Floating Down to Camelot
Encyclopedia
Floating Down to Camelot is a campus novel
Campus novel
A campus novel, also known as an academic novel, is a novel whose main action is set in and around the campus of a university. The genre in its current form dates back to the early 1950s...
by David Benedictus
David Benedictus
David Benedictus is an English-Jewish writer and theatre director, best known for his novels. His most recent work is the Winnie-the-Pooh novel Return to the Hundred Acre Wood . It was the first such book in 81 years...
published in 1985 and set in Cambridge
Cambridge
The city of Cambridge is a university town and the administrative centre of the county of Cambridgeshire, England. It lies in East Anglia about north of London. Cambridge is at the heart of the high-technology centre known as Silicon Fen – a play on Silicon Valley and the fens surrounding the...
.
The title is drawn from Tennyson's poem The Lady of Shalott
The Lady of Shalott
"The Lady of Shalott" is a Victorian ballad by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson . Like his other early poems – "Sir Lancelot and Queen Guinevere" and "Galahad" – the poem recasts Arthurian subject matter loosely based on medieval sources.-Overview:Tennyson wrote two versions of the poem, one...
, in which while floating down to Camelot
Camelot
Camelot is a castle and court associated with the legendary King Arthur. Absent in the early Arthurian material, Camelot first appeared in 12th-century French romances and eventually came to be described as the fantastic capital of Arthur's realm and a symbol of the Arthurian world...
the Lady of Shalott apparently dies of a broken heart, caused by the rejection of Sir Lancelot
Lancelot
Sir Lancelot du Lac is one of the Knights of the Round Table in the Arthurian legend. He is the most trusted of King Arthur's knights and plays a part in many of Arthur's victories...
.
Benedictus began to write the novel while he was a fellow commoner at Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College, Cambridge
Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.In 1958, a Trust was established with Sir Winston Churchill as its Chairman of Trustees, to build and endow a college for 60 fellows and 540 Students as a national and Commonwealth memorial to Winston Churchill; its...
, and a Judith E. Wilson visiting Fellow
Fellow
A fellow in the broadest sense is someone who is an equal or a comrade. The term fellow is also used to describe a person, particularly by those in the upper social classes. It is most often used in an academic context: a fellow is often part of an elite group of learned people who are awarded...
in the University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
.
Principal characters
- Bill, a CambridgeUniversity of CambridgeThe University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
undergraduate, believes in free willFree will"To make my own decisions whether I am successful or not due to uncontrollable forces" -Troy MorrisonA pragmatic definition of free willFree will is the ability of agents to make choices free from certain kinds of constraints. The existence of free will and its exact nature and definition have long...
, but suffers from extreme poverty. - Helen, an impressionable Cambridge student of English literatureEnglish literatureEnglish literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
. - Lance, an American reading Natural Sciences.
- John, a Cambridge don who teaches determinismDeterminismDeterminism is the general philosophical thesis that states that for everything that happens there are conditions such that, given them, nothing else could happen. There are many versions of this thesis. Each of them rests upon various alleged connections, and interdependencies of things and...
but who suffers from randomness in his own life. - Gillian, John's wife, who sees signs of divine intervention even in the game of ScrabbleScrabbleScrabble is a word game in which two to four players score points by forming words from individual lettered tiles on a game board marked with a 15-by-15 grid. The words are formed across and down in crossword fashion and must appear in a standard dictionary. Official reference works provide a list...
. - Olaf, who always wears beige - "wool or tweed or synthetics, but always beige".
- Buzz, also known as 'The Duck'.
Summary
When Bill, an impoverished Cambridge student, is even unable to pay for his mother's funeral, his thoughts turn to crime. However, a friend warns him that "To have no money is to join the aristocracy, Bill. When the day comes for you to have it, you will have left the aristocracy, never to return." Another central character, Helen, an undergraduate reading English literatureEnglish literature
English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....
, lacks stability in her life and finds her main solace in poetry
Poetry
Poetry is a form of literary art in which language is used for its aesthetic and evocative qualities in addition to, or in lieu of, its apparent meaning...
and particularly in the romantic medieval work of Tennyson. Her obsession with The Lady of Shalott, and her identification with the lady of the poem, bring her to a fatal ending. Helen has been seduced by the medieval romances of the Victorian era
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
but does not wish to be seduced by Bill. Lance, a scientist, hopes to save the world, but the effect of his experiments on Helen is less positive. Meanwhile, 'the Cambridge rapist' is at large. "This is the world of bedsitter girls, of Auden
W. H. Auden
Wystan Hugh Auden , who published as W. H. Auden, was an Anglo-American poet,The first definition of "Anglo-American" in the OED is: "Of, belonging to, or involving both England and America." See also the definition "English in origin or birth, American by settlement or citizenship" in See also...
and Betjeman
John Betjeman
Sir John Betjeman, CBE was an English poet, writer and broadcaster who described himself in Who's Who as a "poet and hack".He was a founding member of the Victorian Society and a passionate defender of Victorian architecture...
and Brian Patten
Brian Patten
-Background:Born near Liverpool's docks, he attended Sefton Park School in the Smithdown Road area of Liverpool, where he was noted for his essays and greatly encouraged in his work by Harry Sutcliffe his form teacher. He left school at fifteen and began work for The Bootle Times writing a column...
." By buying a Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
mask for bank robbing
Bank robbery
Bank robbery is the crime of stealing from a bank during opening hours. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of...
purposes, Bill unwittingly identifies himself with the rapist.
In the course of a week during the University
University of Cambridge
The University of Cambridge is a public research university located in Cambridge, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest university in both the United Kingdom and the English-speaking world , and the seventh-oldest globally...
's Michaelmas term
Michaelmas term
Michaelmas term is the first academic term of the academic years of the following British and Irish universities:*University of Cambridge*University of Oxford*University of St...
, the tensions and interplay between the leading characters lead not only to bank robbery, but also to ritual castration
Castration
Castration is any action, surgical, chemical, or otherwise, by which a male loses the functions of the testicles or a female loses the functions of the ovaries.-Humans:...
, transvestism
Transvestism
Transvestism is the practice of cross-dressing, which is wearing clothing traditionally associated with the opposite sex. Transvestite refers to a person who cross-dresses; however, the word often has additional connotations. -History:Although the word transvestism was coined as late as the 1910s,...
, and a fatal car crash. "From the Whipple Museum
Whipple Museum of the History of Science
The Whipple Museum of the History of Science holds an extensive collection of scientific instruments, apparatus, models, pictures, prints, photographs, books and other material related to the history of science. It was founded in 1944, when Robert Whipple presented his collection of scientific...
to the University Arms Hotel, intellectuals and tourists turned pale. What could have caused it, this catastrophic sound?"
The novel includes many quotations, not only from Tennyson but also from Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood
Thomas Hood was a British humorist and poet. His son, Tom Hood, became a well known playwright and editor.-Early life:...
, William Thackeray, and W. H. Auden.
Analysis
According to one critic, "Floating Down to Camelot is a merciless novel about the loss of landmarksand the state of disorder in the contemporary English society. All the traditional sources of stability... are here ruthlessly debunked."
Another analysis suggests that "the narrator of David Benedictus's Floating Down to Camelot epitomizes the ludic
Ludic
Ludic derives from Latin ludus, "play," and is an adjective meaning "playful." The term is used in philosophy to describe play as an act of self-definition; in literary studies, the term may apply to works written in the spirit of festival.-Homo ludens:...
quest... But the emphasis is so ostentatiously on the comic process rather than on the derided target that the ludic seems to eradicate the satiric
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
.
The book is considered of enough significance to be listed in Graham Chainey's A Literary History of Cambridge. Perhaps surprisingly, the American Jewish Year Book for 1987 considered it to be a "new fictional work of Jewish interest".