I've found all of Lodge's academic-related novels to be very enjoyable, often humorous and well-observed. ( )

While I don't really see why he's called a "comic novelist", David Lodge uses a lot of irony and some humour in these three stories, each of which focuses on professors and conferences, Anglo and American envy, love, and the spirit of the times. The writing style is effortless. ( )

_Changing Places_

Plot:
Philipp Swallow is a professor for literature at a small british campus, Rummidge. Coasting by on old laurels, he is a good teacher, and not so good academic researcher. His life is comfortable, but not very exciting. On the other side of the Atlantic, Morris Zapp is a brilliant academic with a steep career at Euphoria University. Both get involved in a six month exchange program for professors (for very different reasons), exchanging places for a semster – and not only on a professional level.

Changing Places is an entertaining read that may seem like it will only appeal to a very limited audience, but I think that is an impression that might be misleading. In any case, I enjoyed it.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2016/06/09/changing-places-david-lodge/

_Small World_

Plot:
Philipp Swallow organized a literature conference at Rummidge University. Among the attendants are his old friend Morris Zapp, flying over from the USA, and Persse McGarrigle from University College in Limerick who only just completed his master’s thesis and is new to the world of academic conferences. In fact, he was only invited by mistake. Persse’s life is completely upended when he meets the beautiful and brilliant Angelica Pabst at the conference and immediately falls in love. But the lives of the more seasoned professors get more excited too when rumors about a UNESCO chair for literary theory start making the rounds: it would be the perfect appointment – and everybody wants it.

Small World transplants the legend of the search for the Holy Grail into literary academia which is a great idea that works best, of course, if you have good knowledge of both. I don’t, but I still found the book an entertaining and very funny.

Read more on my blog: https://kalafudra.com/2016/06/27/small-world-david-lodge/ ( )

Changing Places
Although it seemed a bit dated at first, it was very funny. I do wish, though, that Lodge wouldn't keep hitting us over the head with his virtuosity - "look at me, I'm doing a section based on epistolary novels" or "look at me, I'm going to end it like a film," or whatever.

Small World:
It was amusing, but not as funny as I remember it being. You know, even in 1984 jokes about the difference in the meaning of 'faggots' between the UK and the US had been heard a hundred times before, so the same joke twice in one book?

Nice Work
More readable because he isn't showing off so much. Robyn's learning experience as a shadow is more convincing than Vic's brief stint at the university, which seems a very perfunctory wrapping up of the story. ( )

I thought this was a bit of a mixed bag. I generally enjoyed the first volume until the ending; there were obvious metafictional reasons why it was done the way it was, but I still found it very unsatisfactory from the point of view of the story, and it spoilt the book for me considerably. I got very impatient with the second novel, because there was too much sex in it and I felt that this was holding up the plot. The third novel was easily the best in my opinion, although there were times when I tended to lose sympathy with the two protagonists. I suspect part of the reason I enjoyed it more than the other two was that Lodge's clever metafictional devices were not being allowed to intrude so much on the actual telling of the story.

Having said that, Lodge does have some priceless moments which are laugh-out-loud funny, and his characterisation is sharp and well observed. I don't think I'll be reading this one again in the very near future, but it might well be worth someone's time and trouble to condense it. ( )