Small world

Author: David Lodge
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: The similarities between modern conferences and medieval Christian pilgrimages lie in the fact that they allow participants to maintain the image of being seriously dedicated to self-improvement while also fully enjoying the pleasures and entertainments of travel. Of course, there will be certain penitential tasks to be fulfilled—perhaps submitting a paper, and listening to others read their papers is unavoidable. But under this pretext, you can go to new interesting places, meet new interesting people, and establish new interesting relationships with them; chat with them or have heartfelt conversations (because your old stories are fresh to them, and vice versa); dine and have fun with them every night; and when all of this is over and you go home, you have also gained a higher reputation in serious scholarship. Another advantage for today's conference attendees compared to past pilgrims is that their expenses are usually paid by the institutions they belong to, at least they receive some support, whether these institutions are government departments, business companies, or perhaps, more commonly, universities.
The entire academic world seems to be in constant motion. These days, half of the passengers on transatlantic flights are university teachers. Their luggage is heavier than ordinary people's, filled with books and papers—larger in volume as well, because the clothes they bring include formal wear, casual wear, attire for attending lectures, beachwear, or clothing for museums, German castles, Italian cathedrals, and ethnic villages. The appeal of conference circuits lies in this: it is a way to turn work into play, combining professional characteristics with travel, all while having someone else pay for it. Writing a paper can take you around the world! I am Jane Austen—let me take a plane! Or Shakespeare, T.S. Eliot, Hazlitt. All of them on plane tickets, on giant jetliners. Vroom-vroom-vroom-vroom-vroom-vroom!
Small World was introduced to China over a decade ago, and this time, Shanghai Translation Publishing House invited the renowned translator Professor Wang Jiaxiang to translate it anew. David Lodge is world-famous in the UK and known as the representative of "academic fiction." His most famous novels are almost all centered on intellectuals as main characters, with cultural events radiating from the literary world. Small World is hailed as the Western Fortress Besieged, describing the professors of the Western academic world flying all over the world, ostensibly for academic exchange, but in reality chasing fame and fortune, seeking pleasure and enjoyment.