From 1948 to 1951, Tom Sharpe, then in his early twenties, studied history and social anthropology at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He found his college “disgustingly smug”, athletic-minded, and the teaching of both subjects dull and unrewarding (qtd in Brendon 62). In short, he “Hated it”: “Pembroke? Rugby and games. Learned nothing” (qtd in Swinfield). Some twenty years later, his dislike of academia undiminished, and with two well-received satires of apartheid under his belt, he chose a fictional hidebound Cambridge college – Porterhouse – as the subject of his third novel. His goal was to write “a really nasty book” that would “recreate the legendary world of Backs and punts and . . . tutors, hall . . . the great cosy myth, then take the fucking thing apart”…
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Citation: Fachard, Alexandre. "Porterhouse Blue". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 29 November 2024 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=41698, accessed 21 December 2024.]
