I am now looking for the Orange Penguin of his subsequent novel The Aerodrome and copy of his first novel The Wild Goose Chase that I understand both explore similar dystopian themes.
This was written in 1938 yet the detail regarding a country coming under fascist control seems quite prophetic and you would assume was written post war. Warner has a brilliant political and philosophical brain that created a thought provoking,compelling and well crafted novel. It must have been a fascinating topical read at he time of publication and remans well worth visiting after all this time.
I am now looking for the Orange Penguin of his subsequent novel The Aerodrome and copy of his first novel The Wild Goose Chase that I understand both explore similar dystopian themes.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews