Frankly, this is a very silly book, but not a very funny one. I've been reading references to it in novels for years, and was hoping for something a little more amusing. It's a period piece, and except for some of the jokes about undergraduates (which are not very different from those profs and grad students make today), doesn't mean much to even a very old-fashioned Anglophile with a very wide tolerance for all kinds of humor, such as I am. The main emotions I experienced while reading this were a desire to kick someone: either Zuleika, the Duke, or Beerbohm himself, depending on what part I was reading.
Zuleika is the granddaughter of an Oxford warden. She is also a conjurer, although at some point we are told not a very good one. Early we are also informed that she is not beautiful and has no waist, yet throughout the remainder of the novel she is so lovely that all over Europe men have fought over her and now the entire undergraduate class of Oxford falls in love with her. Hmm. The leader of this pact is a Baron with a full page of titles. He loves her; she loathes him. Naturally, he now reverses his affection; so does she. Play it again, Sam. He vows to die for her (as she no longer loves him) and gradually his disposition infects the entire undergraduate class; they all make the same vow. Oh, did I mention that said barons life is punctuated with specters and other superstitions that will drive his essence? Well, its true! Enter the author attempting to turn his novel into a history by invoking the intervention of Clio and Zeus. Too bad, because now its all downhill for Oxford. And, Zuleika? Theres always Cambridge isnt there.
