 First edition | |
| Author | David Lodge |
|---|---|
| Cover artist | Wendy Edelson |
| Genre | Campus novel |
| Publisher | Secker & Warburg |
Publication date | 1984 |
| Publication place | United Kingdom |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover, Paperback) |
| Pages | 339 pp (hardcover) |
| ISBN | 0-436-25663-0 |
| OCLC | 10513214 |
| LC Class | PR6062.O36 S64x 1984 |
| Preceded by | Changing Places |
| Followed by | Nice Work |
Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) is a campus novel by the British writer David Lodge. It is the second book of Lodge's "Campus Trilogy", after Changing Places (1975) and before Nice Work (1988).
Small World uses the main characters (Professors Philip Swallow and Morris Zapp and their wives) from Changing Places and adds many new ones. It follows them around the international circuit of academic literary conferences. It is highly, and self-reflexively, allusive to quests for the Holy Grail, especially to Edmund Spenser's The Faerie Queene, as well as to studies such as Inescapable Romance by Patricia Parker.[1] Characters discuss the romance and aspects of that genre in a way that comments directly on the action in the book. Siegfried Mews has discussed the novel's inherent analysis of the purpose of literary studies.[2] Small World was shortlisted for the Booker Prize.[3]
- ^ Kermode, Frank (19 April 1984). "Jogging in the woods at Bellagio". London Review of Books. 6 (7): 22–23. Retrieved 13 July 2017.
- ^ Mews, Siegfried (April 1989). "The Professor's Novel: David Lodge's Small World". MLN. 104 (3): 713–726. doi:10.2307/2905052. JSTOR 2905052.
- ^ Cooke, Rachel (20 April 2008). "Nice work". The Observer. Retrieved 9 August 2017.