But soon he meets people: a doltish old professor, a colorful landlady and a vivacious red-sneakered young woman who has a boyfriend, alas, though young Jay is undeterred. He feels guilt toward his folks in Pennsylvania, who are still pulling for law school, and toward his best friend, Billy, who has shipped off to Vietnam. Andrews in Scotland, an opportunity to escape the world, “Walden”-style, as much as to learn about literature. “I saw two choices,” he writes in his new book, “Borges and Me: An Encounter,” “stay at home, where my mother would chop off my balls, or go to Vietnam, where they’d be blown off by a landmine.” Liking neither of those options (understandably), he invents a third: He will pursue a doctorate in English literature at St. Long before he was an acclaimed biographical novelist writing on Tolstoy and Melville, Jay Parini was a 20-something college grad living with his parents, not sure what to do.
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