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t (Israel) (2010/10/21): loved this book got romance got politics easy to read
chris (Japan) (2017/11/10): Customer reviews 4.5 out of 5 stars 37 4.5 out of 5 stars 5 star 25 4 star 9 3 star 2 2 star2 star (0) 0 1 star 1 Share your thoughts with other customers Write a customer review See all 37 customer reviews Top customer reviews Mrs. Margaret V. Kelly 5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars 21 August 2017 Format: Hardcover|Verified Purchase Not finished it yet but good reading. Comment|Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse J. Whitworth 5.0 out of 5 starsDefinitive Campus Novel 2 October 2002 Format: Paperback Quite simply, this is one of the great campus novels. Believe me - as a PhD student, I am amazed at the way Lodge draws humour from the often dry and slightly weird world of academia. You don't need to have a degree to read this book, though - it is a wonderful example of the way two worlds that are not as different as you may think interact. very, very funny. To me, it screams out for a sequel (although Robyn makes a cameo in Thinks..). I would love to know what she's up to today! Someone should slap a preservation order on Lodge. Better than the History Man - better than Lucky Jim. Brilliant. Comment| 24 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Report abuse Ralph Blumenau TOP 500 REVIEWER 5.0 out of 5 starsMuch the best of the Campus Trilogy 29 May 2016 Format: Kindle Edition This is the third novel in the Campus Trilogy, of which the earlier ones are “Changing Places” and “Small World”. It is set in 1979, the year in which Mrs Thatcher’s government came to power and wanted universities to be run like businesses and to become less dependent on government funding. Birmingham University, along with most others, tried to strengthen its ties with local industry. So for this novel Lodge uses the same formula he had used for “Changing Places”, this time with an academic visiting a business concern to learn how business works, and a businessman eventually reciprocating by spending time in the university.The businessman is Victor Wilcox. He, short of stature, is the Managing Director of J. Pringle & Sons, an engineering firm in Brummidge and he is worried because it is experiencing some decline since the boom years. The academic is Robyn Penrose, tall and lissom, who has a three year lectureship in English Literature at Rummidge University. Her speciality is the Industrial Novel (and we are given an account of the literary theories of the time: she sides with the continental ones; she is also left-wing, a feminist and reads all sorts of Freudian symbolism into the novels.) She is told by her Head of Department (Philip Swallow, whom we have met in “Changing Places” and in “Small World”) that regrettably the financial cuts imposed by the government will not allow the university to make her post a tenured one when her three years come to an end.
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