Oh how sad. David Lodge has died.

[MorrisZapp]

He gave me my name! The original and best campus novel writer. Vic Wilcox in Nice Work is my all time favourite fictional character, though Robyn Penrose gets points for scratching her backside through a long cotton nighty.

He was 89. Nice work Mr Lodge, and thank you.

Yes. Nice Work indeed @MorrisZapp.

Very sad. A great campus novelist.

Thank you for posting this! I loved his work!

That's very sad. I really enjoyed his books.

Agreed. I enjoyed his books. Still have them and due a re-read.

RIP

Me too - read them when at Birmingham Uni in the 80’s

I accidentally learned about Kierkergaard from one of his books, a jollier soul you'll never meet 😂

That sounds very meta! Oh and Paternoster lifts, who knew?

I learnt about semiotics from him!

And The University of Euphoric State gives me a chuckle every year when UCAS rolls around (teacher).

RIP Mr Lodge.

Oh no. Great books and when I worked in the Muirhead Tower before renovation, really enjoyed imagining the scene from Changing Places where Morris Zapp thinks he’s been shot at (if you know you know).

Met him at an English Department do about 15 years ago and heard him speak - funny and modest.

One still exists in the Attenborough Building at Leicester …

Oh no! Nice Work was fab.
I liked Therapy too but it’s a long time since I read any of the campus books. May have to have a re-read.

Anyone remember the TV series of Nice Work with Haydn Gwynne?

Oh I worked on one of the buildings at Newcastle University in the 1970s that had a Paternoster lift. I hated using it. Then one day there was a terrible accident where 3 people failed to jump off at the top floor and were dragged through the mechanism and killed. Just hearing the name Paternoster brings that back to me.

incredible writer

I went in a paternoster lift at Birmingham uni on an interview visit. Terrified me. Never went back.

She was absolutely luminous in that role. RIP Ms Gwynne.

Haydn Gwynne was absolutely lovely.

And such a good actress. I loved her voice.
She died far too young.

Sad news. He was a great writer. I'm reminded of his campus novels every time I see your name here, Professor Zapp.

I love 'How Far Can You Go?' - I don't know what happened there at the end, but I still think about the couples in it

That's very sad, though he'd lived to a good age. Also discovered his books as an undergraduate. Really funny, and often true, like the bit about 'postgraduate' in Britain being indicative of them a lost soul like a shell shock victim for whom things had never been the same since the Big Push. Will have to reread them.

Oh that is sad, I loved his campus books and must re-read. The paternoster lifts indeed. 😧

I live to serve! If only I liked Jane Austen but I actually can't bear her prissy little mumblings. I'll take up whisky drinking instead.

Of course it was redbrick vs. plateglass in those days. Not a word about the 'Russell Group', just lots of talk about 'chairs'.

One of my favourite writers. 'Ginger, You're Barmy' was the first one I read and I quickly went on a mission to read them all; re-read them every couple of years. RIP.

“Nice work Mr Lodge, and thank you.”

How nicely put and I agree. I absolutely loved his work (ex English Lit undergraduate and ex-Catholic 😊). I now have a DC at the University of Rummidge, which always makes me smile when I go up to visit her.

Yes this is sad - I read all the campus novels whilst at school. Nice Work particularly resonated with me as my mother had been a student at Sussex university in the 1960s whereas my father was the industrial company type who had a degree in engineering from a red brick university.

I frequently come back to the game of humiliation which is I think in Changing Places where English lecturers admit to the novels that they havent read which are part of the wider English literary canon. I relect on my own literary shortcomings and try and address this book by book!