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The Visiting Professor by Robert Little: book review




The Visiting Professor (1994) is set in New York post-Cold War between America and Russia. The protagonist, Lemuel Falk, is a Russian theoretical chaoticist – the world’s pre-eminent randomnist.

The last thing Lemuel expected when he applied for an exit visa from Russia was to get one. He had been applying for 23 years. On his 24th attempt he was on his way to the Institute for Advanced Interdisciplinary Chaos-Related Studies in New York. Almost the entire faculty welcomed his first step on American soil, including the director J. Alfred Goodacre, Ms. D.J. Starbuck who teaches Russian literature, Sebastian Skarr the astro-physicist researching cosmic arrhythmias, Charlie Atwater the surface tension expert, Matilda Birtwhistle who is cultivating chaos-related snow flakes, and Rebbe Asher ben Nachman – just called The Rebbe – the Gnostic chaoticist.

Lemuel hadn’t told his ex-wife, nor his daughter, that he was leaving for a semester. He only told his part-time lover, Axinya Petrovana. With limited English and only his father’s Royal Canadian Air Force Exercise Manual to study the language, he is a stranger in a strange land.

In the E-Z supermarket he meets a young girl shoplifting a tin of sardines. She is a 23-year-old hairdresser and student of Russian literature, half his age. Her name is Occasional Rain Morgan – otherwise known as Rain. They become lovers and he moves into her apartment.

Lemuel’s obsession with chaos and randomness results in a new order for the E-Z supermarket. He also causes the faculty to appear in court on a trespass charge when he lies down to stop bulldozers from working in a nuclear-garbage dump. His Russian lover Axinya, a journalist, arrives in New York to interview ‘the crazy Russian’ who was almost arrested for protesting against nuclear waste dumping. Axinya meets Rain. Axinya just wants Lemuel to go back home.

Fast Freddie and Frank hold him up, with pistols, demanding his knowledge so that they can get rich. And the authorities seek Lemuel’s help to solve a serial killer case. Are the killings really chaos related, as Lemuel suspects? Will the elusive threads of the killer’s random clues lead Lemuel to the chaotic origin of the crime?

Written in the third person, there are also passages in the first person – by Lemuel and by Rain. These asides aim to add depth of understanding to the characters – their inner feelings, especially about each other – but they often only serve to fragment the text.


Witty and funny, The Visiting Professor is also off-beat, entertaining, and strange – and a bit chaotic.
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