Small World

I usually dislike novels with too many characters in them. It makes the story difficult to follow - especially if I read the book over a long period of time - often finding myself leafing back to check up on some character I do not remember. I also find that in many such novels most of the characters are under-developed and leave almost no lasting impression on the story or the reader. In this respect, David Lodge's Small World was a pleasant surprise.Small World is not a long novel (just over 300 pages), yet it is crammed with lively and colourful characters, dozens of them in fact. As the name of the book suggests, the story takes place all over the world and Lodge succeeds in keeping the pace fast enough and the characters alive enough, so as not to lose the reader when jumping between locations and between parallel stories.The book is about English professors "on the loose", trekking the globe in a a frenzy, attending conferences, mingling with colleagues and striking up relationships which are kindled and exstinguished at a mind-boggling pace. The cast of characters is truly heterogenous - in nationality (Italians, Americans, Brits, Germans, Japanese), in age (from retires professors to young and aspiring PhD students) and in personality (from haughty sadists to clueless buffoons).Lodge pokes fun at the academic world and its rules, exposing the main protagonists of this lovely tale as normal human beings in search of love, compassion and social status. It is the second book in a trilogy; I read the first part, Changing Places, a few months ago (and I intend to read the third soon).I found myself laughing out loud several times while reading this book and I fully agree with the observation on its cover that "Lodge combines John Updike's social observation with Philip Roth's uproarious humour".

Close behind a delightful read of Lodge's "Trading places", I quickly moved to the second part of his trilogy. "Places" was very good and "World" is even better.Moving ahead ten years in time from "Places", Lodge shows an absolutely superb ability to mesh the globe-trotting, incestuous, backbiting and networking world of university professors of literature. Zapp and Swallow are back for a colorful encore. For any well-traveled academic, or even those who travel for other reasons, you will enjoy Lodge's descriptions, insights and surprising intricacies, as characters jet across continents to yet another subsidized conference, never forgetting that the rationale for the conference is not what it is advertised to be. As any professional, well-published academic knows, the real reason to write papers to present at conferences is to be able to justify traveling to the conference where most if not all agree that there is little reason to actually read or listen to the presentations.Yet beyond the trysts and tripe of these fools can be found lessons in life and romance, of the great pursuit of life. Look past the lust, the deception and the pettiness, as Lodge presents plenty of food for thought.Lodge colors his well-drawn players with all the affectations of their profession: greed, pettiness, ego, banality. A wonderful job. "Small world" is a great, most pleasant summer escape, a humorous jab at the soft underbelly of college life -- without ever really teaching a course.

I am familiar with the academic world through my family. This is not a glimpse into that world. This is a caricature of the academic life. Maybe in Europe or in literary circles, they race to every conference out there for a chance to visit more interesting locales or vacation. From my experience going to conferences, this is a simplistic view. It is great that it makes fun of people who sometimes take themselves too seriously though and some of the humor is funny. It gets old though, in my opinion and really does not get more interesting or enlightening as it goes along. This is the first time that I got within 30 pages of the end of the book and just couldn't read it any further. I hope it is the last time too.

This is a great book. The copy I got was marred by a lot of printing blots, but it was readable. And I'm lucky for that. Small World is a parody of various academics. It's not mean-spirited at all, but a wonderful riff on and take off about all the madness in modern literary criticism. It may be the best academic novel ever.

Together with its companion 'Changing Places', a hilarious book ridiculing everything from academia, the literary world, several countries, couples, and writing. Well-written, funny and always unexpected, simply wonderful.

A rather fitting description of the academic "perks."

Really weird book, but sort of interesting. Not something I would have chosen, but not a waste of time.

It depicts, or satirizes, the academic world of the literates. Competence, envy, losses and love affairs. Peculiar in the good sense, appealing, very clever. Very Lodge-like!

It all sort of works out but maybe could do with a bit of focus and editing. Still some classic comedy moments in there.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was rich, dense, descriptive, amusing and a real change from what I normally read. A great discovery

Generally over verbose familiar theme of University life and sexual antics. Not a relevant to ethics today and not really that amusing.

very interesting book reflecting the social lives of academics, an easy read

Great