Professor Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld
6 total works
The Professor Dr. von Igelfeld Entertainment series slyly skewers academia, chronicling the comic misadventures of the endearingly awkward Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, and his long-suffering colleagues at the Institute of Romantic Philology in Germany.
Readers who fell in love with Precious Ramotswe, proprietor of The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, now have new cause for celebration in the protagonist of these three light-footed comic novels by Alexander McCall Smith. Welcome to the insane and rarified world of Professor Dr. Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld of the Institute of Romance Philology. Von Igelfeld is engaged in a never-ending quest to win the respect he feels certain he is due–a quest which has the tendency to go hilariously astray.
In At the Villa of Reduced Circumstances, Professor Dr. von Igelfeld gets caught up in a nasty case of academic intrigue while on sabbatical at Cambridge. When he returns to Regensburg he is confronted with the thrilling news that someone from a foreign embassy has actually checked his masterwork, Portuguese Irregular Verbs, out of the Institute’s Library. As a result, he gets caught up in intrigue of a different sort on a visit to Bogota, Colombia.
In the latest entertaining and hilarious Professor Dr Dr Moritz-Maria Von Igelfeld novel, our hopelessly out-of-touch hero is forced to confront uppity librarians, the rector of the university and a possible hostile takeover, all while trying to remain studiously above it all.
Professor Dr Dr Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld and his colleagues at the University of Regensburg's Institute of Romance Philology pride themselves on their unwavering commitment to intellectual excellence. They know it is their job to protect a certain civilized approach to the scholarly arts. So when a new deputy librarian, Dr. Hilda Schreiber-Ziegler, threatens to drag them all down a path of progressive inclusivity, they are determined to stop her in the name of scholarship - even if that requires von Igelfeld to make the noble sacrifice of running for director of the Institute. Alas, politics is never easy, and in order to put his best foot forward, von Igelfeld will be required to take up a visiting fellowship at Oxford and cultivate the attentions of a rather effusive young American scholar. Still, von Igelfeld has always heeded the clarion call of duty, especially when it comes with a larger office.
The latest book in Alexander McCall Smith's entertaining and hilarious Professor von Igelfeld series
Professor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld is not just any German professor - he is the author of that great work of scholarship, Portuguese Irregular Verbs. His eminence in language studies is widely recognised, even if it is rarely acknowledged by his colleague, Professor Detlev-Amadeus Unterholzer, author of a much less important work on the subjunctive. Their rivalry bubbles away under the surface, but is apt to come into the open if something unusual disturbs the calm waters of the institute in Regensburg in which they both work.
One such event is the arrival from New Orleans of two visiting scholars. These ladies, Professor Pom Pom Boisseau, and her friend, Professor Alice Martinique, are both experts in the Provençal language as well as being keen bikers. When they choose to arrive on large, noisy motorbikes, Unterholzer is shocked, but von Igelfeld is rather taken with Pom Pom. In fact, he is very taken with her, even to the extent of going for a ride with her on her motorbike.
Anybody can tell that this infatuation will lead to disappointment, if not worse. But for von Igelfeld, disasters often arrive in twos and threes. The great professor is invited to attend a student occasion in which the old habit of duelling rears its head. He is handed a sword...
Von Igelfeld may suffer humiliation after humiliation, but at the end of it all there is the promise of a visit to Louisiana, a culinary paradise, where important research is being undertaken into communication among oysters...