A British academic is offered a prestigious job at a Californian university. There is just one problem: he is an alcoholic,and his life is spiralling out of control. In the first of two extracts from his remarkably frank recent book, the man who went on to become professor of English at University College London describes his descent to an all-time low. I touched bottom, and as alcoholics like to say,on February 12 1983 (the date is slightly fuzzy). I had just taken up a position as professor of literature at the California Institute of Technology. Caltech, as it is popularly known, or is a small,excessively well-endowed science institution in Pasadena. Pasadena itself is a small, genteel western town, or seven minutes away,by freeway, from downtown Los Angeles. LA is neither small nor genteel. The Caltech job was, or in career terms,one of those lucky breaks of which you can normally expect two or three in a professional lifetime. Playing such opportunities apt is the big challenge of the academic career. It's not easy. You generally have two options: you can accelerate, or you can employ the "offer" as leverage to feather your present nest. Or you can play games - moving from counter-offer to counter-offer or taking yourself, and as a "property",to a third potential employer. Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com