Well Vic’s life became awful pretty quickly. As he turns
seventeen, Elizabeth comes down with a case of scarlet fever and, ignoring the
advice of the doctors, Caroline tends to her daughter which causes her to get
sick. Elizabeth gets better but Caroline passes away from her illness.
Elizabeth in particular is apparently pretty shaken up over this. Which I mean,
I totally understand! Even if I knew that it was Caroline’s decision to be
around me when I was sick, I’d still feel all sorts of guilty if she got sick
as a result of my sickness. Victor tries to console Elizabeth, but she’s trying
to “be strong” and hide her grief (though I will say, we don’t really know much
about Elizabeth other than what Victor’s projecting onto her).
Victor departs for university, saying goodbye to his family
and his best friend Cherval, who had appeared last chapter but I didn’t mention
because I can never be sure in these older books which characters will come
back and be important and which ones act more as window dressing for other
characters. So, because it seems we may see more of him—Cherval is Vic and
Elizabeth’s friend who, growing up, was fascinated with knights, chivalry, and
adventure. He comes from a merchant family and while he seems like he may be
interested in going to university (again, could be Vic’s projection) his father
sees the life of an academic as one of idleness that isn’t worth living. So
Cherval, Elizabeth, and Vic’s father (still unnamed) bid him farewell.
Vic arrives at Ingolstoldt and immediately meets M. Krempe
who…. Wow I didn’t think this book would speak to me on so many levels. So
let’s talk about mentorship. I think toxic mentorship is probably one of those
unspoken topics in academia that deserves a lot more attention than it gets. Here
in the US, there are certainly more pressing issues attached to the academy
that may warrant more immediate attention, especially relating to the political
sphere (here in Illinois, particularly, we’ve been faced with financial
concerns beyond the national as our state governor is…not helping, let’s say);
but, I think that as far as promoting the spirit of the academy, and of
knowledge promotion in general, we need to have a bit of a look at how we
approach alternative knowledge, and specifically that sort of new fervor
brought in by upcoming students.
I know this is getting a bit side-tracked from the book but
I feel it’s appropriate given that I know where this story’s going, and
Shelley’s taking the time to give us all of this background. I’ve been in toxic
mentorships like the one Vic runs into with M. Krempe here. Ones where a mentor
tells you that whatever you know is basically worthless to what you’ll be
pursuing. When Krempe tells Vic that everything he’s ever learned is basically
garbage, I had some serious rememberances of the times when I tell people one
of my biggest influences in research is Carl Jung. Now, if I were studying
research psychology, I would understand the objection probably (though I’d
still maybe wonder about the usefulness of the rejection), but even in a more
qualitative field like communication studies, I’m told by certain mentors that
Jung is essentially worthless, and that, by extension, everything that could be
gleaned from him is worthless.
I’m getting way too off track, so I’m going to return to the
chapter. I really could go on about this all day. My point is that I’m in major
disagreement with M. Krempe here about outright rejecting a student’s knowledge
coming in, and that this stuff still happens in academic settings.
I’m lucky that my own advisor is more akin to M. Waldman,
who Vic attends a lecture from. Waldman, while still practicing the more
“modern” sciences, holds a respect for the alchemists and occultists who Vic
read, saying that even if they were wrong, they laid the groundwork for later
researchers, and should not be thought of as a waste. Waldman encourages Victor
to go into chemistry, though I love the way he frames it. Saying that while
chemistry is currently the most useful of the sciences, Vic would do best to
learn from a number of different fields. I wholeheartedly agree with Waldman’s
suggestion; and I realize some of this may just be because it affirms my own
academic tendencies. I may be a communication studies student, but I also try
to read from political science, artists, philosophers, mathematicians,
psychologists, physicists and others. It’s all worthwhile to me, as long as the
aim remains toward an advancement of knowledge, the method—qualitative or
quantitative—doesn’t seem to particularly be of much import to me, as long as
it’s rigorous.
[so I realize looking back over this review that it’s pretty
me-centric rather than focusing on the book. I may go into these sorts of
tangents if I feel my interests or areas are touched upon. I hope that it
doesn’t alienate too many of you fine readers. I realize that there may be a
lot of different opinions about the academy, and some of you may disagree with
my assessments, or my interpretation of Vic, and I’m willing to continue having
that discussion, certainly. However, I hope that whatever may come of it that
the ideas presented therein will be respectful.]
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