57-476: Paradise News (1991) is a novel by British author David Lodge . The novel explores the notion of paradise on earth and in heaven. The story begins with Bernard, a laicised Catholic priest, escorting his unwilling father Jack to Hawaii at the request of his aunt Ursula, who is dying of cancer. On the day after arrival, Jack is hit by a car and sent to hospital. Bernard spends much time travelling between Jack's bedside and Ursula's nursing home, and through this, gets
114-438: A novella ), and Secret Thoughts (based on his novel Thinks... ). In his autobiography Quite a Good Time To Be Born: a Memoir, 1935–75 (2015), Lodge notes that The Old Rep was one of his favourite theatres, with a long distinguished history and the likes of Laurence Olivier , Edith Evans, Ralph Richardson , Albert Finney and Derek Jacobi performing there. He referred to the theatre as "a gem", but noted that shabby as it
171-595: A PhD in English awarded in 1967 by Birmingham University. From 1967 to 1987, Lodge continued his academic career at the University of Birmingham, becoming Professor of English Literature in 1976, while writing several more novels and essays. In 1969, he became an associate professor at the University of California, Berkeley . Lodge retired from his post at Birmingham in 1987 to become a full-time writer: "It
228-526: A collection of essays on literary techniques with illustrative examples from great authors, such as Point of View ( Henry James ), The Stream of Consciousness ( Virginia Woolf ) and Interior Monologue ( James Joyce ), beginning with Beginning and ending with Ending. David Lodge was born in Brockley , south-east London. His family home until 1959 was 81 Millmark Grove, a residential street of 1930s terraced houses between Brockley Cross and Barriedale. His father,
285-586: A comic infirmity as opposed to blindness which is a tragic infirmity". Lodge has said of his own work, "Each of my novels corresponds to a particular phase or aspect of my own life [but] this does not mean they are autobiographical in any simple, straightforward sense." Two of Lodge's recent novels follow the lives of authors: Author, Author (2004) about Henry James and A Man of Parts (2011) about H. G. Wells . Author, Author suffered from comparison with Colm Tóibín 's novel about Henry James, The Master , published six months earlier and then shortlisted for
342-593: A command and recce squadron and three Sabre Squadrons; which will initially be equipped with Combat Vehicle Reconnaissance (Tracked) , and then with Future Rapid Effect System Scout vehicles. Jackal regiments will be part of the Adaptable Force, comprising three Sabre Squadrons (each with 16 vehicles). These regiments will be paired with a Yeomanry regiment. The new structure of the Reaction Force will see three armoured regiments, each assigned to
399-481: A letter from Yolande to Bernard. This article about a 1990s novel is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . See guidelines for writing about novels . Further suggestions might be found on the article's talk page . David Lodge (author) David John Lodge CBE FRSL (born 28 January 1935) is an English author and critic. A literature professor at the University of Birmingham until 1987, some of his novels satirise academic life, notably
456-402: A new "Armoured Infantry Brigade", alongside a formation reconnaissance regiment (renamed as "armoured cavalry"), two armoured infantry battalions and a heavy protected mobility battalion. These six regiments will fall operationally under what will become known as the "reaction forces", which will be the army's high readiness force. The remaining three regiments will be located with the remainder of
513-479: A number of other passages which parody well-known writers, a fact not recognised by most reviewers when it was first published. Small World makes constant reference to Arthurian legend , in the plot, character names and allusions made by the characters (all academics). Lodge says of the novel's genesis, "It gradually grew on me that there was an analogy between my story and the Arthurian story, particularly
570-661: A reorganisation of the regiments of the Royal Armoured Corps. 1st (UK) Division is planned as the UK's primary land element for operations outside the European theatre, as well as operations supporting NATO's flanks. It consists of four infantry-centered brigades - two of these will contain regular light cavalry regiments, while a third serves as a parent formation for units of the Army Reserve. 3rd (UK) Division
627-450: A shift with one third of its regiments operating as armoured regiments with main battle tanks , another third as formation reconnaissance regiments and a final third as light cavalry using Jackal vehicles. Armoured regiments would consist of Type 56 regiments, each with three Sabre Squadrons (comprising 18 Challenger 2 Tanks each) and a command and recce squadron. Armoured Cavalry or formation reconnaissance regiments would also have
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#1732771807536684-424: A tentative relationship with Yolande Miller, the driver of the car that hit his father. Bernard's gradual sexual awakening parallels Ursula's struggle with her illness. The narrative switches between third-person prose, Bernard's diary, a long letter from Bernard to Yolande, and postcards and notes sent from Hawaii by various characters encountered by Bernard and Jack on the plane journey from England, concluding with
741-487: A two-character play, Secret Thoughts , which opened at the Octagon Theatre, Bolton on 12 May 2011. The Stage called it "an intriguing, intensely witty, brainy play.... one of the most compelling two-handers imaginable." The Guardian review said that "Lodge's novel boils down neatly into an intellectually and erotically charged dialogue on the nature of the mind," yet felt that "Lodge cannot quite eradicate
798-469: A violinist, played in the orchestra pit of south London cinemas accompanying silent films. Lodge's first published novel The Picturegoers (1960) draws on early experiences in "Brickley" (based on Brockley) and his childhood home, which he revisits again in later novels, Therapy (1995), Deaf Sentence (2008) and Quite A Good Time to be Born: A Memoir (2015). World War II forced Lodge and his mother to evacuate to Surrey and Cornwall . He attended
855-494: A world on the cusp of change". Lodge was brought up a Catholic and has described himself as an "agnostic Catholic". Many of his characters are Catholic and their Catholicism, particularly the relationship between Catholicism and sexuality, is a major theme. The British Museum Is Falling Down (1965) and How Far Can You Go? (1980; published in the US as Souls and Bodies ), examine the difficulties faced by orthodox Catholics due to
912-901: Is Payot et Rivages. Publication of his theoretical works in France began later, beginning in 2003 with Consciousness and the Novel . The earlier works of this area remained unpublished in France, except The Art of Fiction . His books are routinely translated into other languages, including German, Spanish, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Czech, Polish and Turkish. In The Art of Fiction (1992) , Lodge studied, through examination of extracts from novels, various stylistic devices (repetition, variation in levels of language, etc.) and narrative techniques (varying viewpoints, defamiliarisation, etc.). Lodge self-consciously uses many of these techniques in his own novels. For example, in Paradise News (1991)
969-405: Is influenced by Mrs Dalloway by Virginia Woolf and Ulysses by James Joyce in that all of the action takes place in one day. The novel is mostly seen from the point of view of Adam Appleby, but the last chapter contains a long stream-of-consciousness section from the point of view of Adam's wife Barbara, modelled on Molly Bloom 's famous soliloquy at the end of Ulysses . The novel contains
1026-462: Is on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela . Lodge has said that if read chronologically, his novels depict an orthodox Roman Catholic becoming "less and less so as time went on". Several of Lodge's novels satirise the academic world. The Campus Trilogy ( Changing Places , Small World and Nice Work ) are set at a fictional English Midland university of "Rummidge", modelled on Birmingham . (The name "Rummidge" appears to be derived from Brummagem ,
1083-656: Is the Royal Tank Regiment . In the regular army, there are three armoured regiments, three armoured cavalry regiments and three light cavalry regiments. In the army reserve, there is one armoured regiment and three light cavalry regiments. Being a corps, the RAC is made up of several independent regiments, but the corps does control a few separate units which include: A Royal Tank Regiment CBRN reconnaissance and survey squadron forms part of 28 Engineer Regiment (C-CBRN), Royal Engineers A system of pairing exists in
1140-914: The Booker Prize twice, for Small World and Nice Work , and in 1989, Lodge chaired the Booker Prize judges. His 1970 novel Out of the Shelter was long-listed for the Lost Man Booker Prize in 2010. Anthony Burgess called Lodge "one of the best novelists of his generation". Lodge's work first received recognition in France in the early 1990s, after the publication by Rivages of two of his novels, Nice Work and Changing Places . These were followed in 1991 by Small World and The British Museum Is Falling Down . Since then almost all his works of fiction have been translated – his new works fairly quickly. His present publisher in France
1197-558: The Booker Prize . Most reviews of Lodge's novel dwelt on its unfortunate timing. Lodge wrote about the experience in The Year of Henry James (2006). In 2015, Quite a Good Time to Be Born was published: an autobiography covering Lodge's life from 1935 to 1975. Lodge's major influences include English Catholic novelists (the subject of his MA dissertation), notably Graham Greene . Of his contemporaries, he has been compared most often to his friend Malcolm Bradbury, also an exponent of
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#17327718075361254-789: The Challenger 2 and the Warrior tracked armoured vehicle . It includes most of the Army's armoured regiments, both the Royal Tank Regiment and those converted from old horse cavalry regiments . In September 2024, it comprised fourteen regiments: ten Regular Regiments; four Army Reserve . Although the Household Cavalry Regiment (the Life Guards and the Blues and Royals ) provide an armoured regiment, they are not part of
1311-665: The Royal Armoured Corps on national service , which provided a basis for his novel Ginger You're Barmy . He then returned to London University, earning a Master of Arts in 1959 for a thesis on "The Catholic Novel from the Oxford Movement to the Present Day". In 1959, Lodge and Jacob married at the age of 24. Lodge later said, "It seems extraordinary now. I had no prospects, no job, little money but it never bothered me. We didn't really want children at
1368-607: The "Campus Trilogy" – Changing Places : A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work (1988). The second two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize . Another theme is Roman Catholicism, beginning from his first published novel The Picturegoers (1960). Lodge has also written television screenplays and three stage plays. After retiring, he continued to publish literary criticism. His edition of Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1972) includes essays on 20th-century writers such as T. S. Eliot . In 1992, he published The Art of Fiction ,
1425-470: The 1950s. My association with Malcolm Bradbury, and the example of his own work in comedy, was therefore a crucial factor in this development in my writing." Lodge says he "was once rung up by a man to settle a bet by declaring whether I was the same person as Malcolm Bradbury." As an academic, Lodge was an early UK proponent of the work of Mikhail Bakhtin . Lodge also alludes frequently in his novels to other literary works. The British Museum Is Falling Down
1482-522: The British Army of Regular to Reserve unit. Through this, operational and training cycles are aligned, resources shared and strategic depth enabled. In the Royal Armoured Corps this manifests with each yeomanry unit being paired with a regular unit of the same role. The Band of the Royal Armoured Corps was the single band representing the RAC provided by of the Royal Corps of Army Music . This
1539-584: The Catholic St Joseph's Academy, Blackheath . In 1952, Lodge entered University College London , where he gained a first-class Bachelor of Arts degree in 1955. There he met his future wife, Mary Frances Jacob, as a fellow student, when they were 18. Meanwhile, he wrote a first, unpublished novel (1953): The Devil, the World and the Flesh . After graduating from university, Lodge spent two years in
1596-490: The Grail quest in which a group of knights wander around the world, having adventures, pursuing ladies, love, and glory, jousting with each other, meeting rather coincidentally or unexpectedly, facing constant challenges and crises, and so on.... This all corresponded to the modern world with its Round Table of professors: the elite group who get invited to conferences, who go around the world in pursuit of glory. Sometimes they take
1653-866: The Leuchars area, the Queen's Royal Hussars to Tidworth, the Royal Lancers settling in Catterick, the Light Dragoons in Catterick, and the Royal Tank Regiment to Tidworth. The expected Army 2020 layout for the RAC is to be: The Royal Dragoon Guards In November 2021, the UK Government published Future Soldier , the planned reform of the British Army following its integrated defence and security review . Part of this would see
1710-478: The RAC. The RAC was created on 4 April 1939, just before World War II started, by combining regiments from the cavalry of the line which had mechanised with the Royal Tank Corps (renamed Royal Tank Regiment ). As the war went on and other regular cavalry and Territorial Army Yeomanry units became mechanised, the corps was enlarged. A significant number of infantry battalions also converted to
1767-495: The UK, with one re-roled as an FR regiment. In addition, three Challenger 2 squadrons will be converted to Interim Medium Armour Squadrons , while each FR regiment will gain a Command and Support Squadron. As part of the reorganisation, postings will be realigned: In 2012, following the Strategic Defence and Security Review of 2010 , specific proposals about the make up of the future British Army were announced under
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1824-534: The University Library's Special Collections. In 1997, Lodge was made a Chevalier de l'Ordre des Arts et Lettres by the French Ministry of Culture. In the 1998 New Years Honours list, he was appointed CBE for his services to literature. Lodge's first published novels evoke the atmosphere of post-war England (for example, The Picturegoers (1960)). The theme occurs in later novels, through
1881-525: The Year in 1988 for Nice Work . Two of his early novels were reissued during this period ( Ginger You're Barmy , 1962/1982, and The British Museum is Falling Down , 1965/1981). His novels appeared in paperback in the 1960s with Pan and Panther Books, with Penguin Books from 1980 and with Vintage Publishing (Random House Group) since 2011. Vintage has reissued most of his earlier work. Lodge has been shortlisted for
1938-667: The armoured role as RAC regiments. In addition, the RAC created its own training and support regiments. Finally, in 1944, the RAC absorbed the regiments of the Reconnaissance Corps . The Royal Armoured Corps is divided into regiments which operate main battle tanks ( Armour ), those in reconnaissance vehicles ( Armoured Cavalry ), and those in Weapons Mount vehicles (Light Cavalry). Of these, three regiments are designated Dragoon Guards , two as Hussars , one as Lancers and one as Dragoons . The remaining regiment
1995-408: The autumn of 1963. The cast included Julie Christie . During the performance of a certain skit that involved a radio being played on stage, Lodge and the audience heard news of the assassination of John F. Kennedy : "Some members of the audience had caught the words and tittered uneasily, taking it as a joke in poor taste. In the interval everybody discovered the awful truth, and the second half of
2052-717: The bare situation possessed the classic dramatic unities of time, place and action. Indeed it would be true to say that I invented the plot of my play to fulfil the dramatic possibilities inherent in the situation." The play opened at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre on 13 May 1990 and ran for three weeks. An American production was staged at the American Repertory Theatre in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March 1991. Lodge later adapted
2109-410: The campus novel. Lodge has acknowledged this debt: " The British Museum Is Falling Down was the first of my novels that could be described as in any way experimental. Comedy, it seemed, offered a way of reconciling a contradiction, of which I had long been aware, between my critical admiration for the great modernist writers, and my creative practice, formed by the neo-realist, anti-modernist writing of
2166-486: The childhood memories of certain characters ( Paradise News , 1992; Therapy , 1995). The war is covered in Out of the Shelter (1970), while Ginger You're Barmy (1962) draws on Lodge's experience of military service in the 1950s. The Guardian review of the 2011 reissue of Ginger You're Barmy , called the novel "an impressively humane and feelingly political indictment of a tawdry postwar compromise" and "a moving glimpse of
2223-595: The foundation of a real University of Limerick . Another campus novel, Thinks... , is set in a fictional University of Gloucester, before the foundation of the University of Gloucestershire . Lodge's novels cover the world of business in Nice Work , that of television in Therapy , and deafness and Alzheimer's disease in Deaf Sentence . The last draws on Lodge's own hearing problems: "I hate my deafness; it's
2280-594: The local nickname for Birmingham, by removing the first and last letters and altering the spelling.) The novels share characters, notably the Rummidge English literature lecturer Philip Swallow and his American counterpart, Professor Morris Zapp, who aspires to be "the highest paid teacher of Humanities in the world". Swallow and Zapp first cross paths in Changing Places , where they swap jobs for an exchange scheme (and later, swap wives). Lodge has called
2337-549: The main character, as part of a therapy exercise. Two of Lodge's novels have been adapted into television serials: Small World (1988), and Nice Work (1989). Nice Work was adapted by Lodge himself and filmed at the University of Birmingham. He also adapted his play The Writing Game for television (1995). In 1994 Lodge adapted Dickens 's Martin Chuzzlewit for a BBC series . Lodge has written three plays: The Writing Game , Home Truths (which he later turned into
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2394-452: The narration is mostly third-person point of view, but there are also first-person narratives (diary and autobiography, letters, postcards, emails) and various other documents, such as theoretical writings on tourism. In Therapy (1995) the bulk of the novel is told through the protagonist's diary, but there are other texts, presented as written by minor characters about the main character. It is eventually revealed that these were all written by
2451-404: The novelist Malcolm Bradbury , who was to become his "closest writer friend"; the example of Bradbury's comic writing was, according to Lodge, a major influence on the development of his own work in this respect. In 1963, Lodge collaborated with Bradbury and another student, James Duckett, on a satirical revue for the Birmingham Repertory Theatre entitled Between These Four Walls , performed in
2508-415: The opportunity to discover their past. Ursula, always portrayed as the selfish black sheep, had been sexually abused as a child by her oldest brother Sean, who was venerated as a hero by the family for his death in the war. Ursula explains to Bernard that the experience ruined her marriage and her life. She wants Jack's apology for Jack knew of the abuse but kept silent. In the midst of this, Bernard strikes up
2565-655: The opportunity to indulge in amorous intrigue, or to joust with each other in debate, pursuing glory in the sense of wanting to be at the top of their profession." Lodge's work first came to wider notice in Britain in 1975, when he won the Hawthornden prize for Changing Places . He went on to win the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 1980 for How Far Can You Go? and the Sunday Express Book of
2622-479: The play for television. It was broadcast on Channel 4 on Sunday 18 February 1996, attracting 1.2 million viewers. Home Truths was performed at the Birmingham Rep in 1998. The story mainly focuses on Adrian Ludlow, a semi-retired writer interviewed by Fanny Tarrant, a journalist famous for sarcastic portrayals. Lodge later rewrote it as a novella of the same name. Lodge adapted his novel Thinks ... as
2679-517: The plot of the novel "a narrative transformation of the thematic material and the socio-cultural similarities and differences I had perceived between Birmingham and Berkeley," during his visiting professorship. Other fictional universities appear in Lodge's novels. Persse McGarrigle in Small World is a doctoral student at a fictional University College Limerick, the book having been written before
2736-599: The point they came along, but we got on with it." They had children in 1960 and 1963, a son and a daughter, and a second son, Christopher, born in 1966 with Down Syndrome . From 1959 to 1960, Lodge taught English in London for the British Council . In 1960, he gained a job as a lecturer at the University of Birmingham , where he was preparing a PhD thesis on the Oxford Movement . At Birmingham, Lodge met
2793-427: The prohibition of artificial contraception . Other novels where Catholicism plays an important part include Small World (in the character of Persse), Paradise News (1991) and Therapy (1995). In Therapy , the protagonist Laurence Passmore ("Tubby") has a breakdown after his marriage fails . He reminisces about his adolescent courtship with his first girlfriend at a Catholic youth club and seeks her out while she
2850-400: The regular army under what has been term the "adaptable forces", which will provide a pool of resources to back up operations conducted by the "reaction forces". This new basing plan on 5 March 2013 gave an overview of where the regiments will be based. All RAC regiments will be UK based, with the 1st The Queen's Dragoon Guards moving to Swanton Morley, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards moving to
2907-652: The sense that some of the cerebral jousting has a more natural home in a novel than on stage." Secret Thoughts won Best New Play at the Manchester Theatre Awards , hailed as a "bracing and ambitious production that wowed everyone who saw it." Royal Armoured Corps The Royal Armoured Corps is the armoured arm of the British Army , that together with the Household Cavalry provides its armour capability, with vehicles such as
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#17327718075362964-728: The show fell very flat." In August 1964, Lodge and his family went to the United States, on a scholarship from the Harkness Commonwealth Fellowship. It required Lodge to travel at least three months out of twelve in the United States, with a car provided by the donor. The family first lived in Providence, Rhode Island , where David Lodge followed the American literature course at Brown University . During this period, free of teaching obligations, Lodge
3021-491: The title Army 2020 . These proposals were intended to reduce the size of the army to around 82,000. The Royal Armoured Corps was to be reduced by a total of two regiments, with the 9th/12th Royal Lancers amalgamated with the Queen's Royal Lancers to form a single lancer regiment, the Royal Lancers, and the 1st and 2nd Royal Tank Regiments joined to form a single Royal Tank Regiment . The Royal Armoured Corps will also see
3078-604: Was able to complete a third novel, The British Museum Is Falling Down . Lodge's original title for the novel was The British Museum Has Lost Its Charm , a line from a George and Ira Gershwin song, but he was refused permission to use it by the Gershwin Publishing Corporation. In March 1965 the family went on a trip across the country, eventually moving to San Francisco. In 1966, Lodge published his first book of academic criticism, Language of Fiction , and in 1967 defended his doctoral thesis for
3135-674: Was formed in 2014 by the amalgamation of the Heavy Cavalry and Cambrai Band, and the Light Cavalry Band. The Band of the Royal Armoured Corps is stationed at Catterick . However, as part of the 2019 reorganisation of the CAMUS, the band was merged into British Army Band Catterick. The reorganisation of the Army announced in 2004 led to significant changes to the Royal Armoured Corps. Reorganisation that began in 2003 would see three armoured regiments removed from Germany to
3192-538: Was the right time to leave. All my former colleagues say: 'You are well out of it.' There's a weary disillusion to university life now and that's a shame because, when I was there, there was excitement, a joie de vivre. Now it has become like a machine, servicing large numbers of students, and much less attractive and interesting." He retains the title of Honorary Professor of Modern English Literature and continues to live in Birmingham. Some of his papers are housed in
3249-498: Was then, he could not have had a better venue for his first attempt at writing for the professional stage. The Writing Game is about the staff, teachers and students at a residential course for writers. The action is interspersed with readings by the characters of their own works in progress. According to Lodge, the play "originated in the experience of teaching such a course myself – not because its plot bears any resemblance to what happened on that course, but because it struck me that
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