“Revision”
by Daisy Hildyard
from the December 23, 2024 issue of The New Yorker
I am so intrigued to read Daisy Hildyard. Her debut, Hunters in the Snow, sounds so good and the cover features, naturally, Bruegel’s painting of the same name. And then she’s got two more recent books published by Fitzcarraldo Edition, Emergency and The Second Body. How come I haven’t read any of her books yet, despite wanting to? I’m sure we all have plenty of these authors, right? But this might help me get to her sooner than I would have otherwise.
Here is how “Revision” begins:
The awakening began for Gabriel in Oxford, in May, 2009. As final exams approached, everybody was talking about the girl who had walked up to the front desk of the social-sciences library and stabbed herself in the eyes with a pen. She survived, they said, but was permanently blind, and currently lying in the John Radcliffe infirmary, awaiting the arrival of her parents. There were rumors that students at Oriel College were being monitored through the bar codes on their library cards, but the story was spun in different ways. Some saw it as a dystopian conspiracy, with data being harvested for a eugenicist research project run by the head of the college. Others told it as a tale of the élite: the students who were found to be falling short would be quietly expelled so that the college could uphold its excellence in internal rankings.
Now that’s quite the start. Intrigued like me? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
This story takes a student’s experience at Oxford, which might not be of much interest to an ordinary person, and indirectly or very pointedly relates it to everyone and everything across all strata of society.
It can be seen as a condemnation of elitist domestic colonialism within society but the more practical benefit might be that it asks a really good question.
There is a fictional quote within a fictional exam question that seems to be asking this key question. “For the poem’s deepest message is not about the failure of any particular historical moment but about the failure of history, and of historical understanding, per se.”
If Oxford is a knowledge repository of history and expert historical understanding which could be considered a failure. Then is Oxford, in the grand scheme of things, possibly a failure and not worth obtaining a degree from?
Is it worth the protagonist Gabriel’s most earnest efforts to obtain a trophy degree that can put the world at his feet? If the world outside Oxford is somehow sometimes failing and people outside Oxford are having to continue to struggle to avoid personal failure, does Oxford have any value at all?
Also this story indirectly indicates the huge amount of intellectual capability one needs to have, to either go there or be a topper in one’s class. Other readers might view this story differently.
Also this story has a Dickens quality about it particularly in how Manchester is used. And how if Dickens questioned the value of the industrial revolution to improve society then maybe this story questions the value of an elite university like Oxford and the whole Oxford world. And what is it’s worth to Gabriel?
Revision is a terrific story, one of the better ones Ive read this year. Loved the line “Thornton looked more like the classic Oxford case: thoroughly adapted to his environment and useless elsewhere”. Can fit anyone in academia today.
Was Gabriel’s error to answer all 8 questions instead of just 3? Is that the wrong wrong? I’m a bit surprised that there was no blowback on Thornton as he might have been suspected of helping Gabriel.
I agree hildyard uses the premise to comment on the social and economic structure
Kind of a spry “small story” that gradually reveals itself to be something larger and more ruminative (without being preachy or didactic). A well-observed rendering.
Happy to find this thread. I was very moved by the story. Has anyone else considered whether Gabriel was telling June the truth about the disciplinary action? Possible he made it up and did not suffer any negative consequences? I thought the story left that a bit ambiguous. I also enjoyed the larger societal themes.