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Darby Dyer
ENGL 5153.50
Dr. Thompson
August 4th, 2014
Society’s Microcosm: Academia
Although the professor is no longer a rare figure but now “a common professional,”
academia still makes up a small world (Williams 576). Though developing completely
different plotlines and characters, the authors of Straight Man, Small World, On Beauty, and
Quieter Than Sleep depict a relatively small world of academia. While each novelist’s
perspective varies, the features of each academic setting are essentially the same (Scott
82). Concerns of budget cuts, academic freedom, attainable tenure positions, as well as
petty jealousies and quarrels are prevalent within most, if not all, university settings (82).
And the appeal of the academic novel, according to David Lodge, lends itself to the
university signifying a “microcosm of society”; thus, most members of society are likely to
find the academic novel appealing because of its small world atmosphere (85).
In Richard Russo’s Straight Man, the small world of the English department extends
beyond the college. In fact, soon after Hank and his wife Lily bought their house as well as
the two adjacent lots with the intention of preventing neighbors, the English department
began moving out to Allegheny Wells (Russo 28-29). Russo also illustrates the prevalent
concern of losing one’s position or not receiving tenure, as Straight Man was written during
a time when finding a tenure-track position was rather difficult, for the budget crisis could
potentially affect the jobs of Hank and his colleagues (Rose 58). And as the English
department fears the impending budget cuts and subsequent terminations, instead of
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joining forces, several of them plot against each other. Furthermore, not only does Hank
live in the shadow of his eminent, prolifically published father—further revealing the small
world of academia—but he also takes his job no more seriously when it is in jeopardy, as he
is commonly accused by his colleagues of having a “lack of high seriousness” (Russo 14).
Therefore, the college must be small, and perhaps even inadequate, for them to offer the
dean position of liberal arts to a man who has only published one book and made absurd
threats about killing ducks if the English department was not granted its needed budget.
Though Hank declines the promotion, the ease of receiving such an offer, especially during
a time of budget cuts and terminations, is likely appealing—though possibly providing a
sense of false hope—to readers of the academic novel.
Though the characters of Small World do not often remain in one academic setting
as Hank does in Straight Man, the title of the novel, Small World, certainly conveys the
storyline and further depicts the rather small world of academia. Morris Zapp and Phillip
Swallow meet again—after ten years had passed since they changed academic places but
subsequently returned to both their professional and personal lives—at a conference at the
University of Rummidge. Likewise, as Persse travels to conferences around the world to
find Angelica, a woman he fell in love with upon their initial meeting, he runs into familiar
scholars from the first conference he had ever attended at Rummidge. He encounters Zapp
in Amsterdam, as Zapp helps defend Persse while they confront Siegfried von Turpitz about
plagiarizing Persse’s unpublished book (Lodge 198). Phillip Swallow and Persse, too,
attend the same conference in Jerusalem. And as Small World concludes, all of the scholars
reunite at the prestigious MLA conference where hidden truths unveil. Persse discovers
that Angelica has a twin of whom he has just made love with, thinking her to be Angelica
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(326). Kingfisher is reunited with his long-lost twin daughters at the MLA conference,
coincidentally Angelica and Lily (334). Persse is also introduced to Angelica’s fiancée, Peter
McGarrigle, who happens to be the person who was intended for Persse’s position at
Limerick; for when Persse received the position, they thought they were appointing Peter
McGarrigle, not Persse McGarrigle (333). While Persse travels with limited hesitance to
find Angelica, putting all the expenses on his American Express, he realizes just how small
the academic world is—running into the same scholars at nearly each conference he
attends. And as the novel comes to its close and he realizes by sleeping with Lily that he
must not have ever truly loved Angelica but instead loves Cheryl, the check-in clerk for the
British Airways, he soon begins another journey in the pursuit of love when he discovers
that she no longer works for the British Airways but instead has decided to travel the world
(326, 338). Similar to his pondering of Angelica’s whereabouts, Persse wonders where
exactly in the “small, narrow world” he should look for Cheryl (339). As portrayed in Small
World, now the contemporary world of academia is one made up of conferences and
literary theory as well as “academic celebrity” (Williams 565). Lodge depicts a world with
which he expects his readers to be familiar. In Small World, there is a prevalence of
internationalism, particularly with regard to the attendance of conferences (Mews 715).
The idea of the small world of the “global campus” thus forms a new adaptation of the
academic novel (715). This was a time when the entire academic world was “on the move”
(Lodge 231). And Lodge certainly depicts academics on the move searching for more than
just new conferences to attend.
In On Beauty, Zadie Smith reveals the effects an academic move and small world
environment can have on two families. The Kippses move to Wellington, outside of Boston;
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and Monty Kipps, Howard Belsey’s professional nemesis, begins teaching at the same
university as him. Sharing a stage at conferences—though with completely different
opinions and political views, being a part of the same academic circles, and writing for the
same journals for fifteen years did not necessarily contribute to Howard’s hatred toward
Monty. However, Howard began to despise Monty when he discovered that Monty had
composed “a book about Rembrandt” while Howard’s “remained unfinished” (29, 21).
Howard had a feeling Monty’s Rembrandt book would become quite popular—perhaps
even a New York Times bestseller (29). But before the Kippses’ move to the states, Jerome,
Howard’s son, had fallen in love with Victoria Kipps while he was living with the Kipps
family and interning for Monty Kipps. And the small world dynamic continues when
Howard later has an affair with Victoria Kipps, his student, Monty’s daughter, and Jerome’s
ex-lover. While most Kipps and Belsey affairs end negatively, the friendship between Kiki
Belsey and Carlene Kipps blossoms. In fact, preceding her death, Carlene leaves one of her
most valuable paintings to Kiki. Though Carlene’s family hides this amendment to her will
from those affected by it—specifically Kiki, Kiki kindly and genuinely shares her
condolences with the Kipps family after Carlene’s death, claiming that while most choose to
stay away during a time of loss, she wanted to stop by their house to check on Monty and
the kids (364). The interconnectedness of the characters’ professional as well as personal
lives reveals just how small their world truly becomes within as well as surrounding
academia.
Correspondingly, the small world of Joanne Dobson’s Quieter Than Sleep lies mostly
in romantic affairs between colleagues as well as Karen’s encounters with other Enfield
colleagues while in Cambridge. Not only does Avery Mitchell bring Magda Vegh to the New
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Years Eve party, but Magda also had a past with Randy during his “Fulbright year in
Budapest” (Dobson 212). And Avery’s ex-wife had an affair with Randy, though Liz later ran
off with a young musician from the Music Department (212). Not only did Magda have
relations with Randy and Avery, but Karen also saw Magda with Ned Hilton as they were
leaving the Thai restaurant and she was walking toward it (271). Ned and Magda could
have been in Cambridge for academic purposes, though Karen focuses her attention on
Magda’s “leather bomber jacket,” as Karen realizes that it belonged to Randy; and Magda
wore it the last time she saw her in Rudolph’s bar—making the conclusion that Magda
must have retrieved it from Randy’s office after the police “released the scene” (271, 272).
Nonetheless, Karen found the coincidence of spotting Magda and Ned unnerving (272).
Though she did remember Ned saying that “most of Enfield” spends their semester break in
Cambridge (272). Therefore, the happenstance of Ned and Magda’s encounter as well as
Karen’s observation of it further shows the extension of the small academic world of
Enfield.
Although academia makes up a surprisingly small world, some of the best writers
“choose to set their characters” in an academic setting (Scott 87). This small world
atmosphere appeals to readers, as it is not uncommon to encounter familiar faces in
academic settings outside of one’s campus and perhaps even across the globe.
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Works Cited and Consulted
Dobson, Joanne. Quieter Than Sleep. New York: Batman Books, 1997. Print.
Lodge, David. Small World. New York: Penguin Books, 1985. Print.
Mews, Siegfried. “The Professor’s Novel: David Lodge’s Small World.” MLN 104.3 (1989):
713-26. JSTOR. Web. 2 August 2014.
Rose, Jeanne Marie. “Managing Writing: Composition in the Academic Novel.” Modern
Language Studies 39.1 (2009): 56-65. JSTOR. Web. 14 July 2014.
Russo, Richard. Straight Man. New York: Vintage Books, 1997. Print.
Scott, Robert F. “It’s a Small World, after All: Assessing the Contemporary Campus Novel.”
The
Journal of the Midwest Modern Language Association 37.1 (2004): 81-87. JSTOR.
Web. 14 July 2014.
Smith, Zadie. On Beauty. New York: Penguin Books, 2005. Print.
Williams, Jeffrey J. “The Rise of the Academic Novel.” American Literary History 24.3 (2012):
561-89. Project Muse. Web. 22 June 2014.