'Write a paper, see the world'

David Lodge — his work, not the man — was  introduced to me by a late friend of mine, a publisher with some very close links to academia, who nevertheless believed that academic life wasn’t quite cracked up to be what its awe-inspiring image suggested. When this book came out, he joked: “He has stolen my ideas.”

Mr Lodges’ satire on modern-day campus life is far removed from the popular vision of academia as a world of cerebral heavy-weights locked in their ivory towers in a single-minded pursuit of knowledge. Himself a distinguished academic (formerly professor of English literature at Birmingham