Changing Places (1975) is the first “campus novel” by British novelist David Lodge. The subtitle is “A Tale of Two Campuses”, and thus a literary allusion to Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. It is the first novel in a trilogy, followed by Small World (1984) and Nice Work (1988), in which several of the same characters reappear.
When Phillip Swallow and Professor Morris Zapp participate in their universities’ Anglo-American exchange scheme, the Fates play a hand, and each academic finds himself enmeshed in the life of his counterpart on the opposite side of the Atlantic. Nobody is immune to the exchange: students, colleagues, even wives are swapped as events spiral out of control.
And soon both sun-drenched Euphoric State University and rain-kissed University of Rummidge are a hotbed of intrigue, lawlessness and broken vows…
‘Not since Lucky Jim has such a funny book about academic life come my way’ Sunday Times
