2015年12月25日 星期五

Books by David Lodge:【寫作人生】 Lives in Writing 2014. Deaf Sentence2008; Small World: An Academic Romance 小世界

    中國可能像日本,翻譯了 David Lodge的大部分作品,可惜他們沒加入Wikipedia,所以我只錄Wiki的日文版:
    デイヴィッド・ロッジDavid Lodge1935年1月28日 - )は、イギリス作家、英文学者。英文学者の経歴を生かした、学者世界を舞台とした「コミック・ノベル」作品で知られる。

    経歴[編集]

    ロンドン南東のブロックリー(Brockley)で生まれ育つ。最初に発表した小説"The Picturegoers"(1960年、日本語未訳)は彼の若い頃の経験をもとにしており、後の小説『恋愛療法』でも描かれた。
    ユニヴァーシティ・カレッジ・ロンドンで英文学を学び、1955年に文学士、1959年にMAを得た。バーミンガム大学博士号を取得し、1960年から1987年まで大学で教えたのち、フルタイムの作家になるために退任した。また同大学で近代英文学の名誉教授の称号を取得し、バーミンガムに居住。彼の執筆活動の文書類は、バーミンガム大学の特別コレクションに収納されている。
    1975年発表の『交換教授』でホーソンデン賞を受賞し、人気作家となった。なお、『交換教授』『小さな世界』『素敵な仕事』は三部作を構成している。
    彼の小説においては、しばしば、学者の世界そして人文科学界が諷刺的に扱われている。また、ロッジはカトリックとして育てられたため(後で自身を「不可知論者的なカトリック」としているが)、彼の性格の多くはカトリック的であり、そしてそのカトリック性は作品のテーマの1つでもある(それは、『大英博物館が倒れる』『どこまで行けるか』『楽園ニュース』などにおいて顕著である)。
    彼の小説中に登場する虚構の場所には、"Rummidge"(バーミンガムにならっている)という町と、「北カリフォルニア」と「南カリフォルニア」の間にある州である"Euphoria"がある。そして、Euphoriaの州立大学は、"Plotinus"市というカリフォルニアのバークレーによく似た町にある。
    彼の小説のうち、『交換教授』『素敵な仕事』はイギリスでテレビシリーズ化されている。また、『素敵な仕事』はバーミンガム大学でも撮影が行われた。脚本はロッジ自らが手がけ、ほかに[[ディケンズ]の『マーティン・チャズルウィット』の脚本も手がけた。
    1998年の新年には、その文学に対する貢献のため大英帝国勲章が与えられた。

    著作(日本語訳)[編集]

    小説[編集]

    • 『大英博物館が倒れる』(白水社、1982年) The British Museum Is Falling Down(1965年)
    • 『交換教授』(白水社、1982年、改訳版2013年) Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975年)
    • 『どこまで行けるか』(白水社、1984年)How Far Can You Go?(アメリカではSouls and Bodies で発表、1980年)
    • 『小さな世界 アカデミック・ロマンス』(白水社、1986年、新版2001年9月)Small World: An Academic Romance(1984年)
    • 『素敵な仕事』(大和書房、1991年)Nice Work(1988年)
    • 『楽園ニュース』(白水社、1993年)Paradise News(1991年)
    • 『恋愛療法』(白水社、1997年)Therapy(1995年)
    • 『胸にこたえる真実』(白水社、2000年)Home Truths(1999年)
    • 『考える・・・』(白水社、2001年)Thinks...(2001年)
    • 『作者を出せ!』(白水社、2004年)Author, Author(2004年)
    • 『ベイツ教授の受難』(白水社、2010年)
    • 『絶倫の人 小説H・G・ウェルズ』(白水社、2013年)、※訳者はいずれも高儀進

    文学研究[編集]

    *****
    這本在名作家的追思、評論中,加入自己(包括太太)的交往,是另類的傳記寫法。由於David Lodge書內的大家之作品都介紹了,等於是部近代英國文壇的速寫本,很可參考。
    Lives in Writing
    Book by David Lodge
    A collection of essays on writers and writing by the Booker-shortlisted novelist and critic. Writing about real lives takes various forms, which overlap and may be combined with each other: biography, ... Google Books


    AuthorDavid Lodge




    Lives in Writing by David Lodge – review
    Novelist-critic David Lodge explores the idea of literary biography in his latest collection of essays

    David Lodge: the best essay in the collection is a tribute to his friend, the late playwright Simon Gray. Photograph: Murdo Macleod


    Lucian Robinson

    Sunday 16 February 2014 13.00 GMT

    If most novelist-critics wear two hats, then David Lodge – as novelist, critic and literary scholar – sports three. This collection of essays shows us Lodge as a general critic. They explore the idea of literary biography, a subject that inspired his recent novels Author, Author (2004) and A Man of Parts (2011). These books lightly fictionalised the lives of Henry James and HG Wellsrespectively. Critics were ambivalent; many concluded, like Adam Kirsch, that "the novelist's wit" had been "smothered by the scholar's conscientiousness".
    In his essay on HG Wells, Lodge attempts to counter scepticism about "bio-fiction". He argues that the postmodern biographical novel follows on from 18th-century pseudo-historical novels such as Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and Samuel Richardson's Pamela. He claims (more dubiously) that his fiction cleaves to historical fact only to supply "an occasional reality check on the narrative"; but his novelistic desire to offer "a different kind of interpretation of real lives" is sincere.




    The essays vary greatly in quality. The worst, a saccharine encomium to Diana, Princess of Wales, should have remained in Lodge's bottom drawer. But there is a judicious survey of Kingsley Amis's life in which Lodge's populism and his scholarship forcefully combine. His judgment that Amis's prose "puts truthfulness before elegance" is finely poised.
    The collection's most affecting piece is a tribute to Lodge's friend, the late diarist and playwright Simon Gray. Lodge, in scholarly mode, gives a close reading of Gray's rhetorical technique before concluding: "You don't have to know your apoplanesis from your aposiopesis to appreciate the effects of such tropes: spontaneity, comedy, honesty."






    這本書的出版方式,採用"內文無字母"法,很不習慣。中國就是有這種純種漢文想法,頁259-275是"譯對照表" (讀者無法知道那本書的作者:天曉得,該做索引;書名的翻譯很難,譬如,The Old Masters 譯為"繪畫大師"也不夠準確、Home Truths譯為"如此真相"類似 (『胸にこたえる真実』類似令人強烈感受、痛定思痛的真相)。)

    Laam Lam 他近年作品中譯也有挑戰,Deaf Sentence中譯本作《失聰宣判》有點失色,陸谷孫提議「聾刑」反而可堪玩味。
    hc: 謝謝,早上稍查過Deaf Sentence,竟然一時找不到確切解釋。下午找此書要點,的確,「聾刑」比較好:
    "....His deafness is at the center of the novel, providing the title of this work of fiction, but also serving as an extended, often funny, but ultimately serious impetus to riff on aging, disability, and mortality. "Deafness is a kind of pre-death, a drawn-out introduction to the long silence into which we will all eventually lapse" (19).
    http://medhum.med.nyu.edu/view/12972

    或可譯為"聴覚障害宣判/處罰"


      Laam Lam 提供
    轉貼:陸穀孫“耳聾判決之後”

    2011-12-21 16:48:17   來自: judetheobscure
    失聰宣判的評論 5


     這是我給戴維·洛奇(David Lodge) 2008年的小說Deaf Sentence提議的書名翻譯。本來兩個英文詞夠簡單的,可是“sentence”是個可數名詞,既不在前面加個“a”,又不是複數形式,弄啥玄虛啊?是要讀者聯想到“death sentence”?此公喜歡玩文字遊戲,像現實生活中的出版社Mills & Boon到他筆下成了Bills & Moon;給角色Arthur Kingfisher起名不忘植入亞瑟王傳奇的典故,等等(均見《小世界》) 。果不其然,作家像是已經預料到讀者的疑問,開宗明義,向準備將此書譯成其他文字的人打個招呼,警告書名難譯,繼而引用《新簡編牛津詞典》給“sentence”所下的定義,其中既有“句子”又有“判決”等常用義項,又有“way of thinking, opinion, mind…”這些直接來自拉丁辭源sententia的意思,跟漢語裡的“思路”、“觀感”等相近,用上“……之後”就是為了與此呼應。在這“一鍋粥”似的義群當中攪拌多時,想出上面這個譯法,什麼叫“耳聾判決”?是夠生澀的。我這兒為了寫書評方便,暫時也只能勉強對付著這樣用了。  

    雖說戴維·洛奇文學成就的頂峰只不過是兩次進過布克獎提名的第二榜,他卻一直是我喜愛的作家。早在上世紀八十年代改革開放之初,他的所謂盧米奇(虛擬大學名)三部曲就引起了我極大的興趣。佐證有二。一是,後來一位學生譯他的Changing Places (《換位》)時,發現我參與編寫的《英漢大詞典》裡有好幾個例證,原封不動地引自這部作品。我一點不懷疑,那是我在當年讀書時信手摘下供詞典使用的。二是,我記得讀完Small World (《小世界》),大概是在上世紀八十年代中後期,曾在書信中向錢鍾書先生推薦這部“現代西人版《圍城》”,錢回信說,我是向他介紹此書的第一人。說到戴維·洛奇作品的主題,三部曲之三《好工作》在嘲諷女權主義批評的同時,又以精妙的“換工”結構,描寫學界與業界的嵌接以及撒切爾夫人時代英國保守主義與自由主義的小步接近;《不列顛博物館在坍塌》和《靈與肉》揭批天主教的生育教規;《治療法》將醫學與宗教對峙,探索人的生存困境,引入存在主義討論時,大費周章給克爾愷廓爾的姓名拆字;《思想……》則把上述討論推到認知科學的層面……然而戴維·洛奇為讀書界所熟知——也是我喜歡他的理由——可能主要還在於他的“學院派小說”(campus novels),那種由CP Snow、Kingsley Amis和Malcolm Bradbury等所開啟的文學樣式,即便在討論社會價值觀時,始終不忘以鬧劇手法戲仿“學院派”,抨擊教師的虛榮、知識缺陷和勾心鬥角,學生的偽激進與膚淺。  

    歲月不饒人。長我五歲的戴維·洛奇雖從照片上看還不怎麼見老,畢竟耳背多年,如果上述三部曲還是“青壯學院派”作品的話,《耳聾判決之後》可算是“退休學院派”的天鵝之歌了。可老年洛奇並不認為自己已經燈枯油盡,眼下猶筆耕不止,只是不到作品寫成,不想過早“讓貓兒(實應作施刑鞭子,但一般人都誤以為是貓)鑽出袋子”(見英國文學網站The Book Depository上Mark Thwaite對他的採訪記)而已。且讓我們等著看他的下一部作品。  

    時而採用日記體手法,時而跳出第一人稱敘事,《耳聾判決之後》的情節相對簡單,再沒有亨利·詹姆斯(Henry James)“舊大陸,新美國”那種越洋比照的手法,也無亞瑟王騎士尋找聖杯的隱喻,倒是對一對二婚夫婦,連帶著他們各自家人的尋常生活,著墨頗多。小說主人公、英國北方某所大學的語言學系主任Desmond Bates自覺聽覺日衰,“自己講得太多太多……聽了半天不知道爭議的焦點是什麼,於是只好沉默,不敢貿然發言……接著就看見某人嘴角隱約掛笑,或是圍桌而坐的人們交換調皮的目光,這樣他才知道自己聽錯什麼了”。經醫生診斷,這種病叫做“高頻失聰”,症狀為嘈雜環境中特別難辨輔音音素,原因是二十年來,內耳毛髮細胞一直在逐步減少。全小說的第一長句就定下了“耳聾是喜劇,眼瞎是悲劇”(以俄狄浦斯的故事為例)的基調,把這句話譯成漢語是這樣的:  

    這個戴著眼鏡的銀髮高個子,站在主展廳大群客人的外圍,俯身與那位穿紅色絲綢襯衣的年輕女人靠得很近,頭部低垂,角度卻是背離著她的臉部,賢明地點頭,不時吐出含混不清的聲音作為交流。你可別以為他是被女人勸來,在大庭廣眾之下聽她懺悔的下班教士,也不是給騙來提供免費諮詢的心理醫師。他之所以採取這樣的姿勢,也不是為了便於偷看女人襯衣前部的內裡,雖說這是他眼下處境偶有所得的一點收穫,惟一的一點收穫而已。  

    俯身低頭原來只是因為耳背而想听清楚對方所說的話,聚會場所則是妻子與人合夥開的一家室內裝潢公司的主展廳。漸入老境,兼患耳疾,Desmond提前退休,在家里當上了多少有些像“買汰燒”的角色——雖然跑商店主要是“為了練身體,而非出於必須”,雖然他的思維一點沒有萎縮,只要給他機會,照樣可就“語篇分析”、“言語行為”等專題滔滔不絕。丈夫衰落,老婆Winifred(自寄宿學校時代起人稱Fred。忘記是哪位作家說過,女人若是使用男性名字,讀者必須警覺,就像下文那美國女生名叫Alex一樣)卻煥發了第二春,事業有成,成了家庭的經濟支柱,而經濟基礎帶動了上層建築的改變,對著丈夫叫“darling”時的口氣再不像從前,而是時而慍怒,時而煩躁,時而表示憐憫,時而隱含譏笑。角色的變換,加上Desmond同樣患耳疾的倫敦老父,固執獨居,不肯聽從兒子勸告,僱人照顧。小便失禁,兒子只好停車用個吹風機替他把內褲烘乾。一個退休人的苦惱,大到名根未除卻無復人理,小到手忙腳亂擺弄不聽話的助聽器,寫得鉅細靡遺。成天讀著《泰晤士報文學增刊》打發時光,或是去“唇讀班”自尋樂子,好不容易遇上個美國來的女生,纏求自己幫她寫出一篇關於“自殺遺書”的博士論文,Desmond不免心猿意馬,想入非非,但是就像洛奇筆下的不少男角那樣,為了維持婚姻,終究還能自持,只不過是給了讀者一個懸念而已。  

    戴維·洛奇擅寫“學院派小說”,固然與他二十七年的大學教師生涯有密切關係,更重要的是他洞察“學院派”的名利追求和偽善等人性弱點,都是在高端精英文化的掩蓋下,曲折地暴露出來的。低劣弱點與高端虛偽的對襯,乃是諷刺喜劇取之不盡的資源。在戴維·洛奇筆下如此,在當年錢鍾書筆下如此,在我們今天的校園生活中又何嘗不是如此?這種對襯惟有學界中人參透最深,但也惟有學界中人在辛辣諷刺的同時,畢竟耳濡目染已久,並不會因此去全盤否定高端精英文化,從而陷入反智主義的極端。戴維·洛奇就是這樣,幾乎在每部作品中,用典極豐,以《耳聾判決之後》為例,他試改彌爾頓筆下力士參孫的詩來製造幽默效果,又多處引用哈代、Philip Larkin、Thomas Hood等人的詩句(後者的A Tale of a Trumpet對一般讀者來說相當生僻),復以貝多芬和西班牙宮廷畫家戈雅(Goya)耳聾為例,說明聽覺喪失本身,實際上也是一種對生活的激敏知覺。即使寫到高頻失聰最易錯失輔音音素這樣一個細節時,洛奇也要引用《愛麗絲漫遊奇境記》中的柴郡貓(Cheshire cat),說它因為聽不清愛麗絲說的是pig還是fig,也是聾貓。然後從/f/音聯想到“Fk you”,而在英語中與這句罵人話相當的應是“Damn your eyes!”而絕不能以ears去置換eyes。瞧,學院派作家在鞭撻學院派時,絕不盡失自己學院派的所有特徵。我覺得“學院派小說”之所以好看,這是一大吸引。換了個根本與所謂的“風雅”完全隔膜的人來批評風雅,寫什麼《風雅頌》來反諷,能如此挑戰或激活讀者的智力而讓他們深有會意嗎?我看至多只能流於淺薄的臉譜化,遂意辱罵幾句而已。  

    “deaf sentence”畢竟與“death sentence”只有一個輔音之差。這部小說也因此帶上生命危淺的悲劇意味,就像Desmond所說的,“耳聾是一種'前死亡',一種漫長的過程,導向你我大家最後總要陷身其中的永遠的寂滅。”尋訪奧斯維辛的一日遊回來,Desmond彷彿收到了“死亡判決”,更意識到“我們死死抓住生命,可力量卻那麼脆弱;而要擦去我們在地球表面留下的印痕,又何其容易”。全書中除了“自殺遺書”課題的研究, Desmond的前妻和他父親之死,都給作品增加了陰鬱的色彩。父子情深的描寫,包括Desmond與前妻之子Richard的聖誕談話,在我讀過的洛奇以前的作品中,似乎難得一見,彷彿作者好不容易拋開犬儒主義的一貫姿態,向著含蓄的情感表達(男子漢只握手,不擁抱),戰戰兢兢邁出了一小步。無怪乎,2008年5月2日《電訊報》曾刊出一篇蘇菲·萊特克里夫(Sophie Ratcliffe)的書評,題目叫做“拔去了利牙的戴維·洛奇”。然而,洛奇很快收住了腳步,就在與Richard交流感情之後,那邊老父親忍不住內急,在花園裡隨地解決自然的召喚,就此嚇跑了來參加聖誕聚會的賓客;同時,作者又開始玩世不恭地自嘲,就听覺錯誤大做文章,諸如把“long stick”誤作“non-stick”,把“Carcasonne”(一種名叫“攻城拔寨”的地磚棋盤遊戲)誤作“our arses on”(我們屁股朝上),把“crap and sargasso”(多愁善感的胡說八道)誤作“Braque and Picasso”(法國畫家布拉克和畢加索);人家歷史系主任太太明明說屋外太熱,大家“...cowering indoors behind the shutters”(蜷縮在百葉窗後面的屋內),在他聽來卻變成了喬姆斯基式形式至上的“…the cows' in-laws finding they stuttered”(母牛的姻親們發現他們都結巴)。此類誤聽妄聽的例子俯拾皆是,足證前面說到過的“耳聾是喜劇”一語。這種板著面孔的文字幽默——而非誇張的動作幽默——恰恰就是英國式幽默的招牌特徵。  

    毋庸諱言,我之所以晚了幾年才讀《耳聾判決之後》,與作品問世後讀者貶評甚多有一定關係。有人說,戴維·洛奇採用日記體,是“最偷懶”的寫作方法,可見年事漸高,不免氣短;又有人說,在從耳聾到死亡的陰影底下,展開滑稽故事,不倫不類,說明作者江郎才盡。還有人說,一樣是恣睢無忌的鬧劇,以前的洛奇作品線索再多,到頭來線頭都會捋得乾淨妥帖,不像這部作品中的美國女生,說消失就消失,一個情節線索戛然而止。我的看法是,作者隨著父親離世,本人耳背日甚,感到老之已至,不知不覺之中,筆法開始變得醇和渾樸。書中自問:“今天我有什麼事情可做呢?”還有老父的告誡“別就這麼老去”,相信都會引發突然閒了下來的退休老年讀者共鳴。而退休教授與美國女學生那一段若接若離又漸行漸遠的糾葛,與其說是“學院派小說”的應有元素,不如說是“後偉哥”時代文學中新出現的一種buffer -babe(老幼戀)現象。讀者看看JM庫切的《荒年日記》以及Philip Roth的The Human Stain和Exit Ghost就會明白了。
    ****
    【寫作人生】



    作者 : [英]戴維·洛奇

    出版社:河南大學出版社原作名: Lives in Writing譯者 : 金曉宇出版年: 2015-5 頁數: 287 定價: 32.00 裝幀:平裝叢書: 上河·文化生活譯叢ISBN: 9787564917883



    內容簡介 · · · · · ·

    作者簡介  · · · · · ·

    戴維•洛奇(David Lodge),1935年出生於英國倫敦,早年就讀於倫敦大學,伯明翰大學博士,英國皇家文學院院士,以文學貢獻獲得不列顛帝國勳章和法國文藝騎士勳章。1960年起,執教於伯明翰大學英語系,1987年退職從事創作,兼伯明翰大學現代英國文學榮譽教授。已出版12部長篇小說,包括“盧密奇學院三部曲”:《換位》、《小世界》和《作者,作者》等,以及多部文學批評理論著作,如《小說的藝術》、 《意識與小說》、《巴赫金之後:小說與批評論文集》等。

    【寫作人生】David Lodge: Lives in Writing 2014  目錄

    001已故的格雷厄姆•格林
    020金斯利•艾米斯的起起落落    The Odd Couple: The Curious Friendship between Kingsley Amis and Philip Larkin By Richard Bradford
    046棘手的任務:繆麗爾•斯帕克傳
    061約翰•布爾曼的探求
    072阿倫•貝內特的系列自傳
    088頭腦中的格林
    099西蒙•格雷日記
    115特里•伊格爾頓向那一切說再見
    140紀念弗蘭克——一個克莫德信徒的話
    151馬爾科姆•布拉德伯里:作家和朋友
    177戴安娜之死
    191特羅洛普的固定期
    203寫作HG韋爾斯
    234致謝

    236索引

    作者简介  · · · · · ·

    戴维•洛奇(David Lodge),1935年出生于英国伦敦,早年就读于伦敦大学,伯明翰大学博士,英国皇家文学院院士,以文学贡献获得不列颠帝国勋章和法国文艺骑士勋章。1960年起,执教于伯明翰大学英语系,1987年退职从事创作,兼伯明翰大学现代英国文学荣誉教授。已出版12部长篇小说,包括“卢密奇学院三部曲”:《换位》、《小世界》和《作者,作者》等,以及多部文学批评理论著作,如《小说的艺术》、《意识与小说》、《巴赫金之后:小说与批评论文集》等。

    目录  · · · · · ·

    001 已故的格雷厄姆• 格林
    020 金斯利• 艾米斯的起起落落
    046 棘手的任务:缪丽尔• 斯帕克传
    061 约翰• 布尔曼的探求
    072 阿伦• 贝内特的系列自传
    088 头脑中的格林
    099 西蒙• 格雷日记
    115 特里• 伊格尔顿向那一切说再见
    140 纪念弗兰克—— 一个克莫德信徒的话
    151 马尔科姆• 布拉德伯里:作家和朋友
    177 戴安娜之死
    191 特罗洛普的固定期
    203 写作H.G.韦尔斯
    234 致 谢
    236 索 引


    *****

    某人跟我說,學界的許多不可告人之事。
    我跟她介紹十年前這本小說,我還覺得這是小巫。


    David Lodge: Lives in Writing 2014

    目錄  · · · · · ·

    内容简介  · · · · · ·


《小世界》是一部散布著結構主義、闡釋學、婚外戀、SM、艾略特、弗洛伊德、3P、符號 學、濟慈、葉芝、杜蕾斯、一夜情、巴特、雅各布森、紅燈區、喬伊斯、莎士比亞、脫衣舞、亞瑟王、敘事學、形式主義、成人電影、接受美學、馬克思主義、黑茲 利特、老少配、師生潛規則、聖杯、MLA、反理論、結構主義的群像之作,用穿梭世界的各種學術研討會聯結起來。


小世界
作者: [英] 戴维·洛奇
isbn: 7532741141
书名: 小世界
页数: 485
译者: 王家湘
出版社: 上海译文出版社
定价: 28.00元
装帧: 平装
出版年: 2007-1

我的漢文版本遠比這舊

Wikipedia
Small World: An Academic Romance
SmallWorldNovel.jpg
1st edition
Author(s) David Lodge
Cover artist Wendy Edelson
Country United Kingdom
Language English
Genre(s) Campus novel
Publisher Secker & Warburg
Publication date 1984
Media type Print (Hardcover, Paperback)
Pages 339 pp (hardcover)
ISBN 0-436-25663-0
OCLC Number 10513214
LC Classification PR6062.O36 S64x 1984
Preceded by Changing Places
Followed by Nice Work
Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) is a humorous "campus novel" by the British writer David Lodge. It is a sequel to Lodge's 1975 novel, Changing Places.
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 Spenser's Faerie Queene. Characters discuss the romance and aspects of that genre in a way that comments directly on the action in the book, and an important (but physically and intellectually impotent) literary theorist is named Arthur Kingfisher in direct reference to Arthurian legend and the Fisher King.
Small World was turned into a six-hour mini-series for British television in 1988.
Contents

Summary

The book begins in April 1979 at a small academic conference at the University of Rummidge. It is the first conference that Persse McGarrigle, an innocent young Irishman who recently completed his master's thesis on T. S. Eliot, has attended. He teaches at the fictional University College, Limerick, after having been mistakenly interviewed because the administration sent the interview invitation to him instead of someone else with the same last name. Several important characters are introduced: Rummidge professor Philip Swallow, American professor Morris Zapp, retired Cambridge professor Sybil Maiden, and the beautiful Angelica Pabst, with whom McGarrigle falls immediately in love. Much of the rest of the book is his quest to find and win her. Angelica tells Persse that she was adopted by an executive at KLM after she was found, abandoned, in the washroom of an airplane in flight. Persse professes his love for her, but she leaves the conference without telling him where she has gone.
Morris Zapp and Philip Swallow, who are seeing each other for the first time in ten years after the events of Changing Places, have a long evening talk. Since the previous novel, Swallow has become a professor and head of the English Department. Zapp has discovered deconstructionism and reinvented himself academically. Swallow tells Zapp about an incident a few years before, when after almost dying in a plane crash he spent the night at a British Council official's home and slept with the official's wife, Joy. Soon after, Swallow read in the newspaper that Joy, the official, and their son had died in a plane crash.
Part II of the book begins by going around the world, time zone to time zone, showing what different characters are doing all at the same time: Morris Zapp travelling; Australian Rodney Wainright trying to write a conference paper; Zapp's ex-wife Désirée trying to write a novel; Howard Ringbaum trying to convince his wife Thelma to sleep with him on an airplane so he can join the Mile High Club; Siegfried von Turpitz talking to Arthur Kingfisher about the new UNESCO chair of literary criticism; Rudyard Parkinson plotting to get that chair; Turkish Akbil Borak reading William Hazlitt to prepare for a visit by Swallow; Akira Sakazaki translating English novelist Ronald Frobisher into Japanese; Ronald Frobisher having breakfast; Italian Fulvia Morgana (a reference to Morgan le Fay) meeting Morris Zapp on a plane; and more.`
Cheryl Summerbee is also introduced. She is a check-in clerk for British Airways at Heathrow and plays a small but very important role in helping, or hindering, other characters as they travel around the world. She loves reading romance novels, especially the kind published by "Bills and Moon" (a fictionalized Mills & Boon).
People continue to move around from conference to conference around the world in Part III. Persse continues to pursue Angelica. At a meeting in Amsterdam, Persse hears the German literary scholar Siegfried von Turpitz speaking about ideas that he submitted in an unpublished book, and all but accuses von Turpitz of plagiarism. Zapp rises to defend Persse from von Turpitz. Later, Persse sees someone who looks like Angelica, and thinks she has appeared in pornographic movies and worked as a stripper. In Turkey, Phillip Swallow meets Joy, the woman he thought was dead. She explains that only her husband had been on the plane that crashed. They begin an affair, and Swallow plans to leave his wife.
Events and characters move along in Part IV, often with direct reference to the genre of romance, such as Sybil Maiden (who at one point acts as a sibyl) saying that grail knights "were such boobies... All they had to do was ask a question at the right moment, and they generally muffed it." Zapp is kidnapped by an underground left-wing movement, but is later released after pressure from Morgana. Persse, who has won an award and got a credit card, has enough money to continue to chase Angelica but never manages to catch up with her. She does leave him a clue referencing The Faerie Queene and he discovers that she has an identical twin, and it is the twin, Lily, who made the pornographic movies.
When Persse meets Cheryl Summerbee again, she is now reading not romance novels but romances such as Orlando Furioso and critics such as Northrop Frye after Angelica has passed through her line. Persse is happy to learn this, but Cheryl is shaken to see that Persse is infatuated with Angelica, because she loves him herself. Persse continues to chase Angelica around the world, to conferences in Hawaii, Tokyo, and Hong Kong, and Jerusalem, but he never catches up with her. At that Jerusalem conference, Philip Swallow is with Joy, but after he sees his son there he becomes psychosomatically ill, which people think might be Legionnaires' Disease in a moment of panic. This stops the conference, and leads to the end of Philip and Joy's affair.
Part V takes place at the Modern Language Association conference in New York at the end of 1979. All of the characters in the book are there. Arthur Kingfisher oversees a panel discussion about criticism where Swallow, Zapp, Morgana, and others present their opinions on what literary criticism is. Zapp's kidnapping experience has cured him of his interest in deconstructionism. Persse (contrary to what Sybil Maiden had said about knights not asking the right question at the right time) asks, "What follows if everyone agrees with you?" Kingfisher is inspired by this question, and recovers from his mental and physical impotence.
Persse finally finds Angelica and hears her read a paper about romances that directly reflects the structure of Small World itself: "No sooner is one crisis in the fortunes of the hero averted than a new one presents itself; no sooner has one mystery been solved than another is raised; no sooner has one adventure been concluded than another begins... The greatest and most characteristic romances are often unfinished - they end only with the author's exhaustion, as a woman's capacity for orgasm is limited only by her physical stamina. Romance is a multiple orgasm." After this talk, Persse runs through the hotel and sees a woman he takes to be Angelica, kisses her and declares that he loves her. She takes him up to her hotel room where they make love, in Persse's first sexual experience. However, after this encounter, she reveals that she is not Angelica, but the twin sister, Lily. Persse feels ashamed, but Lily convinces him that he was "in love with a dream".
Later in the evening, Arthur Kingfisher announces that he will offer himself as a candidate for the UNESCO chair. Right afterwards, Sybil Maiden steps forward and announces that she is Angelica and Lily's mother and Kingfisher is their father, which throws the entire meeting into a joyous uproar. Angelica introduces Persse to her fiancee, Peter McGarrigle, the person whose job Persse was interviewed for back in Ireland. However, Peter is not angry, because as a result, he went to America and there met Angelica. Swallow has returned to his wife, saying "Basically I failed in the role of a romantic hero."
All of the narrative threads of the novel wrap up but for one: Persse realizes that Cheryl Summerbee, not Angelica, is the woman for him, and he flies to Heathrow to see her. He arrives at the airport on New Year's Eve, but learns that Cheryl no longer works there, having been fired the day before Persse arrives. The new attendant tells Persse that Cheryl wanted to travel anyway at some point, and took this as her chance. No one knows where she has gone. The novel ends with Persse wondering "where in the small, narrow world he should begin to look for her."

Biographical basis

David Lodge has stated that the character of Morris Zapp was inspired by the literary critic Stanley Fish.[1]

References

Footnotes
  1. ^ Mullan, John (2001-08-04). "Satanic Majesties". Guardian.com. Retrieved 2011-02-22.

External links

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