Book Review: "The Campus Trilogy" by David Lodge

As you may know, David Lodge is a writer and I was mainly interested in his writing because of the fact that long before I attended university, David Lodge had actually taught there. The Campus Trilogy has been referred to as about the University of Birmingham. I'm not going to make a comment about my own experiences but I can say that I didn't really see it - maybe it is because the university has changed since the 1960s but there is an atmosphere of happiness in the book that seems to be misplaced. Again, that is based on personal experience and I'll stop there.

Changing Places is the first part of The Campus Trilogy and honestly, it didn't wow me at all. The first part of the book is about two men, one from England and one from America who exchange places on a university program. Both are about forty years' old and both are in strange situations. We don't get much of the whole university atmosphere, instead there is far too much drama between the American man and his wife who seem to be divorcing but then don't. I think there was a lot of strange emotions going on here and the women of the book were not really realistic at all. Lodge needs some practice when it comes to writing female characters.

The second part is entitled Small World and if you thought Changing Places had some bland female characters who seem to only be there as part and parcel to the male protagonist's redemption arc. We have a character who seems to be named for the grail myth of Percival who has finished a thesis on TS Eliot. And then, obviously, we have a female character who's an air hostess, loves reading Mills and Boon and is presented as an airhead. Do better David Lodge, this is really embarrassing for you. After this, we have this main character seemingly chasing around other women in a vain attempt to seem 'better' than the woman who progresses on to modern classic literature. A hard pass at best.

And obviously, the third part entitled Nice Work is all about the staunch feminist who falls in love with the 'right man' who just seems like every nice guy who ever complained about a woman not dating him. I have no idea why but I found these three books so vapid and dry, the stereotypes were everywhere and I know it was written in a different time but come on, there is so much wrong with these books. I wouldn't really complain if they were actually written well but they are written awfully. It seems they have a component in them about David Lodge himself - where he may or may not see women as counterproductive to a man's success or even not fit for the academic workplace. That doesn't surprise me in the slightest.

All in all, I found these books though interesting, difficult to actually find worth reading. I am glad that I'll be passing this book on to someone else but save yourself the time and - even though I wouldn't normally say this and would usually tell you to make up your own mind about the book - read something else. Life is far too short to read David Lodge and honestly, with books that claim to be realism that have such unbelievable storylines, I have to say I am not impressed. If you do want to read a university-based book I would highly recommend Brideshead Revisited by Evelyn Waugh - it may be capitalist and anti-feminist, but boy is that some good writing.

David Lodge's writing however, is dry, flawed and unimpressive.