Robertson Davies's The Rebel Angels is a highly symbolic, highly complex novel, which in its critique of academe is part of a tradition including Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim. Criticized at times for being too thematically complicated, it will nevertheless age well. We have Rabelasian humour and Dickensian melodrama, all roiling about to convey a wide array of important themes. Naked ambition and petty betrayals are presented as a part of the university ceremonies, of the college occasion that is held by some of the characters to be nearly sacred.
