Chasing the Satirical Holy Grail

In Small World, David Lodge uses wit, irony, and the myth of the Holy Grail in order to satirize the world of academia, where the phrase "publish or perish" still holds a great deal of truth. Lodge creates a somewhat surreal world in the novel, which, in poststructuralist fashion, corresponds to reality without mirroring it entirely. In his satirical approach to the life of Persse McGarrigle, he is able to meticulously and humorously attack human vice and folly through his own wit and irony.

To understand this argument, one must first understand the notion of satire. Thai isùthe tenets of satirical literature. In literature, a satire is generally understood to be a work in which the foibles of humanity are attacked in a humorous light. Through comic situations, Lodge has certainly achieved this.

The novel begins in April in RummidgeùLodge's mirror of Birmingham, with an allusion to Eliot's The Waste Land. "April is the cruellest month," the novel begins (3). Certainly it seems cruel in the image that Lodge paints into the mind of the audience. It is a snowy and cold April, hardly a spring break-worthy season. Seemingly more important however is the fact that he draws upon The Waste Land to allude to the Arthurian Grail myth. He uses the reference to Eliot's poem at the beginning of the novel to foreshadow the later use and satire of the Grail myth in his own work.

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hen I thought, well, they could be actually central. They could even be the characters who introduce the innocent young hero to the world of the global campus (Interview). In Small World, It is apparent that Lodge has set out to complete a satire about this notion of the "global campus". This term becomes perhaps even more important now than it was at the time that Loge wrote Small World. As of now, with the use of technology, the college campus truly is global, and had Persse met Angelica in the past five years, rather than during the seventies, it is highly unlikely that ho would be chasing her around the world. Ratherùhe would e-mail her, or pick up the phone. Set in the seventies, it seems somehow logicalùthough humorous--that he should follow Angelica Pabst from conference to conference throughout the world. Lodge, in his own work, however, tends to discreditùalbeit with good reason, that literature need have any factual information in it. In this respect, he uses the character Fulvia Morgana to make what Loge believes is a classic mistake that literary types make. It also gives Lodge another opportunity for humor. She talks to Morris Zapp about a book that his wife has published, called Difficult Days. "Don't let us
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Some common words found in the essay are:
UNESCO Chair, Fulvia Morris, Fulvia Morgana, Romance Romanceis, World Andùlike, Una Spenser, Interview World, Changing Placesùhe, Persse McGarrigle, Holy Grail, morris zapp, holy grail, world lodge, love leaves, satire lodge, novel begins, eliot's poem, waste land, grail myth, world academia,
Approximate Word count = 1999
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page)