Nice exchange...

Two-frame reading notebook
Two-frame reading notebook
Two-frame reading notebook

Taking notes of my readings, the pictures I see - with two frames, two small capsules, two quotes. Novels, comic books, movies: let's go!

Notes de lectures, des films que je vois - en deux images, deux capsules, deux citations. Des romans, des BD, des films : allons-y (et en plusieurs langues)

Nice Work, David Lodge (1988)

Confrontation of two worlds: corporate world, university world. Confrontation always a source of exchanges, readjustments - and funny situations (which is always good for pace & humor). Let’s put some 100% academics in some 100%-British-Industry plant, and see what will happen - and make the two characters a family man & a clever woman, to spice things up, since we’re at it. Pace & humor & confrontations are present indeed, dialogs are often clever, references are well included. David Lodge is a perfect crafter for such pastiches, with the right amount of inter-textual touch to give it some more lit-cred amongst the readers and the critics. The intertextual strings only become a bit too obvious in the last chapter, with some overstuffed unexpected coincidence leading to some supposedly-balanced moral over industrial novels & strong-female characters in the 1980s - or something along this line, the nudge-nudge signs from the author were too distracting for me to take this really seriously…

The clever crafting & clever-humorous pace were not the most striking point for me over the pages, even highly entertaining. The most striking point was the little 1980s-grounded details in the plot, the fall of traditional UK industry like steel-making, the growing influence of the finance microcosm in the City, the struggle from academics to look relevant against budget cuts - all details that looked slightly more in the background, still very well drawn.

And impressive in their echoes to situations from the 2010s, with even less industrial relevance in Europe, even stronger appeal from the financial companies, even more struggles from the academic world… The characters & small plots might sometimes drift to some literary game, but the context & air-du-temps touch definitely stood the test of time. It’s a praise to David Lodge’s qualities as much as a tragic reminder that some ridiculous visions have not evolved much: is a 2014 French Prime Minister claiming that “his love for companies” very different from some UK 80s government declaring “the year of companies”?…