Small World: An Academic Romance (SIGNED)
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Signed with inscription
Condition remarks: Good condition, usual aging for a book of this era.
What happens when the ivory tower collides with the jet age? Small World: An Academic Romance by David Lodge is a brilliantly comic novel that chronicles the misadventures of Persse McGarrigle, a naïve young Irish lecturer who becomes enchanted by a beautiful woman at a literary conference in Rummidge, England, and pursues her across a globe-trotting circuit of academic gatherings. Set against the backdrop of the 1970s and 80s international conference circuit — from Zurich to Tokyo, Amsterdam to New York — the novel presents a densely populated cast of ambitious scholars, rival theorists, and romantic fools, all chasing prestige, passion, and the ever-elusive UNESCO Chair of Literary Criticism. A masterwork of satirical fiction, Small World is the second novel in Lodge's celebrated Campus Trilogy, and it stands as one of the sharpest dissections of academic life ever committed to the page. Drawing on the structural conventions of medieval romance — most notably the Grail legend — Lodge illustrates how the quests of modern academia are every bit as absurd and heartfelt as those of Arthurian knights. His prose is simultaneously erudite and uproariously funny, wielding literary theory as both subject and comedic weapon. The inscription within this copy, signed by Lodge in Melbourne in 1986, adds a rare personal dimension to an already remarkable artefact — making one wonder just whose world, in the end, is truly small.
Author: David Lodge
Format: Hardback
Published: 1984, Secker & Warburg
Genre: Modern fiction
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
Markings: Signed with inscription
Condition remarks: Good condition, usual aging for a book of this era.
What happens when the ivory tower collides with the jet age? Small World: An Academic Romance by David Lodge is a brilliantly comic novel that chronicles the misadventures of Persse McGarrigle, a naïve young Irish lecturer who becomes enchanted by a beautiful woman at a literary conference in Rummidge, England, and pursues her across a globe-trotting circuit of academic gatherings. Set against the backdrop of the 1970s and 80s international conference circuit — from Zurich to Tokyo, Amsterdam to New York — the novel presents a densely populated cast of ambitious scholars, rival theorists, and romantic fools, all chasing prestige, passion, and the ever-elusive UNESCO Chair of Literary Criticism. A masterwork of satirical fiction, Small World is the second novel in Lodge's celebrated Campus Trilogy, and it stands as one of the sharpest dissections of academic life ever committed to the page. Drawing on the structural conventions of medieval romance — most notably the Grail legend — Lodge illustrates how the quests of modern academia are every bit as absurd and heartfelt as those of Arthurian knights. His prose is simultaneously erudite and uproariously funny, wielding literary theory as both subject and comedic weapon. The inscription within this copy, signed by Lodge in Melbourne in 1986, adds a rare personal dimension to an already remarkable artefact — making one wonder just whose world, in the end, is truly small.