David Lodge: Changing Places

David Lodge

Changing Places

A Tale of Two Campuses

Monika says:

On the first day of 1969 high above the North Pole two professors of English literature approached each other travelling at 1200 mph. This is how David Lodge begins his satire about Philip Swallow and Morris Zapp who exchange places for one semester. Swallow travels west to sunny Euphoria, Zapp travels east to glum Rummidge in Northern England. They don't know yet that they will not only exchange their jobs but also their wives and each in his own way will suffer a tremendous culture shock.

"Changing Places" takes place in 1969, i. e. right after the student uproars of 1968. On the campus of the Euphoric State University is swarming with anarchical characters. Not only is cool Britishman Philip Swallow 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 is facing 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. As the story continues, though, both men settle into their respective situation and discover that life in a foreign country brings some advantages.

Each time one reads a novel by David Lodge that is taking place in Rummidge one can't help but wonder how much of it is autbiographic. Lodge himself was a professor of English Literature in Birmingham, before he devoted all his time to writing. So Birmingham was the inspiration for dull Rummidge. Euphoria, too, is a fictive place, a small state located at the west coast of the USA in the middle of redwood forrests. 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.

"Changing Places" doesn't only describe the problems of people living in a foreign country with unfamiliar customs but is also full of revelations about the academic world that often make you laugh out loud. The reader doesn't have to know a lot about how a university works but a sense of black humor sure helps. A delightful tale, that David Lodge spun on a couple of years later in his novel "Small World".

Any comments?
Write us:
Monika Hübner