I have now, for the second time in my studies at the university, read Nice Work by David Lodge. It was a couple of years since I first read it so I didn’t really remember it. Although I remembered that I for some reason liked it and I looked forward to reading it again.
The main characters in the book are Vic Wilcox, a wealthy Managing Director and the underpaid Robyn Penrose, lecturer in English Literature at a university. This naturally means that the story is either about economic or literature. Literature studies are not a big interest of mine so I didn’t care much for the parts of the book discussing these matters. I suppose that people who doesn’t care much for economy feel the same for these parts of the book. What do I make out of this? Well, obviously that people who care neither for literature studies, nor for economy probably find this book quite uninteresting. Thou – of course there are other matters and aspects in the book. For one thing, well, really what I think is the whole purpose of the book, even if it is published in 1989 and takes place in 1986 it’s still as relevant today with the prejudice and relationship between the industrial and the academic world. I believe the two worlds have come a little closer to each other today, but there is still a lot of prejudice between these persons and often one has a hard time speaking well of the other. This is a very interesting question and if you have your mind open to this, I think the book is worth reading even for those who doesn’t care for economy or literature studies.
So – why did I like the book the first time I read it? Do I still like it? I think I liked it for the reason of the rough language (even if I think it’s a little to rough sometimes) and the fact that it’s another country and another time but I can still relate to the story. It’s not an ordinary book but I can’t put my finger on what it is with the book that makes me so torn about it. Maybe this is since I don’t care much for literature studies, even if I like reading. I don’t think I will read it again, and I don’t know if I would recommend it to anyone else, but I definitely don’t regret having read it again.
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4 comments:
I tried very hard to think about what makes this book great and I could not come up with anything. Maybe I liked it because I felt that the story was a little disturbing. With to much details, love affairs, boring subjects and some what boring characters but in the end I wanted to know how the story would end.
Hi Christina!
I do agree with you that there is something that attracts in this book, and for me this something is not in the content of the book... I mean there is no hidden ideas there or something like that, it's an ordinary book but it captures one's mind and interest somehow.
I liked reading the book.. it was fun.
Regards
Maybe if I read the book twice I will have the same opinion like you… You write that you think the language was the thing about the book you liked the first time. The language was exactly the thing I liked with the book too! It was really refreshing reading the book considering the language. Just like you I’m not that interested in literature and that parts of the book I must admit I read really fast…
The opposite of you I have recommended the book to several people at work. Just because of the language and the interesting dialogue in the book!
/Jennie
Hello!
I totally agree!!! Reading about literature studies sucks!! I find it so immensely boring, so to the point that when those parts of the book turned up, I just hit the autopilot button and went into sleeper mode. Only to wake up a few minutes later to discover that I had read a 10 or so pages without knowing what I've read...
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