Practicing (albeit in secret) what he preaches, Gift is scheming with billionaire Martin to sink a gold mine under one of the hemisphere's few remaining cloud forests in Costa Rica.Ĭloud forests and other endangered ecosystems - are the passionate concern of Moo U.'s leading horticulturist, a die-hard 1960s radical who goes by the name Chairman X. Lionel Gift.Ī self-appointed high priest of the marketplace, Gift teaches his economics students (or, as he prefers to call them, his ''customers'') that ruthless competition, endless consumption, and complete disregard for anything but profits are the sure-fire route to universal happiness. Jellinek's ex-wife, Elaine, has become the consummate university grant-finder, traveling the country to liaise with corporate donors like folksy Texas billionaire Arlen Martin, who's about to form a mutually beneficial relationship with Moo U.'s best-known, highest-paid professor, Dr.

Dean Jellinek, is obsessed with cloning cows and inducing ''calf-free'' pregnancies in them. Bo Jones, who runs the hog project, is ready to drop it all when the opportunity arises for a new research grant to study wild boars in Uzbekistan. Earl is the subject of a secret university experiment designed to discover just how large a hog might grow if allowed to keep on eating whatever it wants without paying the usual price of being turned into pork chops before its time.īob Carlson, the student assigned to the animal's daily maintenance, is too embarrassed to tell his parents that Earl is probably the closest he's come to making a friend on the Midwestern campus familiarly known as ''Moo U.'' And, indeed, most of the other characters we meet - faculty, staff, administration, and students - are a lot less endearing than this innocent, well-meaning, overfed beast.ĭr. THERE'S a lot to like about Jane Smiley's latest novel, ''Moo,'' starting with a good-natured, clean-living hog named Earl Butz.

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