Rating: 
Summary: The ultimate parody of Academic politics and sex.
Review: Small world is the heart of David Lodge's trilogy of academic life. In this second of the trilogies, Lodge brilliantly describes the social climbing and intellectual flailing of Literature professors as representatives of all academics. Questions such as what book to write and what paper to present are revealed to be as much political questions as intellectual ones. The book, in short, explicates
in hysterical fashion Moynihan's quote that "the reason that academic politics
is so nasty is that so little is at stake'. Lodge's depiction is just close enough for anyone
in academia to say ' I know that person' while at the same time being
brilliantly satirical. A must read.
Rating: 
Summary: a socially important book
Review: Small World makes light of a terribly important social phenomenon. On the other hand, the book was published in 1984, before academia had become the place it is now. The novel is also slow by American standards, taking its time with each scene, including scenes that make the reader wonder why the scenes are there at all. One reviewer commented on this being a rare novel about academia. It is that. But academia now is not the place it was twenty years ago. What has happened in America has also happened in the U.K, as Small World makes clear. These people are networking on an international scale. Perhaps, Lodge thought these literary ideas were so silly they would blow over in a short time and he could laugh them out of existence. ("Then, what's it all for?!") But the grim-faced neoMarxist of the present universities have no sense of humor and are not about to be laughed out of their entrenched positions of power. The situation is now very serious. But read this book if you like. Then, however, get other books and find out what it's like now.
Rating:
Summary: A rollicking good time
Review: The first chapter of this book was the funniest thing I have ever read, and I highly recommend it for anyone, regardless of profession or academic interests. The remainder of the book is fun and interesting, but not nearly as amusing as the first chapter (which itself is about 40 or 50 pages). This is a light, quick read but it makes some very pointed comments about academia. I would get this book, if only for that first chapter. It is superb.
Rating: 
Summary: a Small World of big idas
Review: There is something unsatisfying about this novel. Anyone who has read Changing Places and has come to know and enjoy the personal antics and professional fiascos of the main players in David Lodge's first novel might be disappointed that Philip Swallow and Morris Zapp are only supporting characters in this book. Then again, where Changing Places was a satire of late the 60's university scene and a poignant commentary on the differences between British and American Academia, Small World is, ironically, a macrocosm to his previous novel's microcosm. It is concerned with the ivory tower of English literature on an international scale, with a handful of memorable characters whose personal lives are sometimes dangerously intertwined with their professional ones.I haven't decided whether Lodge's book is genius, or merely a recycling of the very themes that his characters pursue through literary criticism. Even mistaken identity and Doppelgaenger motifs, plot mechanisms as old as the subjects of various conferences in the novel, appear as a less than subtle story line twists towards the end. There is so much here that I have seen before. Yet somehow, it seems fresh--always humorous, often shocking. As a former academic himself, Lodge peppers his texts with brief references to the critical theories of his times. However tongue-in-cheek his mentioning of post-modernism and deconstruction is, it is an interesting way to bring his reader into this world. The interconnectedness of seemingly incongruous characters is, simply put, unfathomable. They are the bibliophiles acting out the lives they read about. If the average literary critic experienced as much passion or intrigue as even one of Lodge's characters, his novel could function as non-fiction. As it is, it remains an interesting milieu study and proof of the ever-globalising of academia. A definite must-read for the academic--especially for those who can laugh at themselves.
Rating:
Summary: a Small World of big idas
Review: There is something unsatisfying about this novel. Anyone who has read Changing Places and has come to know and enjoy the personal antics and professional fiascos of the main players in David Lodge's first novel might be disappointed that Philip Swallow and Morris Zapp are only supporting characters in this book. Then again, where Changing Places was a satire of late the 60's university scene and a poignant commentary on the differences between British and American Academia, Small World is, ironically, a macrocosm to his previous novel's microcosm. It is concerned with the ivory tower of English literature on an international scale, with a handful of memorable characters whose personal lives are sometimes dangerously intertwined with their professional ones. I haven't decided whether Lodge's book is genius, or merely a recycling of the very themes that his characters pursue through literary criticism. Even mistaken identity and Doppelgaenger motifs, plot mechanisms as old as the subjects of various conferences in the novel, appear as a less than subtle story line twists towards the end. There is so much here that I have seen before. Yet somehow, it seems fresh--always humorous, often shocking. As a former academic himself, Lodge peppers his texts with brief references to the critical theories of his times. However tongue-in-cheek his mentioning of post-modernism and deconstruction is, it is an interesting way to bring his reader into this world. The interconnectedness of seemingly incongruous characters is, simply put, unfathomable. They are the bibliophiles acting out the lives they read about. If the average literary critic experienced as much passion or intrigue as even one of Lodge's characters, his novel could function as non-fiction. As it is, it remains an interesting milieu study and proof of the ever-globalising of academia. A definite must-read for the academic--especially for those who can laugh at themselves.
Rating:
Summary: Romance is fun
Review: This world is indeed small: Its framework is academic conferences, its topics are sex, literature and ... er, sex. Or is it love? In the beginning it is just fun to read, in the end this book comes across as a wonderfully constructed and entertaining romance in the literary sense of the word, true to the spirit of this genre in its pletora of strange accidents, not aiming at something elevated but more than aptly achieving what it sets out to achieve. The allusions to Arthurian legends bind everything neatly together, the seemingly sprawling plot is artistically balanced, the academics' world is brilliantly satirized and there are more than a few insights into literary criticism strewn in along the way. Rewarding!
Rating:
Summary: Academic pinball
Review: What can be more fun than watching academics at a conference? This novel is as entertaining and true as that other contemporary classic of academic satire, Lev Raphael's The Edith Wharton Murders, where two rival Wharton societies come to the same conference and chaos ensues.
Rating: 
Summary: Sub-standard farce
Review: With a long-winded, fragmented plot and badly drawn, one- dimensional characters, Small World is a truly dreadful book. Lovers of Tom Sharpe books might find this woeful account of conference-trotting academics interesting but anybody else should steer well clear. Awful.
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