Il professore va al congresso

I can't believe how few of my GR friends have Small World on their shelves. Of course, we all know what's wrong with the genre, and many people instinctively shy away from reading yet another novel by a lecturer at an English department, describing what it's like to be an English lecturer who's writ Leggi tutto

When I was a kid watching The Adventures of Tintin , 1 scene left a lasting impression on me. Captain Haddock was happily taking a walk when someone asked him a question: ”Captain, do you sleep with your beard inside or outside the blanket?" This question threw him into an existential crisis. The per Leggi tutto

Et in Arcadia ego ... Și eu am fost - și încă ani buni - un cavaler rătăcitor în căutarea Graalului (a unei burse postdoctorale, adică), sărind de la o conferință la alta, de la un simpozion la altul, de la un congres la alt congres. Și viceversa. Nu m-am ales cu mare lucru (păstrez, totuși, diplomel Leggi tutto

Pentru că am recenzat în altă parte Ce mică-i lumea!, Small Worlds (roman care dă seama întru cîtva și despre aventura mea academică!), mă opresc azi la cîteva situații care m-au amuzat teribil. David Lodge a inventat cel puțin două jocuri de societate pasionante. În Schimb de dame , s-a gîndit să-i p Leggi tutto

For the first 50-100pp or so I stood (sat) aghast at my rating-from-distant-memory, at times (more than) a bit queasy with the novel's archaicisms in several respects or dimensions...aaand was thinking of DNFing, or at least cruising as rapidly as possible to a two-star personal revisionist history. Leggi tutto

This is a sort-of sequel to Lodge's book CHANGING PLACES. However, the two main characters of CHANGING PLACES are now secondary characters in this novel, which takes place 10 years later, roughly around 1979. Lodge turns up the academic aspect to HIGH in this novel, which may drive away some readers Leggi tutto

David Lodge’s is a small world; the Japanese call it a narrow world. It is a world of conferences - literary conferences, conferees, professors, writers, critics, linguistic enthusiasts and geniuses, universities, educationists and once through this novel, one would wonder if there does exist a worl Leggi tutto