Moo (1995)

Moo is a 1995 novel by Jane Smiley. Its setting is a large university, known familiarly as "Moo U" because of its large agricultural college, in the American Midwest. The novel is a satire that uses a sprawling narrative style, following the lives of dozens of characters over the course of the 1989–1990 academic year. It was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Fiction.

Plot summary

Moo contains over a dozen overlapping plot lines and multiple protagonists and is therefore very difficult to summarize. The following summary includes the plot lines that are clearly resolved in the end of the novel.

Book One

Chapter one of Moo introduces Old Meats, a building at the center of the campus of Moo University no longer in use. However, Old Meats is home to a huge hog named Earl Butz whose only purpose in life is to eat as much as he would like in order to grow as large as possible as part of an experiment conducted by Dr. Bo Jones. Bob Carlson, a sophomore at Moo U, cares for Earl.

Chapter two introduces the Dubuque House, a large residence hall on campus and four of its newest residents Mary, Keri, Sherri and Diane. It is move-in day, and each of the four girls briefly reflects on what has brought her to Moo University and their hopes for their college careers. Timothy Monahan, a professor of English, is returning to the campus for the beginning of the school year. He meets one of the new faculty members, Spanish professor Cecelia Sanchez, when their classes end up being in neighboring rooms.

Marly Hellmich is an adult woman who works in the university cafeteria and lives at home caring for her elderly father. Marly also volunteers at her church, where she meets Nils Harstad, the dean of the agricultural extension. Later in Part One, Nils decides that what he needs to complete his life is a wife and a large family of small children. He decides that Marly would be the perfect mate and proposes to her. Marly contemplates the engagement and decides to accept on the basis that a life with Nils, a successful and economically stable older man, would offer her all of the things that she would not be able to have on her own; she believes she will become a kind of Cinderella.

Book One continues with a lecture given by economics professor Dr. Gift on Costa Rica and the economic gains to be found there. The lecture is well attended by students and faculty but during the lecture Chairman X, the chairman of the Horticulture department, becomes outraged and attempts to point out how detrimental Gift's pursuits will be to Costa Rica's environment.

Later, Ivar Harstad, provost of the university, meets with Elaine Dobbs-Jellinek, the associate vice-president, and Arlen Martin, CEO of the Trans National corporation. Arlen, a wealthy but not a moral businessman whose emphasis is on agricultural projects, is aware of the university's budget constraints and attempts to make a deal with them. He offers to give them money if they would devote some of their research facilities and faculty to help him on a project.

Another important aspect of Book One is the introduction of Loren Stroop, a local farmer and a paranoid old man who is so suspicious of the big agricultural companies and the CIA that he wears a bulletproof vest every day. This fear is promoted by the fact that Stroop is building a machine that he believes will revolutionize agriculture. Stroop meets with Nils to speak about the machine and the two men set up a future meeting for Nils to come to the farm and see the machine. At the close of Part One, though, Stroop suffers a stroke.

Joy Pfisterer oversees the university's fleet of horses and is also the girlfriend of Dean Jellinek. Joy is introduced while teaching a class in which Bob Carlson is a student. After class, Joy reflects on her relationship with Dean, one that is strained because of Dean's constant obsession over his calf-free lactation project and his failure to tend to Joy and their relationship.

Smiley closes Book One with a chapter entitled “Who’s in Bed With Whom” in which she lays out some of the intimate details of relationships occurring between various students and faculty including Mary and Hassan, a graduate student, Nils and Marly, Bob and Diane, Tim and Cecelia, Chairman X and Lady X, and Mrs. Walker and Mrs. Lake.

Book Two

Book Two, the shortest section of the book, opens with a news article detailing Governor Early's budget cuts, which include severe reductions for the university. The chapter also contains a series of memorandums within the university detailing the likely impact of the proposed cuts.

One of the most significant developments is the relationship between Cecelia and Chairman X. The two meet one day in the library where Cecelia is reminiscing about her former life in Los Angeles. She recognizes Chairman X from Dr. Gift's lecture. They strike up a conversation and surprisingly have sex on the library floor.

Meanwhile, Keri is failing Dr. Gift's economics class. She reflects on her family's experiences on their farm. When one of her uncles buys out the other, it causes a deep family division that ruins the family dynamic, and Keri blames her uncle's selfish drive for fortune and prosperity and his disregard for the family.

Chairman X and Cecelia continue their relationship. Cecelia fabricates a story about her uncle Carlos and his farm in Costa Rica and her childhood that she spent there. By telling the story she manages to convince X to stay longer and spend more time with her rather than returning home to have dinner with his family and take his children to a movie.

Book Two closes with a visit to Loren Stroop in the hospital after his stroke. His neighbors, the Millers, come to visit him and reassure him that they have taken care of everything around the farm except for visiting the shed where he keeps the machine locked up. He nods to try to tell them that they should look in the shed and tell someone about the machine but they fail to understand this since he cannot talk.