The Professor Heads Home

After half a century in any career, most people would want a break. But not University professor emeritus Victor Brombert.

"It went by very fast," Brombert said in an interview Friday. "I'm still eager."

Brombert, who transferred to emeritus status last May after 24 years in the Romance Languages and Literatures and Comparative Literature departments, will depart tomorrow for Europe, where he will give lectures in France and Italy.

In France, Brombert will speak about "the prison theme" in Dostoyevsky, Dickens and Stendhal, and in Italy, he will speak at the Italian Academy about Italian author Italo Svevo.

"The larger topic is the impact of Italian literature on Europe," Brom-bert explained.

Travel and literary study is not the only item on Brombert's agenda. He is also writing memoirs of his "earlier years," including his experience in France under the Nazi occupation, his escape from France and his tour of duty in the American army.

"[My escape] was through Spain, on a banana freighter," said Brombert, who came to the United states when he was 18 years old.

"The banana freighter took six weeks to cross the ocean because of submarines," he recalled, adding that on its return, the freighter was torpedoed and sunk.

Brombert subsequently enlisted in the U.S. Army. "I had a great ideal — that was to liberate Europe, to liberate France," Brombert said. "[Joining the American army] was the best way to do it."

Brombert, who was with the first American tank division to land in Normandy, said, "We landed at Omaha Beach. We were the first armored division to land. The division, which was General Patton's old division, was called, 'Hell on Wheels.' "

After the war, Brombert enrolled at Yale University, and after considering a career as an opera singer, decided to become a scholar.

"I was given the understanding that in a couple of years, I could be ready for the big opera houses," Brombert said. "The life of a scholar, teacher and professor was a more interesting one, a more varied one. There is a great risk in going into the world of music. One has to be unusual to make a career. It probably isn't as interesting a profession. For me, it wasn't."

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Brombert came to Princeton in 1975, after working his way up from professor to head of the Romance languages department at Yale. "I was chairman for a decade," he said. "I probably needed the change after so many years. I just couldn't resist the idea of change, the idea of renewal. I've never regretted having come here."

"The Princeton I discovered and came to love is a place that combines high intellectual values and achievement with a very cordial, very warm atmosphere," he said. "What I really value is the joy of studying, the joy of teaching. That is valuable here, and unusual."

Brombert is best known among students for teaching the popular course, Literature 141w: Modern European Writers. "In terms of teaching excitement, it was the most exciting course I taught," Brombert said.

"Reaching out to a very large group, with students with different backgrounds, was a challenge intellectually. I didn't want to talk down to them or lose the interest of students who were less prepared. The freshmen were very eager."

Brombert was praised by students for his interesting and entertaining lectures, which is no doubt why last May, Brombert was a recipient of the 1999 President's Award for Distinguished Teaching.

"I really liked him and I think he was a great introduction to studying literature at Princeton," said Will Knight '01, who took the course in his freshman year. "He was enthusiastic, liked using big words and was interesting. I've never met anybody that didn't like the course."

Emily Yee '01 agreed. "He was an amazing professor," she said. "He was an extremely entertaining lecturer and full of knowledge."

Incoming students will have the the opportunity to take a class with Brombert next fall when he will teach a freshman seminar on "the irony and truth in modern fiction."