Masarykova univerzita v Brn

Filozofick fakulta

Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky

Bakalsk diplomov prce

2006

Zuzana
Bartoov

Masaryk University in Brno

Faculty of Arts

Department of English
and American Studies
English Language and Literature

Zuzana Bartoov

Characters in Campus Novels by David

Lodge
B.A. Major Thesis

Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Milada Frankov, CSc., M.A

2006
2

I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently,

using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography.
..
Authors signature

I would like to thank doc. Mgr. Milada Frankov for her time, kind help and valuable
advice.

Table of Contents
1. Introduction

2. David Lodge and his Work

3. Main Characters Introduction and Careers

13

4. Phillip Swallow

17

4.1

Introduction

17

4.2

Phillip Swallows Career

18

5. Morris Zapp

22

5.1

Introduction

22

5.2

Morris Zapps Career

23

6. Relationships

26

6.1

Relationships of Phillip Swallow

28

6.2

Relationships of Morris Zapp

31

7. Other Characters in:

34

7.1

Changing Places

34

7.2

Small World

34

7.3

Nice Work

35

8. Conclusion

37

9. Literature

39

1. Introduction
There are two types of campus that people may experience during their lives; the
university campus and real life. This thesis will deal with the university campus and with its
representation in books by David Lodge. The genre of campus novels became popular in the
1950s with the publication of Lucky Jim (1954) by Kingsley Amis. In the 1960s began the
era of David Lodge and his contemporary Malcolm Bradbury.
David Lodge is one of the most popular contemporary writers of this genre in Britain.
Ian Carter wrote that he is the brightest and the best of British university novelists still
writing (Carter 256). Through his campus fiction he contributed to the perception of the
university education in Great Britain. As Eva Lambertsson Bjrk claims: [...] some of his
readers may in fact base their concept of the British academic world partly on views gathered
from his bestsellers (Lambertsson Bjrk 9). By his bestsellers she means the campus
novels The British Museum is Falling Down (1981), Changing Places: A Tale of Two
Campuses (1978), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work: A Novel
(1989). This thesis will deal with only three of those novels; I will leave out The British
Museum is Falling Down, because the other three books form a kind of free campus trilogy.
Most attention will be paid to the main characters that go through all the novels; these are
professors Phillip Swallow and Morris Zapp and their families as well.
In this introductory chapter I would like to bring up definitions of the terms that will
be used in next chapters. First I would like to define the term campus novel as all the works I
will deal with are written in this genre. Chris Baldick in The Concise Oxford Dictionary of
Literary Terms gives this definition:
Campus novel is a novel, usually comic or satirical, in which the action is set within
enclosed world of university (or similar set of learning) and highlights the follies of
academic life. Many novels have presented nostalgic evocations of college days, but
the campus novel in the usual modern sense dated from the 1950s: Mary McCarthys
The Groves of Academe (1952) and Kingsley Amiss Lucky Jim (1952) began
significant tradition in modern fiction including John Barths Giles Goat-Boy (1966),

David Lodges Changing Places (1975) and Robert Daviss The Rebel Angels (1982)
(Baldick 30).
This definition applies precisely to the works we will deal with. All the campus novels are
funny, they are critical to one aspect of life or other, they are all set on university ground
either Rummidge and Euphoric University or one of the conferences and they are all
concerned with people from the academic ground. Martin Hilsk gives us another definition
of campus novel: it is a satirical comedy with strong elements of parody (Hilsk 104). In the
same book he argues that the genre of campus novel is influenced by the fact that universities
gain in importance in the Anglo-American world and that more and more authors of the
campus novels are university teachers of English literature or creative writing. And for the
majority of them the university setting is the only social setting they know really well. Thus
the university fiction is written by specialized authors and is read by more or less specialized
readers and can be defined in the terms he used (Hilsk 104). If we connect Hilsks views
with the life of David Lodge, we see that Lodge really is a teacher of literature on a British
university, he knows the setting very thoroughly and wants to make people familiar with the
daily life on the university ground.
Now I would like to explain the term parody, which is a tool David Lodge uses a lot to
make his readership laugh and at the same time to be aware of his critique. He makes fun
mostly of teachers and uses stereotypes to make them look ridiculous. In the last part of his
campus trilogy, he turns his attention also towards institutions; institution of British university
educational system and industry. Let us now proceed to the definition itself. According to
Chris Baldick parody is:
A mocking imitation of the style of a literary work or works, ridiculing the stylistic
habits of an author or school by exaggerated mimicry. Parody is related to burlesque in
its application of serious styles to ridiculous subjects, to satire in its punishment of
eccentricities and even to criticism in its analysis of style (Baldick 161).

In the next chapter I would like to introduce the author, David Lodge, as a literary
scholar and campus novelists and his work in the field. Then I will describe the main
characters of the novels and also the universities and places they come from. The two
subsequent chapters will be devoted to Phillip Swallow and Morris Zapp and then I will pay
attention to the relationships in which they become involved. At the end the thesis will briefly
talk about other major characters of the trilogy.

2. David Lodge and his Work

Professor David Lodge is a British novel writer as well as a distinguished literary
critic. Before he retired, he taught English literature at the University of Birmingham for 27
years. For the reason that he knew the academic ground very well from the inside, all of his
literary works may come out of personal experience. He explains that he begins a novel when
he realizes that part of his own experience has a thematic interest and unity which might be
expressed through a fictional story (Write On 72). He further adds that he is able to write
about the academe and real world for one reason. He explains:
I have always regarded myself as having a foot in both camps the world of academic
scholarship and higher education, and the world of literary culture at large, in which
books are written, published, discussed and consumed for profit and pleasure in all
senses of those words (After Bakhtin 7).
He wrote Changing Places after being a Visiting Professor at the University of California,
Berkley. Small World is inspired by David Lodges own travels around the world to
conferences on many topics. Lastly, living and teaching in the industrial city of Birmingham
gave him the sense of the difference between academe and industry as he shows it in Nice
Work. The author admits that he is inspired by his own life and experiences, but at the same
time he denies that the features and plots in the novels are autobiographical in any simple,
straightforward sense (Contemporary Writers). In the same article David Lodge concedes
that he has a fondness for binary structures. The two professors exchanging their jobs,
cultures, wives and to some extend some of their character traits as well (Phillip gains
experience and Morris tolerance and humanity), may serve as a good example of the binary
structures. The structure is also pointed at with the characters of Vic Wilcox and Dr. Robyn
Penrose who are juxtaposed in Nice Work and also the Pabst twins in Small World.
Throughout the novels he also makes a distinction between the university and the outside
world and as Eva Lambertsson Bjrk claims there is clear-cut social and spatial division
which reinforces the tension between the inner world of academia and outside society

(Lambertsson Bjrk 10). His aim, as Lambertsson Bjrk argues is to bridge the gap between
the university and the outside world; he wants to bring the university closer to the ordinary
people and he also wants those two worlds to connect, to understand each other.
Another claim Lodge makes is a statement about comedy: I use comedy to explore
serious subjects (Contemporary Writers) and Michael Mulhay further explains that Lodge
uses humor and comedy in his works because:
[...] when we speak humorously, we are not fully responsible for what we say. From
the outside, from within the realm of serious discourse, the messages of humour are
extremely difficult to oppose successfully. Yet the messages conveyed by humour may
have very serious consequences (Mulhay).
This may lead us to the Lodges picturing of the British and American universities. He is sure
to describe both in a rather comical and humorous way; each for quite different reasons. He
makes the point that the British universities are too traditional but on the other hand the
American universities are modern too much; there are too many student disturbances, strikes
and political problems. He seems to look for something in between of those extremes. We can
assume that he favors the American educational system a little because he pays more attention
to making fun of British schools. In an interview with Bernard Bergonzi, David Lodge makes
a claim not about comedy, but goes a step further and tells the reader why he uses parody in
his works. He clarifies that when using parody, the author may approach the given problem
with a great deal of irony (Hilsk 115). David Lodge is one of the novelists that perfectly
master the device of parody. He is careful when using the device not to be too harsh but at the
same time he makes sure that the parody is easily recognized so that every reader may enjoy
his comic novels even if the reader is not familiar with the academic ground.
David Lodge is also a literary theoretician and his campus novels largely coincide
and overlap with his scholarly work (Lambertsson Bjrk 40) and vice versa. He includes the
debate about literature into his novels; and in fact those debates are very appropriate for the
genre of campus novels. As Milada Frankov points out:

10

In his novels Lodge implies and employs his critical attitude to the rise of critical
theories in the academe in a comical mode. It can hardly be a mere coincidence that
the novel Small World (1984), [...], is built on a parody of what Lodge saw as then the
latest fashion in literary criticism (Frankov 57).
According to Milada Frankov Lodge even pokes fun at Morris Zapp for taking to various
theories; mainly for going around the world to conferences and talking about the theory of
deconstruction. Morris presents a claim that a language is only a code and that [...] every
decoding is another encoding (Small World 25). On the contrary, Phillip Swallow, a literary
historian with rather traditional views, is in Small World shown as a more positive character.
He is portrayed in a positive way although David Lodge created Swallow to look foolish and
old-fashioned; in other words he was created as a figure we will feel sorry for. The author
continues with parody in Nice Work where he introduces the Shadow Scheme. It is
employed for the purpose of degrading the seriousness of the British higher educational
system. The university is forced to cooperate with something that is as down-to-earth as daily
work in an engineering company in Rummidge. With mentioning Rummidge, we are getting
to the cities where the novels are set. It is very interesting how masterfully Lodge chose and
described the cities so I will deal with the setting briefly.
The place name Rummidge appears through all three novels. It is, as the author
confirms, an imaginary city, with imaginary universities and imaginary factories, inhabited
by imaginary people, which occupies, for the purposes of fiction, the space where
Birmingham is to be found on maps of the so-called real world (Authors note in Nice Work).
There are clear cues that confirm our assumption that Birmingham is what the author had in
mind. We would be able to make the right guess even if the author did not mention the citys
name in the Authors note. If a reader knows that Lodge comes from and for many years lived
in Birmingham, he cannot fail to connect those cues to the city of Lodges origin. He supports
the resemblance by describing the city as a city where industry co-occurs with higher
education and still further supports the idea at the beginning of Changing Places. He says that

11

Morris Zapps view of Rummidge was a vista of dank back gardens, rotting sheds and
dripping laundry, huge, ill-looking trees, grimy roofs, factory chimneys and church spires
(Changing Places 57). The University of Euphoria is unreal as well as the University of
Rummidge. Since Lodge admits that his works are based on reality, the suggestion that the
University of Euphoria represents the University of California, Berkley, where he worked as a
Visiting Professor in 1969, should be taken into account. Other place names and names of the
cities where the conferences are held are the same as in the real world; the meetings take place
in Hong Kong, Tokyo, Honolulu, Heidelberg and so on.

12

3. Main Characters Introduction and Careers

Until the middle of the nineteenth century the literary characters that came from the
academy ground were usually students and they were portrayed in very negative way in most
works. They were described either as villains or as fools. Since then the situation began to
change slightly. During the second half of the nineteenth century, the situation improved and
mainly the Oxford students and teachers became respected very much. Since the 1950s and
the introduction of Lucky Jim, also the teachers of smaller provincial campuses began to be
regarded highly and the genre of the campus novel as such, portraying mainly teachers, came
to existence. Nonetheless, we can still find characters in contemporary campus fiction that are
portrayed as the fool-types figures; either on the whole or just partly. A perfect example is one
of the professors of David Lodges campus fictions, Phillip Swallow.
The main characters of the campus trilogy by David Lodge are two professors; this
confirms Lodges statement about his liking to have binary structure in his novels. Those two
professors and their families appear in all three novels, although in the last novel of the
trilogy, Nice Work, they appear only for brief moments. Nevertheless, they are the connecting
points in the novels together with emphasis on the university setting, which is also important
in the trilogy.
The first professor is Morris Zapp of the State University of Euphoria (Euphoric State)
which is located in the United States of America between Southern and Northern California.
The second professor is Phillip Swallow teaching at the University of Rummidge in the
United Kingdom. They both get involved in an exchange scheme between their home
universities. This scheme began a long time ago because architects of both campuses had
independently the same idea about their design; they placed a replica of the leaning Tower of
Pisa on its ground and the scheme was started to confirm this similarity. The professors taking
part in this scheme exchange posts for six months; they should also exchange their salaries.

13

But the American professors would not go to England if they were to earn as little money as
their English counterparts in their job. Lodge here tries to draw attention to his personal
experience of the money problem. He criticizes the British universities for not valuing its
staff. As a consequence, the most brilliant British teachers, of course, leave to teach
somewhere in America. In the novel, he accentuates the low salary of teachers in Britain by
letting the Euphoric university pay the difference between what the American professors get
in Rummidge and what they earn at home. He comes back to this theme at the end of Nice
Work when he makes a university hero of Robyn Penrose who rejects the offer to teach in
the United States and stays in Rummidge even though the salary and the background is in no
way comparable. However, she is not motivated by money any more as she inherited a large
sum of money from her uncle. She just wants to teach and to stay in Rummidge seems much
more comfortable than moving to the United States. Nonetheless, the British professors going
to the USA get the pay of their counterpart, so they experience quite a comfortable life.
Moreover, the Euphoric State, being one of Americas major universities, has many more
attractions to the professors than the unknown University of Rummidge. Euphoric State is
able to pay the most distinguished scholars; there are a lot of laboratories, libraries and access
to enormous research grants.
The money difference and also the difference in the facilities give the reader an idea of
the qualities of professors who usually go through this scheme. In Rummidge there are many
professors that are eager to experience the exchange, so the English University is able to
choose the teacher that is to represent it in the United States. The professors, then, are usually
older and very sophisticated teachers. Most of them, as well as Phillip Swallow, are attracted
not only by the background and experience that is offered to them but also by the salary.
When talking about the places where the scheme takes place, we cannot forget the
significance of the place names. Lodge did not give them their names for no reasons as we

14

will see. Throughout the whole novel Changing Places, Lodge employs the comic attitude
when using the place names. Rummidge is mistakenly called Rubbish by Dsire and the city
is really not very nice place as we have seen in the previous chapter from the Morris Zapps
view of the city and Dsires mistake of calling it Rubbish is, in fact, not far from the truth
image of the city. Moreover, when we think about the name of the place in America the
State University of Euphoria or the Euphoric State - it may suggest something about its
character. However, the name does not apply to the university only; the university lies is the
State of Euphoria. From the name it may be assumed that there are no problems, people
experience nothing but euphoria there. Lodge, however, explains his aim of giving it the name
in Changing Places when he says that the students in their Bachelors studies get most credits
for their leisure (15). Under the label leisure, he imagines activities like sunbathing,
swimming, playing beach volleyball and other such activities. In comparison with Rummidge
students, whose curriculum is made only of tutorials appropriate for their studies, the
Euphoric students are really experiencing kind of euphoria during their Bachelor studies. Also
the teachers live different life from their Rummidge counterparts. Lodge uses the stereotypical
view people have about the British and Americans; British teachers are very conservative in
their clothing and opinions and the American teachers are free, easy-going and very relaxed.
The American teachers in this novel are teaching at the Euphoric State; so they are mostly
young, very attractive; or, if not attractive, they are at least catching with the latest trends in
fashion. They get paid a considerable amount of money, so they usually drive very nice,
expensive and luxurious cars and they also enjoy themselves a lot; throwing parties for other
members of the staff is quite common.
There is also a difference between the professors of Rummidge and Euphoric State
who are involved in the scheme. The European professor feels like a boy in wonder

15

(Ammann 122) on his arrival to the State of Euphoria. Lodge gives us the description of
typical American professor going to Rummidge:
American visitors to Rummidge tended to be young and/or undistinguished,
determined Anglophiles who could find no other way of getting to England or, very
rarely, specialists in one of the esoteric disciplines in which Rummidge, through the
support of local industry, had established an unchallenged supremacy: domestic
appliance technology, tyre sciences and the biochemistry of the cocoa bean.
(Changing Places 14).
The older members of the University staff are not interested in going overseas for that kind of
experience; as Lodge states if the truth were told, [University of Euphoria] has sometimes
encountered difficulty in persuading any of its faculty to go to Rummidge (Changing Places
14). They are attracted neither by the salary, nor by the background and reputation of the
University. The characters of David Lodges university novel Changing Places, however, do
not confirm this claim and they do not fulfill the stereotype either.
Phillip Swallow is not as sophisticated and distinguished teacher as were his
predecessors and Morris Zapp is in no way undistinguished; on the other hand, he is very
acknowledged and well-known on the academic ground. Each of the professors becomes part
of the scheme for quite different reasons from their predecessors. Phillip Swallow is sent there
so that the Head of the Department does not have to promote him and Morris Zapp tries to
solve his personal problems by leaving the United States of America. Their reasons will be
discussed in more detail in the next chapters.

16

4. Phillip Swallow

4.1 Introduction
Phillip Swallow is a British university teacher, aged 40. He is a kind of comic figure;
he is six feet tall, very skinny, not particularly self-confident, his hair is receding at his
temples and he smokes pipe quite often. He is to serve as a stereotype of conservative British
middle-aged man. He is very shy and does not feel very well about himself neither in his
private life nor in the professional sphere. He always finds something wrong about his
personality or appearance. He is never satisfied with how he looks and what he does. First, it
is his weak chin that he is unsatisfied with; he camouflages it by growing a beard which really
suits him. Another positive change in his appearance happens when he is in America and,
together with Dsire, gives up smoking. In consequence he gains a few pounds and is not as
bony any more. Lastly he feels that he is too old; he realizes this during his stay in Euphoria.
He envies young people their age, clothes, language, life style and the way they behave, he
envied them the world of thrilling possibility in which they moved, a world of exposed limbs,
sex manuals ... erotic music and frontal nudity on stage and screen (Changing Places 27).
Eva Lambertsson Bjrk adds: He is only nostalgically longing for something he can observe
but in which he cannot fully participate (Lambertsson Bjrk 100). He envies not only the
students, but the teachers at the Euphoric State as well. They act and look as if they were as
young and easy-going as their students; as a matter of fact, they sometimes are. As a reaction
Phillip changes his style of clothing and his behavior to be closer to them. This would ridicule
him even more if he were not in the State of Euphoria.
He has a family, wife Hilary and three children Amanda, Robert, and Matthew. His
family is of a rather traditional type; he, as a man, is the breadwinner and Hilary takes care of
the house and children. He claims that he lives in a happy marriage although the relationship

17

is kind of stereotypical; no ups or downs. Only during his visit in America, he finds out the
unsatisfactory sides of his marriage.

4.2 Phillip Swallows Career

Phillip Swallow does not entirely fit the prototype British professor involved in the
scheme. He is the conservative type but he does not have a field of research; he is described as
that kind of person who tries to handle too much, to read every book, know about every topic;
he is eager not to leave out anything and as an outcome he does not do anything properly.
Lodge uses a metaphor that Phillip Swallow is running between the bookshelves in the library
as a small boy in a toyshop. They both want everything and end up empty-handed. (Changing
Places 17). He is very clever but not very ambitious; as a result he has never published a
single book and does not have a PhD. As it is discussed in Changing Places, he is a typical
output of the British educational system, which Lodge devotes a lot of time to criticize. He
does so from his own experiences. He knows the problem from the inside because he
underwent the process himself as a student of a British university. Phillip has reached his peak
at the Bachelors level. Until then he had to undergo so many examinations and tests that
doing the Bachelors Exams is just about enough a person can handle. Moreover, being a
postgraduate student in Britain is not much in fashion. In this part of the book, Lodge does not
criticize and parody the qualities that the characters have, but what they do not have; in
particular the PhD. degree of Phillip Swallow. He tries to make his readers conscious that the
British society does not value education as high as PhD. and British educational system does
nothing to change it. Phillip Swallow in his student years represents the majority of British
students - he has never been interested in becoming a PhD. student. In Great Britain there
were no pros of having the degree at the time. For most people, it was just too much trouble

18

and some years wasted with a nonsense research. A PhD. student in Great Britain is not
thought of as a brilliant person. He is more despised than praised.
Phillip Swallow is asked to go to the USA only because the head of the English
Department in Rummidge, Gordon Masters, wants to promote another professor, Robin
Dempsey. Gordon Masters is able to promote just one of them. Robin Dempsey deserves the
promotion more for he has published several books, but Phillip is a more senior member of
the staff. Gordon solves this clash by asking Phillip to take part in the exchange. He thinks
that it will be less embarrassing to promote Robin in Phillips absence. In the end, however,
Gordon Masters is forced to early retirement due to mental disorder and the new Head of the
Department, Rupert Sutcliffe, decides, under the influence of Morris Zapp, to give the
promotion to Phillip.
Since the promotion, Phillips career has been going in the right direction. At first
nothing very exceptional happens, only after several years, he becomes the Head of the
English Department in Rummidge. He publishes only one book about literature and William
Hazzlit. The book becomes his weak point shortly after publishing. It does not raise much
attention of reviewers and it hurts Phillip very much. He does not know that it is not because
the book is bad, but because the publisher made a mistake and did not distribute it. As a matter
of fact he will never learn about this mistake. However, the book does become a success later
and Phillip gives credit for that to Morris Zapp because he asked Morris to read the book and
review it if it was any good. The book being on a conservative topic was actually despised by
Morris who thought of it as old-fashioned. If the book and Phillip Swallow are compared, the
book seems to represent the whole personality of Phillip and according to Martin Hilsk the
book and Phillip Swallow together become representatives of the traditional English school of
literary criticism (Hilsk 118). This traditional English school is in opposition to the modern
thinking about poststructuralist theories and deconstruction. Those modern theories are the

19

fields of Morris Zapp and those professors with their philosophies are once again set to be
opponents.
Before Phillip became the Head of the Department, he was scarcely known as a
scholar outside the Department. Once he is given the position, he has access to various travel
grants for conferences and he really uses them up. During the course of Small World he does
not miss any one conference. Other members of the Rummidge staff think that he travels too
much. Rupert Sutcliffe remarks that at that time Phillip Swallow was for ever swanning
around the globe on some conference jaunt or other (Nice Work 63). The staff think that he
spends more time at conferences than on the University ground which is probably truth and
Rupert Sutcliffe adds a further bitter remark a waste of time and money, in my opinion, those
conferences (Nice Work 63). All the traveling is the main plot of the novel Small World
which talks about the changes that happen to the universities. David Lodge claims that there
are no small campuses any more but that there is one big, global campus and it becomes
smaller and smaller because of the advances in the technology of communication and
traveling. Hilsk compares Small World to the genre of Arthurian legend in his work
Souasn britsk romn (119). He, of course, recognizes the parody Lodge adds to the
Arthurian legends. Hilsk compares the professors at conferences to the knights and the quest
for Grail is represented as their quest for knowledge and wisdom; furthermore the ladies of the
professors hearts are mostly replaced by ladies of their beds. He finds another similarity in
comparing knights steed to the aircrafts that the professors use as a means of transport when
going to conferences. Most of legends plot takes place when the knights ride their steed or
when they are fighting; the plot of Small World is centered to conferences (the fights) or on
board of the planes (steed back). Phillip Swallow, being one of the knights, attending the
conferences, questing for the Grail, and giving lectures on Hazzlit, becomes a little more wellknown in the academic world.

20

His academic career does not end with being the Head of the English Department. In
Nice Work he becomes the Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Rummidge. He has
grown older, has shaved his grey beard, and suffers a kind of deafness. Through his weak chin
and the bad hearing, later also through his hearing aid, he is viewed as even more comical
character. Without his hearing aid he can hear all vowels but no consonants and mistakes
words like tea for words like pee (Nice Work 86). He is also not able to travel any more as
a consequence of the cuts in the British higher education; Rupert Sutcliffe feels a satisfaction
at this point now it seems that the cuts have clipped his [Phillips] wings (Nice Work 63).
Throughout the whole novel Nice Work it is clear that David Lodge does not take Phillip as a
centre of his criticism; he is rather trapped with the cuts imposed on him and the University by
the government, he complains that being a Dean in that period is responsibility without
power (Nice Work 87). David Lodge pays much more attention to criticizing the overall
situation in the 1980s in Great Britain when the government of Margaret Thatcher came to
power. Eva Lambertsson Bjrk comments on it: At the time Nice Work was written, Thatcher
policy had implemented cuts and enforced subsequent reductions in staff in the British
university world (Lambertsson Bjrk 107). Lodge, thus, reacts on the situation in the real
world and lets Phillip solve this uneasy situation. Phillip, as well as many Deans in the real
world, has to deal with cuts, he has to force the members of the staff into early retirement and
cannot accept any more young lecturers. It is the case of Robyn Penrose in Nice Work who is
able to get only a temporal appointment after a long search but no permanent one, no matter
how good she is. Lodge seems to create Robyn as a character that should represent his views
on schooling. He seems to have the idea that university teachers should be sure of their jobs;
otherwise they cannot pay full attention to their teaching and research. He puts Vic Wilcox to
the opposition to Robyn. He as a businessman stands for the opinion that the rule of supply
and demand is the best one even in the case of universities.

21

5. Morris Zapp

5.1 Introduction
Morris is also an university professor but he is the opposite of Phillip Swallow in
many respects; only their age is the same. Daniel Ammann describes Morris Zapp in his work
David Lodge and the Art-and-Reality Novel as always chewing a fat cigar, wisecracking
even in grotesque situations (87). As when being kidnapped in Italy or when he was the only
man on a plane and found out that all the women there were going to have abortion in
England, his response was quite amusing: Holy mackerel! (Changing Places 30). He seems
to be a very confident man, because Morris Zapp never apologized (Changing Places 12),
he gives a famous Zapp Stare (Changing Places 12) instead. He is not afraid of flying in
general; but as he has never flown across the ocean and can not swim, he feels not very
comfortable on the plane. He looks for a life jacket on the plane and almost starts panic when
he is not able to touch it under his seat. Only a lot later does he realize the fact that he is the
only male on board. He introduces himself to his neighbor, Mary Makepeace, and later in the
story he helps her out of troubles and proves not to be as cruel and insensitive to women as his
wife says about him.
As well as Phillip Swallow, he has a family. He has a daughter from his first marriage;
she uses the name of her mother, Melanie Byrd, because she studies at the Euphoric State and
does not want to be associated with Morris Zapp. At present, he is married to Dsire who has
a very sharp mind, ideas and tongue too. She has decided to divorce him because of his
constant affairs with female students and because she has decided to take part in the Women
Liberation Movement. Morris tried to talk her out of divorcing him at the present time and
wait for six months to give their marriage second chance. She agrees with the six months
delay but says that she will divorce him anyway and that it is not important whether it is now

22

or later. They have two children, twins Elizabeth and Darcy. Their names are influenced by
Morriss scholarly field; he is a Jane Austen man at the time of their birth. This takes us to the
career of this very well-known and acknowledged scholar.

5.2 Morris Zapps Career

Morris Zapp is a highly valued specialist in his field, although he changes his
scholarly field during the trilogy. He starts as a Jane Austen man and ends up as a specialist in
deconstruction. The author says, as well as he says about Phillip Swallow, that he is a typical
product of the educational system in his country:
In America it is not too difficult to obtain a bachelors degree. The student is left very
much to his own devices, he accumulates the necessary credits at his leisure, cheating
is easy, and there is not much suspense or anxiety about the eventual outcome. He (or
she) is therefore free to give full attention to the normal interests of late adolescence
sport, alcohol, entertainment and the opposite sex. It is at the postgraduate level that
the pressure really begins, when the student is burnished and tempered in a series of
gruelling courses and rigorous assessments until he is deemed worthy to receive the
accolade of the PhD. By now he has invested so much time and money in the process
that any career other than an academic one has become unthinkable (Changing
Places 15).
Morris has gone through the exact process of American schooling. He already published
articles while he was still a graduate student; till now he has written five outstanding books,
four are devoted to Jane Austen and as he claims there is nothing more that could be written
about her from the point of view that he took. To confirm his exceptionality, he was offered a
first job at the Euphoric State which is one of the American leading universities. Other, less
brilliant professors started their career usually by teaching on smaller campuses and only
after a while they could proceed to better paid jobs and more well-known universities. In the
course of Small World the question of UNESCO Chair of Literary Criticism comes up. Until
then the dream of Morris Zapp was to become the best paid professor in the world. At
present, he could be regarded as one of the professors with the biggest salary already. When
he realizes that he could now fulfill the dream, without moving anywhere and without taking

23

a huge burden of work, he becomes interested in the chair. He is never mentioned as getting
the UNESCO Chair, but in Nice Work he admits achieving his goal: I have a contract with
Euphoric State that says nobody in the humanities is to be paid more than me (Nice Work
329). Morris Zapp is a prototype of a scholar. Martin Hilsk argues that professors have the
character trait of smallness; they are all very emulative, envious and their only aim is a quest
for reputation and the knowledge of the latest literary criticism (Hilsk 117).
When writing Small World, David Lodge has probably paid much attention to the
present state of criticism and he chooses to talk about the fashionable fields. He, as shown on
the character of Morris, shifted his interest from literature and literary texts towards linguistic
topics, post structuralism and the theory of deconstruction. Eva Lambertsson Bjrk says that
the campus tales become increasingly pre-occupied with metafictional concerns, theory and
intertexts (Lambertsson Bjrk 40). Morris Zapp, like many other characters, is attracted by
the theory of codes and he loses interest in the work of Jane Austen. On this example we may
see how David Lodge puts Morris and Phillip in opposite. Morris Zapp keeps pace with the
period and its fashion; as a result he changes his academic interests. He leaves the theme of
Jane Austen and also abandons his dream of writing everything about Jane Austen and her
works from every possible point of view and begins to pay attention to post stucturalist
theories as it becomes a fashionable topic in academic circles. Phillip Swallow, on the other
hand, never intervenes into the discussion on the topic of deconstruction and post
structuralism. He is faithful to reading literary works for their meaning not because he would
like to talk about decoding all the meanings involved. According to Martin Hilsk it is very
interesting that an author (David Lodge participates in the discussion about post
structuralism) is able to make such a good parody of something of what he is part of (Hilsk
118). David Lodge, as a literary critic, discusses the theory of deconstruction, but from the
novel Small World a reader could say that he is in favor of the traditional approach

24

represented by Phillip Swallow. We can make this conclucion because the author promotes
Phillip within the university as well as he makes him more acknowledged in the world.
Phillip even gets a nomination for the UNESCO Chair of Literary Criticism.

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6. Relationships
When talking about relationships in these campus novels, I would like to concentrate
on the relationships that develop on the university ground or are connected with the setting.
Those relationships can be either between colleagues or lovers. At any rate, the relationships
dealt with in the campus trilogy are mostly of sexual nature. Those relationships may be of
various character; they may have a very short duration or a very long one; they can be very
calm or extremely intensive, there may or may not be love involved, they may be kept in
secret or not and also there may be a child as an outcome of the relationship or the
relationships may end without an offspring.
It is not to surprise us that neither of the main characters has a really good friend. The
relationships on academic ground are mainly described as rivalry not as friendships. It is
natural that each of the teachers wants to be the best one and they do not count on loyalty and
friendships. The case is worse with ambitious Morris Zapp than subservient Phillip Swallow
who is not an ambitious and thus more likely to keep a friend. Nonetheless, I would like to
talk more about the sexual relationships of the main characters, sometimes their adulteries.
David Lodge again reacts to the situation at the time when his works were written. He
is a religious person and here he brings in the question of religion. He mostly uses the views
he himself experienced the views of a Christian. In Changing Places he describes Phillip as
a very shy man. He is, in fact, rather conservative. He is used as a tool for the author to point
at the difference between America and Great Britain in the 1970s. Britain was much more
conservative country because many of its people were religious. It was quite common for the
pious inhabitants not to have sex before getting married and the divorce was, among them,
still considered as something immoral and as something that is not right. David Lodge also
takes into account that the characters of his novels are not brought up in the liberal 1970s. At
that time they are in their forties or so, so they still keep part of the morals they were brought

26

up in. Those views are rooted so deeply in David Lodge and the British society that we can
spot some signs of it much later in Nice Work when the idea of divorce comes to Victor
Wilcoxs mind then the author says this: Vic had old-fashioned ideas about marriage. A wife
was not like a car. you couldnt part-exchange her when the novelty wore off, or the
bodywork started to go. If you discovered youd made a mistake, too bad, you just had to live
with it (Nice Work 165). As a total opposite seem the morals and character of people in the
United States of America. People, even older ones, who were also brought up in a
conservative manner, are much more open to changes. America just went through sexual
revolution and not only youngsters adapted to it. Even the middle-aged people, as Morris and
Dsire enjoy the benefits that the revolution brought them. They and other people in the
United States are, in no way, conservative. The fashion is also a lot more provocative. The
older people familiarized themselves also with the more open view of sex as well and also
transformed their ideas about divorces, so the divorce rate is incomparably higher within the
same age group.
Thus in Changing Places the sexual relationships taking place in Rummidge are rather
hidden from the public nobody knows for sure that Morris Zapp has an affair with Hillary
Swallow; there are only the rumors. On the other hand the relationships in Euphoria are not
hidden at all. Phillip even states in Changing Places that telling the truth with a jesting air
was, he [Phillip] had discovered, the safest way of protecting your secrets in Euphoria
(Changing Places 187). So Phillip went around the University and admitted living with
Dsire Zapp. He was never actually asked whether he had an affair with her or not and he
never dared to open his heart to anybody.
The situation becomes a little different as we proceed to Small World and the 1980s.
In Small World, as we notice, Lodge pays much more attention to lovers and their affairs. This
is his response to the transformation of the reception of sex in the United Kingdom. Under the

27

influence of the United States, the British also experience a revolution in sex and relationships
and as some could say; their morals are on the decline. Lodge in Small World describes sex
and relationships in the most open way from all three of the books.
In Nice Work the sexual relationship becomes still different. Usually it was the man
who started them and took advantage of them. Here, the feminist scholar, Robyn Penrose is
the one who is in favor of plain sex; she does not want to continue in a relationship with Vic
Wilcox, who is in love with her and is determined to get divorced and marry her. She
constantly tries to send him away but he follows her as a faithful dog (Nice Work 349).
In the next subchapters I will describe the relationships and adulteries of Phillip
Swallow at first and then those of Morris Zapp.

6.1 Relationships of Phillip Swallow

The British professor Phillip Swallow, as I already mentioned at the beginning, is not a
particularly self-confident man, he thinks that he lives in a happy home with his wife and
children. He is a very faithful and loving husband, who never thought about being unfaithful
to his wife, at least until his departure for the American journey.
Just as he rents an apartment in a slide area of Plotinus, he takes liking to a girl living
downstairs. Her name is Melanie Byrd. This is a funny moment since she is a daughter of
Morris Zapp and he is later involved in an affair with Morriss wife. One night, he comes back
to his apartment from a party thrown by one of the Euphoric State staff. He is keyless and a
little drunk; then he is invited to a party with the youths downstairs. He joins them and gets a
little high and even more drunk. During the party it is for the first moment he feels that he
could be part of the youth group; he participates in all activities; only when the youths are
about to start an orgy he stands up and leaves. Melanie asks him whether she could possibly
stay over night at his place and he puts her up for the night in his study. During that night they

28

make love. It is the first time that Phillip was unfaithful to Hilary and is confused. He admits
to Melanie that he is a kind of virgin; it was the first time he made love to a woman apart from
his wife. As a matter of fact, we can find two more virgins in the trilogy. The first is Persse
McGarrigle in Small World; he is a virgin in a very literal sense of the word and also a virgin
in post structuralism. Then there is one virgin similar to Phillip Swallow. It is Victor Wilcox in
Nice Work. He, similarly as Phillip, admits that Ive never slept with a woman other than my
wife (Nice Work 255). Those characters have one thing in common. All of them lose their
virginities earlier or later during the story and none of the women, who they lose their
virginities with, seems to be in favour of the pair staying together. Melanie Byrd tries to avoid
contact with Phillip and finds a new boyfriend, Lily Pabst leaves and Robyn Penrose does not
believe in the concept of love at all.
After Phillip slept with Melanie, he feels guilty and sends Hilary a bunch of flowers
and a letter with his confession. He, however, falls in love with Melanie and becomes
obsessed with her. He even lets her new boyfriend, Charles Boon, whose company he does
not enjoy, to live in his apartment in a spare room. He gets involved in the disturbances over
the Garden only to be close to her. Shortly after this affair, we are still dealing with Phillip
who is really much the same man that left Britain. Things begin to change when Phillip starts
a relationship with Morris Zapps wife Dsire.
With Dsire his character slowly starts to change. Phillip moves to Dsires house
because his apartment, standing on the slide area, really moved and slid by several meters and
the whole house became unsuitable for further accommodation. The relationship starts in a
rather strange way. Most of the other affairs in the trilogy start with the two people making
love together, as Joy and Phillip, Melanie and Phillip, Morris and Fulvia, Rodney Wainwright
and Sandra Dix, and many others. Then the relationship either develops or the couple splits.
Nevertheless, Dsire and Phillip live together for quite a while without having sex, like a

29

brother and sister and they both seem to like it this way. However, couple of weeks later the
relationship becomes a sexual one and Dsire does not conceal her disappointment over it:
Now were having an affair, like everybody else. How banal (Changing Places 185). While
living with Dsire, Phillip gains a few pounds in weight and much confidence; he realizes
the mistakes that he and Hilary had made during their marriage. He experiences something
new and exciting and unfortunately forgets and detests his old way of living. He does not
really want to go back to England because he fears that he will become that quiet, frightened
and conservative professor as he had been before he arrived in America. It is the first time in
the trilogy that Phillip is a little satisfied with himself and feels that his life is going in the
right direction.
There is one more turning point as to Phillips relationship to women. As he becomes
the Head of the Department, he is allowed to travel a lot to various conferences and enjoys the
free mood that rules them. Morris Zapps claim confirms the mood, he says: Nobody pays to
get laid at a conference (Small World 237). David Lodge makes a comment on the topic of
academic discussion and sex existing side to side at conferences. In Write On Lodge claims
that it is precisely the tension between professional self-display and erotic opportunity [...]
that, among other things, makes the conference such a fascinating human spectacle, and such
rich material for fiction (71). In Small World Phillip kind of enjoys those pleasures in full; in
Nice Work, his colleague, Rupert Sutcliffe explains to Robyn that Phillip has a bit weakness
where women are concerned (63). It is true, but Phillip does not experience this weakness
only at the conferences, he also had affairs with his students in Rummidge, for example with
Sandra Dix who then tried to blackmail him and the University. Nevertheless, his affair with a
married woman, Joy Simpson, may be pointed at as an example of his conference sins. They
meet when he is about to go home from one of his conferences in Italy but his plane has an
accident. Joys husband, the British Council man, came to pick him up at the airport at night

30

and offered him to spend the night in his house. J. K. Simpson had to leave for some other
place during the night and Phillip used the situation for the affair. This affair, however, is one
which continues; the lovers meet at conferences. Three years from its beginning, Phillip learns
that Joys daughter, Miranda, is also his daughter. But eventually, he loses them because he is
not able to divorce Hilary and continues to live with her.
All Phillips extramarital relationships through the novels have something in common.
Hilary never seems to be angry with him and never thinks of divorcing him, except when she
is in love with Morris Zapp. And one more thing, all the affairs take place away from his
house. At first, there are the two affairs in America, then Joy Simpson in Italy with who
Phillip meets on various conferences and some affairs take place on the university ground; he
has never had a lover to come to his house. Lastly, all the relationships eventually end and
Phillip comes home back to Hilary, his loving wife.

6.2 Relationships of Morris Zapp

Morris Zapps relationships are different from Phillips as their character traits differ
completely. He does not have many friends from his field. He is very competitive and always
wants to be the best and most of the time he is successful in it. For the professors are usually
competitive and very jealous of the others achievements, it is not an easy job to make friends
of the people you defeated on the academy ground. As I have said at the beginning he does
not have a particularly good relationship with his wife, who has decided to divorce him. She
has a good reason for doing so, one could say. Her husband, like many other teachers within
the University of Euphoria, took the advantage of being a distinguished scholar and had
several affairs with his students. In Euphoria, Morris has few acquaintances there, all of them
are his fellow teachers, for example professor Hogan, Howard Ringbaum and Sy Gootblatt.

31

On a plane, flying to Rummidge for the first time, he talks to one of the woman, Mary
Makepeace and it is the first time that Morris talks to a single woman and does not want to
sleep with her. Well, only after he learns that she is pregnant. It is also one of few
relationships in the trilogy that is between man and a woman and is just a friendly one. Morris
helps her by persuading Hilary to let her live in the house and give birth to her child. Morriss
other relationships are sexual ones. We can talk about his affair with Hilary, the only woman
in England. He could not resist and broke his promise to himself that he will not have sex
during his teaching in Britain. He wanted to show Dsire his determination to save their
marriage and show her that he has changed. His plan failed.
Morris also makes acquaintances among the Rummidge staff. At first they seem to
keep a distance between him and themselves. They talk to each other but take no notice of
Morris. He feels lonely and when Hilary comes to his office to look for a book and leaves so
early without an invitation to dinner or something, he feels desperate. He does not only miss
company of a person apart from Dr. OShea, he also longs for a home-made meal he was
tiring rapidly of TV dinners and Asian restaurants, which was all Rummidge seemed to offer
the single man (Changing Places 87). The staffs attitude changed when the Head of the
Department, Gordon Masters, comes from his hunting trip. All of the sudden, the teachers
notice Morris and start to be very friendly:
Evidently the return of Professor Masters was the signal for which the rest of the
faculty had been waiting. It was as if some obscure taboo had restrained them from
introducing themselves before their chief had formally received him into the tribe.
Now, in the Senior Common Room, they hurried forward and clustered around
Morriss chair, smiling and chattering, pressing upon him cups of tea and chocolate
cookies, asking him about his journey, his health, his work in progress, offering him
belated advice about accommodation and discreetly interpreting the strangled
utterances of Gordon Masters for his benefit (Changing Places 89).
Gordon Masters was really as a chief of a tribe. He ruled the whole university and nobody
dared to oppose him in any issue. He is said to forget himself in a war or on a hunting trip and
order everybody; he never asks anybody to do anything. The teachers, thus, seem to be affraid

32

to talk to Morris until they have the permission from Gordon. Once they are permitted to
talk to him, they throw away their British calmness and welcome him wholeheartedly; they
also offer help and advice to the newcomer. After the early retirement of Gordon Masters, the
University lacks any rule and Morris is seen as an experienced advisor. They start to rely on
him and at the end of the period designed for him to stay in England, he is offered a job in
Rummidge. He does not make any more acquaintances on the academic ground during Small
World because he is a very competitive man. The only person that could be regarded as a
friend to him is Persse McGarrigle for whom Morris become a kind of advisor, guide and
support at the conferences.
He also has sexual relationships during the course of the trilogy. The first is the Italian
scholar Fulvia Morgana, who has a name derived from the famous witch of Arthurian legends.
She is also portrayed as one; and Lodge also uses here the stereotypical viewing of
successful female intellectuals [who] are necessarily either frigid or sexually deviant in one
way or another (Lambertsson Bjrk 120). Lambertsson Bjrk sees another example of
sexually deviant woman in Robyn Penrose. She also does not fulfill the stereotypical view
of a woman wanting to find the man of her dream and live happilly ever after. She is quite
independent and skeptical about love relationship and it serves as a good character trait for
Lodge to poke fun of.

33

7. Other Characters in
7.1 Changing Places
This novel is wholly devoted to the main characters I was talking about earlier.
Nevertheless, there are some more characters that are interesting to mention. Hilary Swallow
and Dsire Zapp in particular. Those two women do not have much in common; the only
exception is that they like the husband of the other. Dsire is a strong feminist who is
interested in writing her book about men and in Nice Work she is acknowledged by Robyn
Penrose as a representative of vulgar feminism (322). Hilary, on the other hand, takes care
of her family as a perfect woman. She devoted her whole life to her family, never finished her
studies because she married Phillip and had children with him. Only later in the story she
employs herself with marriage guidance and she is successful in her job for she saves her
own marriage.

7.2 Small World

The novel Small World is the novel from the trilogy where David Lodge employs most
characters. The most prominent one is young lecturer Persse McGarrigle who in Hilsks
view represents one of the knights on the quest for a Grail. However, he is different from the
other characters. Hilsk says that Persse represents, apart from the knight figure, a virgin
(Hilsk 119). He is a virgin in a literal sense of the word; for the major part of the book,
anyway. He also represents a virgin when we talk about the poststructuralist theory. Before he
met his beloved Angelica, he has never herd anything about such theory. Angelica inspired
him to intelectual growth and he became a little interested in the field. From this point of
view, Persse has much in common with Phillip. They both, at the same time, know hardly
anything about the modern theories. Moreover, they do not fall in love with those views and
stay faithful to their interpretation and readings of literary works. When we turn back to

34

Perrse, the main quest stays the same as in the old Arthurian legends; he is trying to find the
woman of his heart and he keeps truthful to his beloved Angelica Pabst. Her constant leaving
encourages him to pursue her.

7.3 Nice Work

The novel Nice Work deals with the clash that arises from the scheme designed
between the Rummidge University and a local engineering company. A young lecturer is to
become a shadow of a Managing Director in the company. Their characters and ideas are at
the beginning deliberately diametrically opposed as well as industry and university are
representing different ideas. The shadow scheme, nevertheless, fulfills its purpose only on the
personal level as Lambertsson Bjrk points out. She also claims that the friendship and
respect of the main characters became possible only because both Robyn and Vic appear to
redefine their own contexts in the course of the novel, and at the same time gain greater
knowledge of the others community (Lambertsson Bjrk 109).
The novel being part of the trilogy, David Lodge employs here elements very similar
to those that he used in the previous novels. He criticizes, as I have mentioned earlier, the cuts
of the government of Margaret Thatcher in the university funding. He also ridicules both
Robyn Penrose and Vic Wilcox, but he seems, according to Lambertsson Bjrk, to favor
Victor (115). She says that the characterization of Vic Wilcox is vivid and sympathetic
(Lambertsson Bjrk 115). She argues that the favourism is to be seen from the description of
the character that Lodge gives us. In the case of Vic the reader is presented with a complete
character. Robyn, on the other hand, remains only a type, a crude caricature of a liberated
woman (Lambertson Bjrk 115).
Both characters could be compared to the main characters of the trilogy. Robyn has
some character traits similar to Phillip in the previous novels; we could say that they both care

35

about other people. As an example may serve Robyns care about the future of Danny Ram,
one of the workers in the foundry. At the opposite end stands cruel Vic Wilcox, who cares
about nothing but business; it is the same case as Morris Zapp who is also interested in
nothing more than his scholarly achievements. In addition, we can also find a parallel between
the character of Vic and the author. They both say that their work is all they can do well and
the list of things that they have never done is remarkably similar. Eva Lambertsson Bjrk
claims that the author in answer to the question of why he writes, Lodge claims that he does
so because it is the only thing he os really good at and that it is now too late to start over again
with something else (50). Her claim is supported by David Lodges statement: I shall
probably never learn, now, to ski or to windsurf or to play a musical instrument or to speak a
foreign language fluently (Write On 76). In addition Lambertsson Bjrk points out that Vic
Wilcox works in the position he does because it is the only thing that he is good at and that it
is too late to learn anything else (50). Vic Wilcox explicitly states the things he has never
done; the first few things are noticeably similar to the things that David Lodge has never
experienced:
Ive never skied, Ive never surfed. Ive never learned to play a musical instrument, or
speak a foreign language, or sail a boat, or ride a horse. Ive never climbed a mountain
or pitched a tent or caught a fish. Ive never seen Niagara Falls or been up the Eiffel
Tower or visited the Pyramids. Ive never . . . I could go on and on. (Nice Work 255).
So neither Vic Wilcox nor David Lodge has never skied, surfed or windsurfed, they have
never learnt how to play a musical instrument and they have never learnt to speak a foreign
language fluently. Otherwise Vic Wilcox does not seem to be autobiographical. He is a
businessman representing the industry and Lodge represents the academe. In this respect,
Lodge is obviously much closer to Robyn Penrose.

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8. Conclusion
David Lodge surely contributed to the recognition of British universities in the society.
Not only English society, though; as the novels have been translated into many languages they
affected and amused people from many countries and backgrounds. He anchored the idea of
higher education in the minds of ordinary people. The two worlds, however, did not become
one, but David Lodge tried to bring them as close as possible. On one hand, he tries to
communicate something about universities to the reader who is inexperienced where the
universities are concerned. He wants all his readers to laugh and for this reason he employs
various comic devices and elements in his writing. On the other hand he also tries to make
people who are familiar with universities become conscious of its problems and he does so
also by using the same means.
His main device is criticizing by using humorous techniques, such as parody, irony
and satire. He makes fun of whatever he thinks needs to be pointed at and atoned. In his
campus novels, he compares the British and American way of doing things. He pokes fun at
both, but as he spends more time in the British environment, he also spends more time
criticizing British life-style, the educational system, its traditional views and also the
government.
We have been looking at the comical aspect of three of his campus novels and also of
the difference that he makes between the characters; mainly the American and the British.The
two characters are both subject to Lodges parody. He makes fun of both of them. Morris
Zapp is shown as acknowledged scholar but without much success in his private life; he is
divorce twice by the end of Nice Work. Phillip Swallow, on the other hand, is not such an
outstanding scholar, but his family loves him and he has a nice and steady relationship with
his wife.

37

Both characters, however, have several love affairs within the story line. The course of
the affairs differs since the character traits of its actors are not the same. Phillip is very shy
and serious about the relationship to women (except for several affairs with the students in his
office) and Morris is the one who is looking just for sexual pleasure.
Then we were also dealing with other characters that are of any significance in the
novels and we were discussing their overall role in the books and also their relationships to
the main characters of Morris Zapp and Phillip Swallow. I also tried to include some of
Lodges views and to draw a parallel between the author and any of his characters whenever it
was possible.As an example may serve the list of never done things of Vic Wilcox which is
almost identical to the authors.
On the whole, David Lodge is not the brightest and the best of British university
novelists still writing (Carter 256) for no reason. He is such a fantastic writer that his novels
can be read over and over again with the same pleasure, enjoyment and laughter as if read for
the first time.

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9. Literature:
Primary Sources:
Lodge, David. Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books,
1978.
---. Nice Work: A Novel. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1989.
---. Small World: An Academic Romance. London: Secker & Warburg, 1984.

Secondary Sources:
Ammann, Daniel. David Lodge and the Art-and-Reality Novel. Diss. Universitt Zrich, 1990.
Heidelberg: Carl Winter Universittsverlag, 1991.
Baldick, Chris. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1990.
Carter, Ian. Ancient Cultures of Conceit: British University Fiction in the Post-War Years.
London: Routledge, 1990.
Frankov, Milada. The Novelists, Theory and Reading. Theory and Practice in English
Studies 4 (2005): Proceedings from the Eight Conference of British, American and
Canadian Studies. Brno: Masarykova Univerzita, 2005.
Hilsk, Martin. Souasn britsk romn. Praha: H&H, 1992.
Lambertsson Bjrk, Eva. Campus Clowns and the Canon. David Lodges Campus Fiction.
Diss. U of Ume, 1993. Stockholm: Almquist & Wiksell Int., 1993.
Lodge, David. After Bakhtin: Essays on Fiction and Criticism. London: Routledge, 1990.
---. Write On: Occasional Essays 1965 1985. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1988.
Mulhay, Michael. On Humor: Its Nature and Its Place in Modern Society. Cambridge: Polity,
1988.
Storry, Mike and Peter Childs, eds. British Cultural Identities. London: Routledge, 1997.

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Electronic Source:
Contemporary Writers in the UK. Produced by Literature Department of the British Council
and Booktrust. 10 Apr. 2006 <http://www.contemporarywriters.com/>.

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