Reading the 20th Century discussion

Welcome to our December 2024 buddy read of....




Small World: An Academic Romance (The Campus Trilogy, #2)

by

David Lodge



Philip Swallow, Morris Zapp, Persse McGarrigle and the lovely Angelica - the jet-propelled academics are on the move, in the air, in "Small World. It is a world of glamorous travel and high excitement, where stuffy lecture rooms are swapped for lush corners of the globe, and romance is in the air.

I have started this now. Like the fact there are some new characters.

Looking forward to getting stuck in - but won't be until we're into December

I am doing my best to catch up, just looked at the list for January (not including Detectives) and realised there is little hope of doing so! I do want to read this and the next in the campus novels though, so will jump ahead.

I am enjoying this far more than the first book. I have quite a few PhD students and I am always amazed at how most of them loathe conferences with a passion, have to go as academics send them - presumably so they don't have to - and the amount of travelling. I had one student who had to go to Australia for a couple of days. It would be my idea of a nightmare, as I hate flying and travelling and hotels!

That's encouraging Susan - looking forward to reading it even more now

It's really good. Academic infighting, my world exactly.

I’m coming to join you for this sooner or later, sounds great.

I’m so enjoying this, perhaps because so far it’s all British references. Remember St Michael’s? Not sure when it became M&S. always the go-to for underwear. I still buy it.

Love Marks, SueLucie. Agree, underwear essentials and I get all my tops for work from there. Not to mention the food, which is lovely. Coconut ice-cream is my M&S must have :)

I'll be starting this one later today


Keen to get stuck into more campus tales

I have three or four chapters to go. Looking forward to discussing this one.

It’s great to have so many more characters, but a few with vaguely similar names (or so they seemed to me) I had difficulty distinguishing between them sometimes.

It's quite farcical, isn't it? Lots of people pop up and have, hmmm, entanglements, and you forget who slept with or had relationships with who!

There’s a dizzying number of characters in the first chapter. It’s a fun opening.

I have finished this one now. Very enjoyable.

You’re so quick Susan 👏🏼

Great review

David Lodge is among my favorite writers. For years I scaned the book stores (that was how us old pple used to get books) looking for the red spines of Penguin books that told me a new Lodge book was out. The Campus Trilogy did not disappoint.

Small world has a lovely bite. Most of the satire takes some thought and it helps if you have, even the relatively small amount of exposure I had. I had just finished a Masters, and was involved in several conferences , always as the 2nd name on the paper, so that the PhDs could fulfill publish or parish.

Hows it go? Its funny because its true

Thing is, I never recognize my experience of academia in all these books - no backstabbing, mostly lovely colleagues who are generous with time and sharing knowledge, certainly only rarely get a conference freebie overseas that isn't paid for out of a meagre departmental fund. Lodge worked in an English department, I think, so things must have changed vastly - now we publish AND STILL perish!

One review I read suggested this is a retelling of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales


Is that right?

I've only read the Prologue so not sure I'd notice

Nigeyb wrote: "One review I read suggested this is a retelling of Chaucer's Canterbury Tales

Is that right?"

It's years since I started this (not sure I finished it) and can't see a Chaucer comparison other than the most superficial ones of comedy, satire and people travelling from one place to another. Lodge calls this a romance which the Canterbury Tales is not. Also Chaucer depicts his pilgrims from a range of different classes and occupations as they each tell their tale.

I have had many students over the years who have had to go to conferences and I have been to a few myself. Most of my students are not keen, but I guess it depends on what area of academia you are in. Most of mine tend to be scientists for some reason.

May I suggest that these were not regular academics. These were circuit riders. Always about the next paper and the competition for this or that accolade.

By this time Lodge was a published and popular writer. It may be that he was still a professor, but just as likely he had his own money stream and a ready supply of grant money. This is the experience of conferees seeking organizational officer positions, and other related laurels.

Seeking a larger view, there is a difference between those who align with a party and those who attend party meetings, esp those out of town and again those who seek to be part of the party leadership.

The old saying is now (Wiki)
Sayre's law states, in a formulation quoted by Charles Philip Issawi: "In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the issues at stake." By way of corollary, it adds: "That is why academic politics are so bitter." Sayre's law is named after Wallace Stanley Sayre (1905–1972), U.S. political scientist and professor at Columbia University.

I do like my source notes

It looks like many have read the trilogy.
As I remember not one day of the book is spent on an actual college campus. Part of the joke?
i thin so

I’m really starting to enjoy this now

I hadn't previously read these books. I wouldn't say that David Lodge would become a favourite author, but I have enjoyed the two that I have read.

Still really enjoying this one


I've not had much reading time so struggling a bit to keep track of what is a very large cast of characters but just going with it. Lots of humorous moments to appreciate

Would we call this a farce? Or just humorous writing?

I thought it had elements of farce. There's a lot of people missing people on planes, falling in and out of bed and a running gag about one character chasing another.

Thanks Susan


I think you're spot on, as usual

I thought The History Man was darkly funny with some farcical elements (the meeting) but I have to say that I was blown away by The History Man whereas I have enjoyed David Lodge, but not excited by his novels, if you know what I mean? Whereas, with The History Man, it is a novel I would push on people, especially those in education, where I work.

Absolutely - The History Man is an all time classic

I have just reached part four


The end of part three saw Hillary meet Philip at the airport. Philip was all set to tell Hillary his news. Alas for him, she had some news of her own. She has decided to become a marriage guidance counsellor

All very amusing

Nigeyb wrote: "Still really enjoying this one


I've not had much reading time so struggling a bit to keep track of what is a very large cast of characters but just going with it. Lots of humorous moments to appr..."

Not sure that these terms are by definition, exclusive of each other. I felt that all of this trilogy is intended to be satire. And IMHO many multiple times funnier, and more solidly grounded in academia than the oddly famous, maybe even classic (Harumph) Lucky Jim.

Susan wrote: "I thought The History Man was darkly funny with some farcical elements (the meeting) but I have to say that I was blown away by The History Man whereas I have enjoyed David Lodge, but not excited b..."

In looking up History man, a book unknown to me, wiki give this as a good place for learning more:
Lodge, David (1992) "Staying on the Surface", pp. 117–120 in his The Art of Fiction (Penguin).

David Lodge was a professor and among his other non-fiction is a collection of essays that I can recommend: The Practice of Writing

I really didn't like Lucky Jim at all. Phrodrick, I do highly recommend The History Man.

Nigeyb, I have to say I was thinking of you yesterday. Had a great evening seeing Cinderella at the Royal Opera House, all very lovely, but the weather was awful and the trains were terrible. The people sitting near us were from Brighton and all their trains home had been cancelled, so they were trying to work out how to get home. Hoping you and yours were all tucked up safe out of the storm.

Thanks Susan - I was out and about but only in Brighton


Phrod, The History Man is Lodge's trilogy with a much darker edge. A total classic

Good to hear, Nigeyb.

The History Man is indeed a total classic. One of my books of the year for sure.

Added to my Mt TBR.\Thanks, I think

I’m now very close to the ending of this one. I have not enjoyed it as much as the first book in the trilogy. There have been sections where I have grown quite weary of the constant travelling and somewhat repetitive nature of the narrative. Overall though it is still a fun read. I look forward to discovering how David Lodge concludes the trilogy next month.

Three stars for me....



https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Sorry to have to say that David Lodge has died. He was 89.

Oh no


RIP DL

That's so sad. I have to admit that I haven't started this, or Wilt, yet. Have been so busy that I am already behind. Good intentions and all that.