The Campus Trilogy by David Lodge

Author:David Lodge [Lodge, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, azw3
ISBN: 9781101577127
Publisher: Penguin USA
Published: 2011-10-03T22:00:00+00:00

PART IV

1

whhhhheeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!

To some people, there is no noise on earth as exciting as the sound of three or four big fan-jet engines rising in pitch, as the plane they are sitting in swivels at the end of the runway and, straining against its brakes, prepares for takeoff. The very danger in the situation is inseparable from the exhilaration it yields. You are strapped into your seat now, there is no way back, you have delivered yourself into the power of modern technology. You might as well lie back and enjoy it. Whhheeeeeeeeeeeeee! And away we go, the acceleration like a punch in the small of the back, the grass glimpsed through the window flying backwards in a blur, and then falling out of sight suddenly as we soar into the sky. The plane banks to give us one last glimpse of home, flat and banal, before we break through the cloud cover and into the sunshine, the no-smoking sign goes off with a ping, and a faint clink of bottles from the galley heralds the serving of cocktails. Whheeeeeeeee! Europe, here we come! Or Asia, or America, or wherever. It’s June, and the conference season is well and truly open. In Oxford and Rummidge, to be sure, the students still sit at their desks in the examination halls, like prisoners in the stocks, but their teachers are able to flit off for a few days before the scripts come in for marking; while in North America the second semester of the academic year is already finished, papers have been graded, credits awarded, and the faculty are free to collect their travel grants and head east, or west, or wherever their fancy takes them. Wheeeeeeeeee!

The whole academic world seems to be on the move. Half the passengers on transatlantic flights these days are university teachers. Their luggage is heavier than average, weighed down with books and papers—and bulkier, because their wardrobes must embrace both formal wear and leisurewear, clothes for attending lectures in, and clothes for going to the beach in, or to the Museum, or the Schloss, or the Duomo, or the Folk Village. For that’s the attraction of the conference circuit: it’s a way of converting work into play, combining professionalism with tourism, and all at someone else’s expense. Write a paper and see the world! I’m Jane Austen—fly me! Or Shakespeare, or T. S. Eliot, or Hazlitt. All tickets to ride, to ride the jumbo jets. Wheeeeeeeeee!

The air is thick with the babble of these wandering scholars’ voices, their questions, complaints, advice, anecdotes. Which airline did you fly? How many stars does the hotel have? Why isn’t the conference hall air-conditioned? Don’t eat the salad here, they use human manure on the lettuce. Laker is cheap, but their terminal at LA is the pits. Swissair has excellent food. Cathay Pacific give you free drinks in economy. Pan Am are lousy timekeepers, though not as bad as Jugoslavian Airlines (its acronym JAT stands for “joke about time”). Qantas has

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