My $.02 on the Jack's age/university issue: As an American university student myself, I think Jack's treatment in general is pretty typical-- for modern-day universities, at least. (I can't really speak for 100 years ago!) The assembly scene threw me a bit, though-- on the whole it felt a bit younger than university-age. A professor wrangling with first-years seems more like something I'd have seen at boarding school, not university, though that might only have been because all our assemblies are voluntary now. But the dining hall bit rings true; that's exactly what my school's dining hall gets like whenever we have a cool speaker visiting. The gatekeeper bit is great for historical detail, I think-- when my parents were in undergrad, which wasn't even that long ago, they still had gatekeepers and curfew.
Minor nitpick-- when Jack gates out, "the porter" isn't capitalized, but is is when Jack returns.
I love Ellis already. I have a major soft spot for mentor-type characters. :)
"The writer cocked his eyebrow. "Two lectures at the University, and a visit to Boston for the Sunday rites."" I had to reread to figure out who was talking when in this scene. Which is odd because I followed along perfectly well in other places where there weren't many speaker tags. I think it was the use of "the writer" when I hadn't quite turned it around in my head that Ellis = the writer, but this is just me being nit-picky.
I love love love Jack in the gallery; I think that was my favorite scene. And the Engineers-Creationists dichotomy made me grin; I'm at an science/engineering school where I sometimes feel like we view the entire rest of the world (and sometimes, parts of the student body as well) like Creationists.
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Date: 2012-04-21 03:12 pm (UTC)My $.02 on the Jack's age/university issue: As an American university student myself, I think Jack's treatment in general is pretty typical-- for modern-day universities, at least. (I can't really speak for 100 years ago!) The assembly scene threw me a bit, though-- on the whole it felt a bit younger than university-age. A professor wrangling with first-years seems more like something I'd have seen at boarding school, not university, though that might only have been because all our assemblies are voluntary now. But the dining hall bit rings true; that's exactly what my school's dining hall gets like whenever we have a cool speaker visiting. The gatekeeper bit is great for historical detail, I think-- when my parents were in undergrad, which wasn't even that long ago, they still had gatekeepers and curfew.
Minor nitpick-- when Jack gates out, "the porter" isn't capitalized, but is is when Jack returns.
I love Ellis already. I have a major soft spot for mentor-type characters. :)
"The writer cocked his eyebrow. "Two lectures at the University, and a visit to Boston for the Sunday rites."" I had to reread to figure out who was talking when in this scene. Which is odd because I followed along perfectly well in other places where there weren't many speaker tags. I think it was the use of "the writer" when I hadn't quite turned it around in my head that Ellis = the writer, but this is just me being nit-picky.
I love love love Jack in the gallery; I think that was my favorite scene. And the Engineers-Creationists dichotomy made me grin; I'm at an science/engineering school where I sometimes feel like we view the entire rest of the world (and sometimes, parts of the student body as well) like Creationists.