Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses by David Lodge (PDF)

Description

Euphoric State University with its whitestone, sun-drenched campus and England’s damp red-brick University of Rummidge have an annual professorial exchange scheme, and as the first day of the last year of the tumultuous sixties dawns, Philip Swallow and Morris Zapp are the designated exchangees. They know they’ll be swapping class rosters, but what they don’t know is that in a wildly spiraling transatlantic involvement they’ll soon be swapping students, colleagues, and even wives. Changing Places is a hilarious send-up of academic life, intellectual fashion, sex, and marriage by a writer Anthony Burgess has called “one of the best novelists of his generation.”

User’s Reviews

Editorial Reviews: Amazon.com Review Anyone intrigued by differences between American and British academic institutions will find this an amusing and accurate send-up. David Lodge, portraying two American and British professors who replace one another at their respective institutions, gives greed, pettiness, and pretense full rein. Review David Lodge’s sharply funny trilogy set in academe toggles between the very American Euphoria State University and the utterly British University of Rummidge. — Entertainment Weekly About the Author David Lodge is the author of twelve novels and a novella, including the Booker Prize finalists Small World and Nice Work. He is also the author of many works of literary criticism, including The Art of Fiction and Consciousness and the Novel. Read more

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐There is some wonderful wry writing in CHANGING PLACES. Here, for example, is the innocent associate professor Philip Swallow considering his one-night stand with a woman young enough to be his daughter.”His soul, like his stomach, was in turmoil. Melanie’s casual compliance with his tired, clumsy lust seemed, in retrospect, shocking, moving, exciting, baffling. He couldn’t guess what significance she might attach to the event; and didn’t know, therefore, how to behave when they next met. But, he reminded himself, holding his throbbing head in both hands, problems of etiquette were secondary to problems of ethics. The basic question was: did he want to do it again?”CHANGING PLACES is aptly named, since this campus novel and satire shows two professors, who are opposites in almost every respect, assuming each other’s faculty positions in an exchange program and then acquiring loving roles in each other’s family and marriage. IMHO, this dynamic works well when the funny David Lodge is exploring the politics and pressures of academic life or the strum und drang (or boredom) of marriage. This dynamic also enables Lodge to present both a cynic’s and innocent’s reaction to 1960’s-style political agitation. Even so, Lodge’s satire eventually migrates to the zone of total improbability, where it devolves into farce. Then, his narrative seems clever but not especially insightful.In CHANGING PLACES, Lodge, the literary man, sometimes winks at his readers. At one point, for example, the spouses are exchanging letters. In one, Hilary Swallow writes: “Do you still want me to send on “Let’s Write a Novel”? There’s a whole chapter on how to write an epistolary novel, but surely nobody’s done that since the eighteenth century?” In the meantime, Lodge writes two long chapters in epistolary style. And, Philip Swallow, a la Moses Herzog, actively composes many funny letters in his mind.Likewise, Lodge writes his final chapter in the style of a movie script, where one character says: “You sound like a couple of script writers discussing how to wind up a play.” Finally, an insight in “Let’s Write a Novel” is: “The best kind of story is the one with a happy ending; the next best is the one with an unhappy ending, and the worst kind is the story that has no ending at all.” Naturally, this is the ending Lodge chooses for CHANGING PLACES.One day, I will surely read SMALL WORLD and NICE WORK, the two remaining books in Lodge’s THE CAMPUS TRILOGY. And when doing so, I’ll expect good books that are more clever than deep.Recommended.

⭐David Lodge’s clever story of two literature professors, both part of a mindless faculty exchange, brings the tumult and craziness of the college in the 1960’s era to life. Before political correctness and sexual harassment there was free speech, student protests, and women’s liberation, and Lodge deftly recreates for the reader the insane glories of those years.The story opens on flights and lives traveling in quite oppostie directions in January 1969. We learn something about the protagonists en route. Loosely disguised state universities in California and England serve as the temporary homes for our heroes, professors Zapp and Swallow. The former well-respected, well-paid and well-fed, the latter just tryig to hang on. Their exchange experiences mirror one another in many respects, and soon the left-behind wives and children are part of their new lives. Lodge uses letters, news articles, narrative and a movie script to shine the spotlight on academe. Clever twists and observations on the times make this a fast, fun read.

⭐Together with its companion ‘Small World’, a hilarious book ridiculing everything from academia, the literary world, several countries, couples, and writing. Well-written, funny and always unexpected, simply wonderful. Will put you in Euphoric State for several days!

⭐I was recently directed toward David Lodge’s work by a friend when I told him of my unfulfilled quest for a really good satirical academic novel. This one looked fairly promising at first, but quickly turned into a sort of lame romantic comedy centering around two English instructors (who exhange positions for a semester – one in the UK and one in the States) and their respective wives. It has it’s amusing moments and the writing is good, but in the end it seems to have gone nowhere… In summary I found this to be a somewhat enjoyable light-hearted read, but ultimately a very forgettable book.

⭐The book came within the time frame promised, was in great shape for a used book. I laughed very hard when I read it, but I am 70 and lived through these times. May not be so funny to people who did not live through the tumultuous ’60’s. I plan to read his second book.

⭐Great book I am a David Lodge fan and this one of my books. I think that this is one of his best along with “small world”

⭐Clever but a bit predictable – very like a typical British bedroom farce. However, stylishly written and the reader gets merrily swept along…

⭐Loved it

⭐A clever construct; comparison of cultures and personalities; and introduction to Philip Swallow who appears in later novels.On the “academic novels” that were popular in the mid-late 1900s, “Changing Places” is sharp, witty and stands the test of time. Philip Swallow is unexpectedly sent on an academic exchange from his place in the University of Rummidge (notionally not Birmingham!) to Esseph in California, where he changes places with Morris Zapp who is despatched to Rummidge.Highly recommended.

⭐I really enjoyed this. Living in Birmingham and having been here during the student sit ins this was a trip down memory lane in parts. It is well written using lots of different writing techniques to continue the story. I particularly liked the two airplanes travelling in opposite directions across the Atlantic with an account of what is happening in real time on each plane.

⭐The story starts out as modestly paced, lightweight, and reasonably amusing. Growing steadily faster and funnier, it becomes a hilarious page-turning farce. On the way, there’s a nice sprinkling of ironic commentary on the delusions and vanities of academic life, the sixties, and sexual relationships. Another hit from David Lodge.

⭐Transatlantic page turner

⭐Loved this novel the first time I read it about 25 years ago and loved it again reading it recently as a book group choice. He is certainly a Wordsmith of excellence and I love his sense of humour.

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