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.
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