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An exchange of job and…

1

Changing Places Prof. Morris Zapp Euphoria University (the U.S.A)

a swap of wives and life?

Prof. Philip Swallow

Rummidge University (England)

By David Lodge “Life, after all goes forward, not backwards”

The author David Lodge was born in London, in 1935 and he is married with three children. He was educated at University College, where he took his B.A. degree and his M.A. in 1959. He holds a doctorate from the University of Birmingham where he taught in the English Department from 1960 until 1987. When he retired he became a fulltime writer. He retains the title of Honorary Professor of Modern English Literature at Birmingham. He was Harkness Fellow in the United States (1964 to 1965), Visiting Professor at the University of California (1969), and he was Henfield Creative Writing Fellow at the University of East Anglia in 1977. He has lectured and addressed conferences in many countries in Europe. David Lodge is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was Chairman of the Judges for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989. He is the author of numerous works of literary criticism, mainly about the English and American novel, and literary theory. Among his books we can name: The Picturegoers : a portrait of a Catholic family living in South London whose daughter has attracted the attentions of their undergraduate lodger Ginger, You’re Barmy: his second novel, drew on his own experience of national service The British Museum is Falling Down: a comic novel. It’s the story of a poor Catholic graduate working on his thesis in the Reading Room of the British Museum. Worried that his wife may be pregnant, he becomes involved in a series of adventures and meetings that parody episodes in the modern novels he is studying Out of the Shelter: it begins with a child’s experience of the Blitz and his rescue from an air-raid shelter, a formative experience which is developed as a metaphor throughout the book as the young boy matures into an adult. This is probably the most autobiographical of his novels Changing Places: it was Lodge’s first book in a trilogy of campus novels. Inspired by his experience teaching in California, the novel centres on two academics: the Englishman Phillip Swallow from the University of Rummidge and Morris Zapp, an American from the State University of Euphoria, and their participation in an exchange programme that sees them swap politics, lifestyles and wives Small World: this is the second of the trilogy and it develops Zapp and Swallow’s story. Nice Work: this novel complete the trilogy with the story of industrialist Vic Wilcox and his unlikely relationship with Marxist, feminist and post-structuralist academic Dr Robyn Penrose (Small World and Nice Work were both shortlisted for the Booker Prize for Fiction) Souls and Bodies: it takes on the contraception issue as well, but within the broader context of the massive changes the church went through after Vatican II. It’s the story of a group of British university students, whom we first meet in a College chapel in 1952 and the novel follows these characters over the next 25 years

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

2 How Far Can I go? and Paradise News: both deal with the doctrinal changes and moral uncertainty which beset members of the Catholic church in the post-war period generally and the 1960s in particular Therapy: continues similar themes through the story of a successful sitcom writer plagued by middle-age neuroses and failed marriage. Thinks: Ralph Messenger, central character of the novel, is Director of the prestigious Holt Belling Center for Cognitive Science at the fictional University of Gloucester. A notorious womanizer, he is forced to reappraise his lifestyle when he becomes involved with Helen Reed, a novelist who has come to work at the university Consciousness and the Novel: this is his most recent book, and it explores the representation of human consciousness in fiction, and includes essays on Charles Dickens, Henry James and John Updike. David Lodge has written different genres in his career, such as Criticism, Drama, Fiction, Literary criticism, Screenplay and Short stories. David Lodge lives in Birmingham.

David John Lodge’s life at a glance Born: January 28 1935, London. Education: Saint Joseph's Academy, Blackheath; University College London (MA); Birmingham University (PhD). Married: 1959 Mary Frances Jacob (one daughter, Julia, and two sons, Stephen and Christopher). National service: 1955-57. Career: British Council 1959-60; University of Birmingham department of English '60-87, honorary professor, modern English literature '87. Some criticism: Language Of Fiction '66, The Novelist At The Crossroads '71, Working With Structuralism '81, After Bakhtin '90. Television: Small World ’88, Nice Work '89, Martin Chuzzlewit '94. They were all adapted for television serials. Novels: The Picturegoers '60, Ginger You're Barmy '62, The British Museum Is Falling Down '65, Out Of The Shelter '70, Changing Places '75, Souls and Bodies ’80, How Far Can You Go? '80, Small World '84, Nice Work '88, Paradise News '91, Therapy '95, Thinks '01, Consciousness and the Novel ‘02.

The style of the Author Lodge was born a Catholic and some of is novels illustrate the particular culture and customs of English Catholics. He emphases in sociological matters rather than theological ones, offering sharp but affectionate observations of the lives of a minority group.

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

3 There is a contrast between David Lodge’s fiction and his critical writing, which is aimed at an academic audience. His fiction is basically realistic, showing an interest in the nature of fictional form; his criticism is inclined towards formalism, but always preserving links between the word and the world. Lodge is a good-humored writer and these qualities are in his three novels. None of them is overtly autobiographical, but they are often drawn from personal experience and they stay close to material that he knows well.

The style of the book In Changing Places Lodge’s writing style portrays a funny and clever storyline. Lodge captures the embarrassing moments that happen to all, with a sparkling quick wit. Lodge’s special creation is Rummidge: an imaginary city, with imaginary universities which occupies, for the purposes of fiction, the space where Birmingham is to be found on maps (the place where he lives). They makes us wonder how much of it is autobiographic. Lodge himself was a professor of English Literature in Birmingham, before he devoted his time to writing. So, Birmingham was the inspiration for dull Rummidge. Euphoria is also a fictive place, a small state located at the west coast of the USA in the middle of redwood forests. In a town called Plotinus is located the Euphoric State University, that was inspired by the University of California at Berkeley. Lodge himself has spent a semester at Berkeley, but he assures he was not part of an exchange program. Lodge’s own frustrations with contemporary novels are portrayed, with the death of the traditional novel being a subject for discussion in the final chapter. Lodge makes the point that with a film you can never be sure when it is going to end, thus it can shock the watcher more easily than a novel, when you always know how many pages are left. The use of the campus novel is in itself an intriguing facet of Englishness and it offers social analysis. The style is usually in the form of popular satire, raising slowly to a level of seriousness. Satire shows the weak sides of a society.

The title of the book It reflects what happens to the Professors, not only they swap job but they almost swap their own lives.

Background and setting of the book Changing Places describes the problems of people living in a foreign country with unfamiliar customs and reveals the problems of academic worlds.

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

4 The novel takes place in 1969, right after the student uproars of 1968. In the background students are revolting (because of the civil injustice felt by students of the ‘60s and ‘70s), feminism is beginning (women’s liberation movement spreads from the U.S. to England), US consumerism is rampaging, the prominent English welfare state is becoming more and more worn out, the yoga and hippie free love era of the ‘60s are also mentioned in the book (women realise they are not controlled by men and they can sleep with who they like, when they like). The comparison of the two academies, English and American, becomes a microcosm for the two nations as a whole. The novel explores how the two professors (and their respective wives), become reciprocally aware of how much their life-style and their set of values, inside and outside the Academy, owe to what they recognize as national identity and character. Literary criticism is a distinct feature of national identity: Zapp is a champion of specialization, while Swallow despises theory as something un-English.

Features of the book Changing Places is a critique on the world of academia itself, with the poorly qualified and motivated English lectures given through pasting, and student’s lazy attitudes. It is also a critique of the American system, placing a huge emphasis on how many articles a lecturer has published, rather than how good a teacher they are. It satirizes stereotyped versions of national identities, Englishness and Americans. It works both as a novel on its own level and as literary criticism. In Changing Places literature claims for a social conscience. Literature emerges as a form of discourse which wants to increase the reader's critical and literary competence. To emphasise this point Lodge uses a narrative technique that incorporates other forms of communication and exposes their weaknesses. Newspaper articles are shown to have a claim to transparency. Film's claim to represent reality is shown to be limited. The book has philosophical ideas behind it. Questions like if one person’s actions have a ripple effect and impact elsewhere in the world and if fate controls everything or can control our own lives are put out into the book openly (there is no answer posed by the book). We can find flashbacks in the story, for example when each professor explained how they got to the exchange. The book is divided in six chapters: each one has a title: Chapter 1: “Flying”: It takes place above the North Pole when two professors of English literature approached each other travelling by plane. They are going to change places as part of a teacher exchange scheme. Chapter 2: “Setting”: The two professors swap places at each other’s universities. Phillip Swallow rents an apartment on the top of a two storey house and Morris Zapp takes an apartment on the top floor of a huge old house, owned by an Irish Doctor, Dr O’Shea. Chapter 3: “Corresponding”: Twenty-two letters held among the two couples make us know how life is going on in each place.

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

5 Chapter 4: “Reading”: Twenty-eight newspaper and magazines cuttings, taken by Rummidge and Euphoric newspapers and magazines, tell us what is coming on in the story. They are shown to have a pretended claim to transparency to what is happening around. Chapter 4: “Changing”: Somehow, and quite by accident, the two men swap their lives and with it their wives, too. Chapter 6: “Ending”: The four people arrange to meet each other in a hotel in New York. Lodge shows us the world of academia set and the swinging sixties background. After having intercourse and speaking for a long time, the book ends.

The Characters The characters are portrayed with the typical characteristics of each educational system: in America, it is not too difficult to obtain a bachelor’s degree (the student is left to his own devices, he accumulates the necessary credits at his leisure, cheating is easy and there is not much suspense about the outcome). Under the British education, competition begins and ends earlier. The educational system is cut at eleven-plus, sixteen-plus and twenty-plus, and happy is who comes top of the deck.

Major Characters Philip Swallow: Professor of English Literature. He is from Rummidge, a large industrial city of England. He is a mimetic man: unconfident, eager to please, infinitely suggestible, very familiar; he likes examinations: finals are the supreme moments of his life. He is 40, married, and unaccustomed to air travel. Morris Zapp: he is also Professor of English Literature. He has a PhD and has made a lot of publications, he is an authority on Jane Austin. He is from Euphoria, a small but populous state on the Western seaboard of America. He does not trust providence. He never apologizes and likes “living the life”. He is a tenacious, well respected man. He is married twice. Hilary Swallow: Philip’s wife. She is a housewife; they have three children (Amanda, Robert and Mathew). She never refuses her husband’s advances, but she never positively invites them either. Désirée Zapp: Morris’ second wife. She has red-hair and small green eyes. She was in her mid-thirties. They have twins, a boy and a girl, aged nine. She wants the divorce because she says that she is “eaten” by her husband and needs to be free.

Minor Characters Melanie Byrd: she is a very pretty girl. She is Morris’ daughter, from his first marriage. She shares the ground floor apartment with Philip. They start to be closer when she invites him to her apartment to a kind of party. She lives there with two flat-mates: Carol and Deirdre and three young men. Melanie and Philip end having sex, without knowing the relationship between each other. Gordon Masters: the Head of Rummidge Department. He has the habit of swallowing the first part of his sentences, and closing one eye when he looks at somebody. He is a keen sportsman, he likes hunting and stuffed animals. He was in the Army.

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

6 Mary Makepeace: a young blonde girl that Morris meets on the plane. She is interested in ‘Woman’s Liberation’. She is pregnant, her baby’s father is a priest. She went to England to have an abortion. She is a teacher. Charles Boon: His appearance is striking. His wavy, reddish hair fell on his shoulders and he has a bandit moustache. He graduated after a troublesome undergraduate career at Rummidge. Philip Swallow was one of his professors. He becomes popular in Euphoric State with a radio programme called ‘Charles Boom Show’. Stewart Stroud: Vice-Chancellor of Rummidge University. He is tall and a powerfully built man. He always asks for Morris’ advices. He offers Morris the Chair of the English Department. Willy Smith: he is one of the students at Euphoria University. He persuades his partners to support a strike by boycotting Philip’s class.

The Plot The story starts above the North Pole, on the first day of 1969. Philip Swallow and Morris Zap are going to exchange places for one semester. Swallow travels west to Euphoria and Zapp travels east to Rummidge in Northern England. On one plane Philip meets a student: Charles Boon, who has been studied at Rummidge. He tells Philip he has a radio show but he does not believe him. Meanwhile on the other plane, Morris Zapp travels with girls going to England for an abortion (in the U.S. it is forbidden). He is the only man on the plane. He meets Mary Makepeace, a colleague. She is going to have an abortion because her baby father is a priest. They do not know yet they will suffer a tremendous culture shock. The campus of the Euphoric State University is swarming with anarchical characters: students are roaring for their rights. Not only the British Philip Swallow is not used to the permissiveness but he also has to deal with rebellious student who are much more interested in politics than in their studies. Meanwhile Morris Zapp faces problems of an entirely different nature in Rummidge. He encounters the British mentality with suspicion and has to do without luxuries like a heated office. Philip rents an apartment on top of a two storey house. Morris takes an apartment on top of a huge old house. The first time Philip goes to the English Department, there was an explosion and a group of students are blamed, because they have threatened to strike in the coming quarter claiming for more power over the running of the university. Morris first days at the University are boring because no one talks to him. The only human contact is Dr O’Shea, who goes to his room to watch his colour TV. Philip is invited to a Cocktail Party in Professor Hogan’s house. There he meets Désirée, Professor Zapp’s wife. She explains him she is not worried about her husband being in England, she wants a divorce, indeed. That night Philip loses his keys and Melanie Byrd opens to him. She invites him to eat pizza to her apartment. She is there with two flat-mates, Carol and Deirdre, and three young men. After going away from what seems an orgy they finish having sex. After that he does not see her for many days. He does not know she is Morris’ daughter. Morris meets Philip’s wife when she goes to his office to look for a book. That night Dr. O’Shea brings his niece, Bernadette, a young woman who is leaving there as a kind of slave.

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

7 Some days later, both, Philip and Morris, each one in his place, go to a strip-joint. Morris meets Mary Makepeace there. She works there because she has decided to have her baby in England. The following days there are letters from the wives to their husbands and vice-versa, where we get to know some information about their lives. Pieces of news taken from newspapers and magazines tell us what is coming on: Melanie becomes Charles Boom’s girlfriend, Morris asks Hillary if Mary Makepeace can live with her and she accepts, Philip discovers Melanie is Morris’ daughter and everybody starts to know that they have had an affair. He is also arrested because of helping Wily Smith to carry stolen bricks to build a symbol of the students’ rebellion: Euphoria garden. Désirée helps him to get out from prison. After that Philip goes to live with Désirée and they have an affair. He wants to stay in Euphoria but he has few possibilities to get a job. Meanwhile, Morris goes to live with Hilary, because he has problems with the roof of the place where he lives. They only have sex after Hilary knows Philip is with another woman (Désirée phones her and tells her about the situation). The four of them decide to meet in a hotel in New York. Both men share a room and the women share another. Each couple decide to re-unite to “talk” but the next morning Philip and Hilary are asleep in each other’s arms and in the other room there is no sign of Morris and Désirée: they are discovered on the floor between the two twin beds, tangled together in a leap of pillows and bedclothes. They are fast asleep. The books ends with the four of them watching a strike in Euphoria and discussing what to do about their lives.

More about the book Having read Lodge’s “The British Museum is Falling Down” it is important to mention a fact that seems peculiar in both novels: for Adam Appleby “Literature is mostly about having sex and not much about having children. Life is the other way round”. For Morris Zapp “…the root of all critical error was a naïve confusion of literature with life. Life was transparent, literature opaque. Life was an open, literature a closed system. Life was composed of things, literature of words…if you were trying to get a girl into bed it was about sex. Literature was never about what it appeared to be about…”. These two characters from the two different novels seems to be the antithesis one of the other: •

Adam Appleby does not enjoy his marital life because of being a deep Catholic, and believes only in

literature a person can find sexual satisfaction.

•

Morris Zapp seems not to believe in providence and he “lives the life”. He compares life with an open-

ended system where everything is possible and literature to a closed-system where it is necessary to break a “code” to go out of an illusion of ingenuity.

Personal Opinion

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

8 I found the story easy to read and entertaining with plenty of ideas behind it and a fast running storyline. I like the way the writer explains what happens when two different men exchange roles. I think it also kept me expectant into the plot demanding to know what happens next, through the use of the cuts backs and forth between the two characters as their lives become each others. In my opinion it shows clearly the differences between American and British academic institutions. The book satirizes academic manners, presents a tangle of coincidences, and references for a comic effect to reflect academic absurdity.

Comparison to other authors David Lodge belongs to a realistic and contemporary movement: he deals with social problems using a satirical way of writing and the topics he writes about include religion, morality and sociology. Some of his books deal with philosophical ideas that make us develop a social conscience, an ability to go beyond the surface of things, and even to be self-critical. Lodge is an academic writer, writing about academics. Looking for another writer of novels following the same movement we can find to Graham Greene: he is a realistic contemporary writer of novels. He started writing as a “therapy”: he had a difficult childhood and attempted suicide on a number of occasions, so his therapist suggested that he look to writing as a way to deal with his troubled emotions. He converted to Catholicism when he was an adult and it is said he did it in order to win the affection of the woman he loved (Vivien Dayrell-Browning). But he became very deeply and seriously interested in his adopted religion. He published books as The man Within, which was a critical and commercial success, The Name of Action and Rumour at Night. Istanbul train became a film later. He wrote some film reviews becoming one of the most highly film critics of his days. The Lawless Roads and The Power and the Glory was a great critical success but he won the fury of the Vatican with them. He travelled and visited places of conflict all around the world, including Vietnam, Kenya, Poland Cuba and Haiti. These places supplied him with material for his novels. The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana, The Human Factor, Across the Bridge, are some of the titles for which he is well known. Between the topics he dealt with we find moral issues in political context, adventure, suspense and emotions, accurate descriptions and the atmosphere of each period. Another English writer, Herbert George Wells, belonging to the realistic and contemporary movement can be compared with Lodge, too. He wrote scientific romances, novels, pamphlets, educational works (primarily concerned to science) and sociological novels. All his work is full of interesting incidents and dramatic scenes together with good humour, in a vivid picture of the society of middle-class people, showing distinction between classes.

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

David Lodge

9 He was a socialist supporter of the Labourists and a women rights supporter. His fiction was written with an air of reality. He wrote about world organization and reconstruction. He presented a serious view of life and used the novel for didactic purposes.

Antithesis with other authors In an opposite place to Lodge’s writing we can find to Samuel Beckett, who belonged to the Theatre of the Absurd. He was born in Ireland, and grown up as a protestant. He suffered of frequent depressions. Many of his characters are tramps or vagabonds. He wrote plays, books, short stories and a book of criticism. He was always in the search for freedom. His works belonging to the Theatre of the Absurd usually employ illogical situations, unconventional dialogues, and minimal plots to express the apparent absurdity of human existence. In his book “Waiting for Godot”, he portrays two tramps waiting for a character named Godot. They are not sure who Godot is, whether he will show up to meet them, and indeed whether he actually exists, but they spend each day waiting for him and trying to understand the world in which they live. Uncommunication, lack of understanding and a life base on existentialism appears in this book.

Liliana Lo Preiato

Changing Places - Analysis of the Book

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David Lodge