the other book review

Two uni­ver­si­ties, one in the USA (Eupho­ria State) and one in Britain (Rum­midge) have an annual exchange scheme. Nor­mally this exchange passes with­out a hitch, but this year the two ‘priv­iliged’ ones are Philip Swal­low and Pro­fes­sor Mor­ris Zapp and every­thing will be dif­fer­ent. The two aca­d­e­mics arrive in tumult and chang­ing times in the aca­d­e­mic world. Philip Swal­low is hop­ing to renew his pleas­ant feel­ings for the USA from the time he was there over twenty years ago, but he soon realises twenty years is a long time ago and every­thing is dif­fer­ent. Mor­ris Zapp has never been in Britain and would have had no prob­lems keep­ing it that way, but now that he is, his iron­i­cal and sar­cas­tic ways aren’t much of use to him. Both men are in for the biggest shock of their lives.

Highly enter­tain­ing novel, very witty. Some­times I had the feel­ing of every­thing being too arti­fi­cially writ­ten down and hence the fic­tional sit­u­a­tions too coin­ci­den­tal. But still, Lodge knows how to write and enter­tain his readers.

P.S. This novel is part one of a tril­ogy: Chang­ing places, Small world & Nice Work.

Pop­u­lar­ity: unranked [?]