"Oxford: the Novel" evokes both a place that is very much still there and a mood - or moods - that are now slipping into the past. An undergraduate glimpses a beautiful girl in a library and pursues her into the heart of an inner Oxford that constantly threatens to baffle and reject him. Twelve years later, as a college fellow, he writes a suitably edited account of what happened, in the form of narratives within narratives which together compose a kaleidoscopic portrayal of young people in love.