Nice Work by David Lodge

March 28th, 2008

Nice Work
David Lodge
384 p.

Penguin Books 1989.
(first published 1988 by Secker & Warburg.)

Back cover blurb:

 When Vix Wilcox (MD of Pringle’s engineering works) meets English lecturer Dr Robyn Penrose, sparks fly as their lifestyles and ideologies collide head on. What, after all, are they supposed to learn from each other? But in time both parties make some surprising discoveries about each other’s worlds - and about themselves.

The copy I read had neither a back cover blurb, nor the cover up there. However, seeing as I couldn’t find that cover anywhere, I had to do what well I could. Also, I have always wanted to have read one of Lodge’s books, just because all of them seem to have such uniform and lovely covers. You can imagine how disappointed when I found, digging this out of one of our bookshelves, that the cover had to real persons on it. The back cover was merely full of reviews, and I have never liked reviews tagged onto books. However, this did little to the way I found this book.

Nice Work is both terrific and slightly boring. We follow the English lecturer and the factory manager, so extremely different. But, they aren’t that different. I assumed, when starting this book, that Wilcox was going to be completely devoid of figurative language, but that isn’t the case. He frequently uses metaphors and such - maybe not extremely elegant such, but metaphors none-the-less. Somehow I felt as though this great difference was a bit muted by that simple fact. There were also a few other things that annoyed me slightly. Most prominent were the discussions Robyn held with her on-off-boyfriend. They discussed literary things with too big words and too much highbrowness. This shouldn’t actually be a problem, but I must be allergic from it, because I really did not like it. Actually, this is a bit strange, seeing as I am considering studying English Literature come University, and ought to be all for the literary jargon. However, I’m one of these people who doesn’t want to see symbols and metaphors in everything. Sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar, as Freud said. I honestly do not believe that every novel has an underlying meaning. Some things can just be coincidences. Of course, I don’t say this during class! But enough is enough.

Despite these small things that disturbed my reading, I really liked it. I enjoyed the fact that they didn’t get each other in the end and that they were happy anyway, and that the changes were subtle and believable. I read it as part of research for a big essay I’ve to write, but I don’t think I’ll be using it as any kind of reference. Not because it was bad, but because it doesn’t really fit in with what I am investigating. In a way, I wish it would have. Lodge’s language is quite beautiful.

Entry Filed under: English, Fiction