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Small World

By David Lodge
The ‘Story’ behind the Story

The complexity of David Lodge’s Small World resides in its modernity; the
disrupted plot, the constant change in focalisation, the multiple points of view which
explain the tendency of shifting from one character to another, all these make the novel
difficult to follow and grasp. However, in addition to this, there is the ability with which
Lodge managed to convey the novel more than just one meaning. That is, the story
behind the story.
To clarify, by story Rimmon-Kennan understands “the narrated events and
participants in abstraction from the text. As such, it is the fictional ‘reality’ in which the
characters of the story are supposed to be living and in which its events are supposed to
take place. In fact, story is one axis within the larger construct: the axis of temporal
organization.”1 So, in simpler words, story would mean the plot, the events that take
place in a certain time and space and which involve a number of characters.
The personal usage of story, on the other hand, does not involve the well-known
meaning; it is rather a metaphor to hint to Lodge’s intensive use of symbols, analogies,
and parody when creating his characters and depicting the situations they find themselves
into, especially taking into consideration the manner in which the author describes Persse
McGarrigle’s endless search of the woman he loves. Actually, the whole novel is a
collection of quests: each character invests time, energy and sometimes money in order to
acquire their purposes. These quests, for Angelica, for the perfect conference, for an
original idea, for lost relatives, for the ultimate academic appointment (the UNESCO
Chair of Literary Studies) are the ones that give the novel its unity.2

1
Shlomith Rimmon-Kenan. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 5.
2
Robert A Morace. The Dialogic Novels of Malcolm Bradbury and David Lodge. Carbondale, IL: Southern
Illinois University Press, 1989. p. 195.

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However, this is only the obvious aspect, because the plot is far more intricate,
due to the more profound level of interpretation, where everything, names of characters,
of places, certain situations, inter-textual references, all may seem arbitrary but are in fact
carefully chosen to deliver a certain message.3 So, in Lodge’s novel, almost everything
can be interpreted or has a second, hidden meaning. Let us take for example, the names
of some of the characters, for Lodge himself believes that “a novel can never reproduce
neutrality nor the giving of names in the real world” and that “nothing can be neutral in a
novel”4. Persse McGarrigle reminds the reader either of Percival, the one who had set on
a quest for the Holy Grail in the arthurian legends, or of Perseus, the mythological, Greek
hero who had slain the dragon. Arthur Kingfisher’s name is an innuendo on the one end
to the legendary king of Camelot, and on the other hand to the Fisher King, archetype of
sterility; both interpretations again hint to the medieval legends. Siegfried von Turpitz
has a name that reminds the reader of the Song of the Nibelungs, whereas Fulvia Morgana
can be seen as a modern variant of the witch Morgan Le Fay, Arthur’s sister. Also, the
name Sybil Maiden has a double meaning, on the one hand reminding of the roman
priestesses of Apollo (the sybils), and on the other hand, hinting to the self-proclaimed
status of spinster (maiden).5
Actually, on the whole, Small World is nothing more than a parody of the
medieval romance: the medieval knights are today’s professors who travel around the
world to attend different international conferences, “mixing professionalism and tourism
and all these on somebody else’s expense”6, and the target of this postmodernist quest is
no longer the Holy Grail, bur rather an extremely well-paid, UNESCO-financed position
in an accomplished, famous university.

3
Steven Connor. Cultura postmodernă. O introducere în teoriile contemporane. Bucureşti: Meridiane,
1999. p. 276.
4
David Lodge. Language of Fiction. London: Routledge, 2002. p. 55.
5
Robert A. Morace. Op.cit. p. 223.
6
David Lodge. Small World. London and New York: Penguin, 1985. p. 202..

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Bibliography

Primary Source
Lodge, David. Small World. London and New York: Penguin, 1985.

Secondary Sources

Connor, Steven. Cultura postmodernă. O introducere în teoriile contemporane.


Bucureşti: Meridiane, 1999

Lodge, David. Language of Fiction. London: Routledge, 2002

Morace, Robert A. The Dialogic Novels of Malcolm Bradbury and David Lodge.
Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press, 1989.

Rimmon-Kenan, Shlomith. Narrative Fiction: Contemporary Poetics. London:


Routledge, 2002.

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