Small World

British author David Lodge’s satirical campus novel, Small World (1984), is the second installment in his Campus Trilogy, between 1975’s Changing Places and 1988’s Nice Work. The novel follows young Irish literary critic Persse McGarrigle as he chases his beautiful colleague Angelica Pabst from academic conference to academic conference. Around this central plot are woven satires of academic figures and ideas, as well as references to medieval romance, Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene and the academic study of these texts. The novel culminates in a heated debate about the purpose of literary criticism. It was shortlisted for the 1984 Booker Prize.

Small World opens as Persse arrives at a conference hosted by Philip Swallow, an English professor at the (fictional) University of Rummidge, England. Persse, a naïve young man, has found himself teaching at University College, Limerick (also fictional) after receiving an invitation to interview intended for another young academic with the same surname.

At the conference, Persse meets many of the novel’s principal players, including Swallow and American academic Morris Zapp (who together were the main characters of Changing Places), venerable Cambridge professor Sybil Maiden, and the beautiful, radical critic Angelica Pabst. She tells Persse that she was adopted by an airline executive after she was abandoned, as a baby, in an airplane bathroom. Persse falls in love with her and tells her so, but she leaves without telling him where she is going.



Swallow and Zapp catch up. Zapp has discovered deconstruction and reinvented himself as a critical enfant terrible. Swallow tells Zapp about a strange occurrence: years earlier, after surviving a plane crash, he spend the night with the wife of a British Council official—Joy—only to learn soon after that Joy and her family had died in a plane crash.

A series of synchronous scenes show us many different characters at the same moment in time: Zapp is traveling to his next conference; the Australian critic Rodney Wainright is trying to come up with a conference paper; Zapp’s ex-wife is writing a novel; another American, Howard Ringbaum, is trying to persuade his wife to join the Mile High Club; venerable American critic Arthur Kingfisher discusses a well-endowed new UNESCO chair in literary criticism; a British critic is already plotting to secure the new chair for himself; a Turkish critic prepares for a visit from Swallow; a Japanese translator struggles with the tired late work of British novelist Ronald Frobisher; Frobisher eats breakfast; Italian theorist Fulvia Morgana meets Zapp on a plane. Several other characters facilitate amusing plot coincidences, offering satirical portraits of academic types.

Several of the travelers, including Persse, meet Cheryl Summerbee, a British Airways check-in clerk who loves romance novels.



Persse travels from conference to conference, chasing Angelica. At one of these, in Amsterdam, he discovers that the German critic Siegfried von Turpitz has plagiarized his unpublished book. He accuses von Turpitz, and when the German retaliates, Zapp comes to the young man’s defense. Persse recognizes Angelica—or a woman who looks just like her—in a pornographic film.

On his trip to Turkey, Swallow encounters Joy—the woman he thought had died in a plane crash—and they begin an affair. Meanwhile, Zapp is kidnapped by underground leftists and only released after the intervention of Morgana.

Persse learns that Angelica has an identical twin, Lily, who is a pornographic actor. He encounters Cheryl Summerbee for the second time: now she is reading not pulp romances but medieval romantic poetry and critical appreciations of it: she has been influenced by Angelica. Cheryl is upset that Persse is in love with Angelica because she has a crush on him.



The novel’s final section takes place as a Modern Languages Association Conference in New York. The bulk of the novel’s characters attend. A panel discussion is held on the purpose of criticism, which will decide who wins the UNESCO chair. The moderator is Kingfisher, who has not put himself forward for the chair because he knows his once-great critical powers are in decline. During the Q&A, Persse asks the panel, "What follows if everyone agrees with you?" Kingfisher’s interest is so piqued by the question that he rediscovers his passion for criticism: later he announces that he will apply for the chair after all.

Persse finally tracks down Angelica: she is reading a paper about the romance genre, which also describes the structure of Small World. Afterward, he takes Angelica to his hotel room and they have sex (Persse’s first experience). She reveals that she is not Angelica but Lily. Ashamed, Persse wants to continue chasing Angelia, but Lily tells him he is “in love with a dream.”

Sybil Maiden announces that she and Kingfisher are the parents of Lily and Angelica: in the ensuing uproar, many conflicts are resolved and couples reunited. Angelica introduces Persse to her fiancé, Peter McGarrigle. It turns out that Peter is the man who should have been interviewed for Persse’s job. Peter thanks Persse: if Persse hadn’t taken his job, Peter would never have met Angelica.



Persse realizes that he loves Cheryl, and he flies to Heathrow to talk to her. Arriving on New Year’s Eve, he learns that Cheryl has been fired and gone traveling. Persse sets off to find her.