Board game (novel) – Wikipedia

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Board game
Author David Lodge
Original version
Language English
Title Nice Work
Editor Secker and Warburg
Release date 1988
French version
Translator Maurice and Yvonne Couturier
Editor Shores
Release date 1990
Chronology
modifier Consultez la documentation du modèle
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Board game (original title : Nice Work ) is a novel by the British writer David Lodge, published in 1988.

The title comes from the expression ‘ nice work if you can get it » , linked to the precarious situation of the heroine and her efforts to be established [ first ] .

The text [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

Places and characters [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

The action takes place mainly in Rummidge, a fictitious city of Midlands, inspired by Birmingham, where David Lodge was a university professor from 1960 to 1987.

The main characters are :

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  • Victor Wilcox (“Vic Wilcox”), which directs the foundry and mechanical construction company Pringle and Sons Casting and General Engineering , quarantine, married, three children, is a pragmatic industrialist and proud of his work.
  • Roberta Anne Penrose (“Robyn Penrose”), an interim teacher at the University of Rummidge [ 2 ] , specialist in industrial novels and literature written by women, postmodern and feminist orientation, single living as a couple with another academic, is an elitist academic [ 3 ] , but in a precarious situation, obsessed with the search for a stable situation and completely ignorant of the living conditions of the world of work.

Résumé [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

An improbable relationship is created between Vic and Robyn thanks to the program Industry Year Shadow Scheme , initiated by the government to allow a better understanding between the business world and the university [ first ] . This is an additional work and Robyn Penrose accepts only unwilling to participate, hoping that this will allow him to obtain his tenure, despite the current budget cuts. It becomes for a quarter, one day a week, the “shadow” ( shadow ) Vic Wilcox, which, for its part, has to face social problems in his business where many workers of Asian origin work.

Robyn Penrose is shaken by what she discovers in the world of work. It acquires a certain understanding of the realistic ethos but it does not admit that it invades its university culture, while Vic Wilcox learns to perceive the meaning and the symbolic dimension of its environment and discovers in it a romantic part that it had previously despised in his daily life.

Faced with the increasingly difficult situation at the University, Robyn’s companion decides to enter the world of finance, where he succeeds quite well, while being aware of the intellectual emptiness of the trade of trader.

Vic Wilcox ends up falling in love with Robyn, fascinated that he is by his independence and his freedom of mind. They have an affair during a business trip to Frankfurt; He plans to divorce, but she absolutely does not encourage her, because she does not believe in “love”, according to her a pure fiction.

When Pringles is bought by a competitor group, he is dismissed; This ordeal allows him to realize that he did not deeply have the will to separate from his wife. He plans to create his own business to exploit a process for his invention and his wife and children are ready to support him. Robyn Penrose benefits from the legacy of an Australian uncle and decides to place him in the capital of Vic Wilcox.

Board game In David Lodge’s work [ modifier | Modifier and code ]

This novel follows the series of David Lodge university novels: Change of scenery (1975) and A tiny world , in particular by its location in Rummidge. But here, we get out of the academic world, since the subject is based on the confrontation of the university world and the world of business, industry and even finance.

Characters are recurrent, like the American Morris Zapp [ 4 ] and Philip Swallow, dean of the University’s Faculty of Letters.

The heroine of Board game briefly reappears to give a conference at the (fictitious) university of Gloucester in Secret thoughts ( Thinks… , 1998), another university novel by David Lodge.

Secondary characters from Board game also play a role in News of paradise , during a trip to Hawaii.

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The intrigue parody industrial novels, in particular North and South Elizabeth Gaskell. If the relations between Vic and Robyn, whose lifestyle and ideology are completely contradictory, take up the clashes of John Thornton and Margaret Hale, Marjorie resembles Fanny Thornton.

A mini-series in four episodes, on a scenario by David Lodge himself was shot in 1989 by the BBC largely at the University of Birmingham.

  • Original English edition: Secker and Warburg, 1988
  • English pocket edition: Penguin Books, 1989, 384 p. [ (ISBN  0140119213 ) ]
  • French translation: Rivages, 1990 [ (ISBN  2869302975 ) ]
  • French pocket edition: SCRAGES, 1991, 412 p. [ (ISBN  2869304560 ) ]
  1. ↑ a et b Nice Work , couple David Rodeback
  2. ↑ Cf. infra For the status of this university in the work of David Lodge.
  3. ↑ Page 255 of the pocket shore edition.
  4. ↑ It comes from the imaginary state of Euphoria, whose university, located in the city of Plotinus, is a barely disguised version of Berkeley.

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