Small World: An Academic Romance
Encyclopedia
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.
. 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 novel
s, 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."
.
Campus novel
A campus novel, also known as an academic novel, is a novel whose main action is set in and around the campus of a university. The genre in its current form dates back to the early 1950s...
" by the British writer David Lodge
David Lodge (author)
David John Lodge CBE, is an English author.In his novels, Lodge often satirises academia in general and the humanities in particular. He was brought up Catholic and has described himself as an "agnostic Catholic". Many of his characters are Catholic and their Catholicism is a major theme...
. It is a sequel to Lodge's 1975 novel, Changing Places
Changing Places
Changing Places is the first "campus novel" by British novelist David Lodge. The subtitle is "A Tale of Two Campuses", and thus both the title and subtitle are literary allusions to Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. A successful sequel, Small World, was published in 1984.-Synopsis:Changing...
.
Small World uses the main characters (Professors Philip Swallow and Morris Zapp and their wives) from Changing Places
Changing Places
Changing Places is the first "campus novel" by British novelist David Lodge. The subtitle is "A Tale of Two Campuses", and thus both the title and subtitle are literary allusions to Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. A successful sequel, Small World, was published in 1984.-Synopsis:Changing...
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
Holy Grail
The Holy Grail is a sacred object figuring in literature and certain Christian traditions, most often identified with the dish, plate, or cup used by Jesus at the Last Supper and said to possess miraculous powers...
, especially to Spenser's Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...
. Characters discuss the romance
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
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
Fisher King
The Fisher King, or the Wounded King, figures in Arthurian legend as the latest in a line charged with keeping the Holy Grail. Versions of his story vary widely, but he is always wounded in the legs or groin, and incapable of moving on his own...
.
Small World was turned into a six-hour mini-series
Small world (TV miniseries)
Small world is a 1988 TV miniseries based on David Lodge's novel of the same name.- Cast :* Stephen Moore - Philip Swallow* John Ratzenberger - Morris Zapp* Sarah Badel - Hilary Swallow* Rachel Kempson - Miss Maiden* Finbar Lynch - Persse McGarrigle...
for British television in 1988.
Summary
The book begins in April 1979 at a small academic conference at the University of RummidgeRummidge
Rummidge is a fictional city used by David Lodge in some of his novels, particularly Changing Places, Small World: An Academic Romance, and Nice Work...
. It is the first conference that Persse McGarrigle, an innocent young Irishman who recently completed his master's thesis on T. S. Eliot
T. S. Eliot
Thomas Stearns "T. S." Eliot OM was a playwright, literary critic, and arguably the most important English-language poet of the 20th century. Although he was born an American he moved to the United Kingdom in 1914 and was naturalised as a British subject in 1927 at age 39.The poem that made his...
, has attended. He teaches at the fictional University College, Limerick
Limerick
Limerick is the third largest city in the Republic of Ireland, and the principal city of County Limerick and Ireland's Mid-West Region. It is the fifth most populous city in all of Ireland. When taking the extra-municipal suburbs into account, Limerick is the third largest conurbation in the...
, 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
Changing Places
Changing Places is the first "campus novel" by British novelist David Lodge. The subtitle is "A Tale of Two Campuses", and thus both the title and subtitle are literary allusions to Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities. A successful sequel, Small World, was published in 1984.-Synopsis:Changing...
, 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
William Hazlitt
William Hazlitt was an English writer, remembered for his humanistic essays and literary criticism, and as a grammarian and philosopher. He is now considered one of the great critics and essayists of the English language, placed in the company of Samuel Johnson and George Orwell. Yet his work is...
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
Morgan le Fay
Morgan le Fay , alternatively known as Morgane, Morgaine, Morgana and other variants, is a powerful sorceress in the Arthurian legend. Early works featuring Morgan do not elaborate her character beyond her role as a fay or magician...
) meeting Morris Zapp on a plane; and more.`
Cheryl Summerbee is also introduced. She is a check-in clerk for British Airways
British Airways
British Airways is the flag carrier airline of the United Kingdom, based in Waterside, near its main hub at London Heathrow Airport. British Airways is the largest airline in the UK based on fleet size, international flights and international destinations...
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 novel
Romance novel
The romance novel is a literary genre developed in Western culture, mainly in English-speaking countries. Novels in this genre place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an "emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending." Through the late...
s, especially the kind published by "Bills and Moon" (a fictionalized Mills & Boon
Mills & Boon
Mills & Boon is a British publisher of romance novels. It was founded in 1908, and was independent until its purchase in 1971 by Harlequin Enterprises with whom the company had had a long informal partnership...
).
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
Romance (genre)
As a literary genre of high culture, romance or chivalric romance is a style of heroic prose and verse narrative that was popular in the aristocratic circles of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a knight errant portrayed as...
, such as Sybil Maiden (who at one point acts as a sibyl
Sibyl
The word Sibyl comes from the Greek word σίβυλλα sibylla, meaning prophetess. The earliest oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity, "who admittedly are known only through legend" prophesied at certain holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, originally— at Delphi and...
) 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
The Faerie Queene
The Faerie Queene is an incomplete English epic poem by Edmund Spenser. The first half was published in 1590, and a second installment was published in 1596. The Faerie Queene is notable for its form: it was the first work written in Spenserian stanza and is one of the longest poems in the English...
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
Orlando Furioso
Orlando Furioso is an Italian epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto which has exerted a wide influence on later culture. The earliest version appeared in 1516, although the poem was not published in its complete form until 1532...
and critics such as Northrop Frye
Northrop Frye
Herman Northrop Frye, was a Canadian literary critic and literary theorist, considered one of the most influential of the 20th century....
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
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
, Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...
, and Hong Kong
Hong Kong
Hong Kong is one of two Special Administrative Regions of the People's Republic of China , the other being Macau. A city-state situated on China's south coast and enclosed by the Pearl River Delta and South China Sea, it is renowned for its expansive skyline and deep natural harbour...
, 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
Psychosomatic illness
Psychosomatic medicine is an interdisciplinary medical field studying the relationships of social, psychological, and behavioral factors on bodily processes and well-being in humans and animals...
, 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
Modern Language Association
The Modern Language Association of America is the principal professional association in the United States for scholars of language and literature...
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 FishStanley Fish
Stanley Eugene Fish is an American literary theorist and legal scholar. He was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island...
.