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When Vic Wilcox (MD of Pringle's engineering works) meets English lecturer Dr Robyn Penrose, sparks fly as their lifestyles and ideologies collide head on. What, after all, are they supposed to learn from each other? But in time both parties make some surprising discoveries about each other's worlds - and about themselves.Tags
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Rating: one disgusted star of five
The Publisher Says: Vic Wilcox, a self-made man and managing director of an engineering firm. has little regard for academics, and even less for feminists. So when Robyn Penrose, a trendy leftist teacher, is assigned to "shadow" Vic under a goverment program created to foster mutual understanding between town and gown, the hilarious collusion of lifestyles and ideologies that ensues seems unlikely to foster anything besides mutual antipathy. But in the course of a bumpy year, both parties make some surprising discoveries about each other's worlds--and about themselves.
My Review: Annoying git meets termagant. They hate each other, they...oh what's the difference, everyone knows what happens, and frankly show more who the hell cares? I detested this book, I thought the author's pseudo-arch (how's that for a horrid combination?) faux Firbank twaddle was the literary equivalent of thorazine.
Do not purchase. If given as a gift, get the fireplace tongs and remove it from your living environment. DO NOT BURN as the miasma could prove lethal to small children.
Not recommended.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less
The Publisher Says: Vic Wilcox, a self-made man and managing director of an engineering firm. has little regard for academics, and even less for feminists. So when Robyn Penrose, a trendy leftist teacher, is assigned to "shadow" Vic under a goverment program created to foster mutual understanding between town and gown, the hilarious collusion of lifestyles and ideologies that ensues seems unlikely to foster anything besides mutual antipathy. But in the course of a bumpy year, both parties make some surprising discoveries about each other's worlds--and about themselves.
My Review: Annoying git meets termagant. They hate each other, they...oh what's the difference, everyone knows what happens, and frankly show more who the hell cares? I detested this book, I thought the author's pseudo-arch (how's that for a horrid combination?) faux Firbank twaddle was the literary equivalent of thorazine.
Do not purchase. If given as a gift, get the fireplace tongs and remove it from your living environment. DO NOT BURN as the miasma could prove lethal to small children.
Not recommended.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. show less
A modernization of Elizabeth Gaskell's North & South, with a friendship and romance between an English Literature / Women's Studies university lecturer and the managing director of a factory. Clever, funny, and truly thought-provoking about the way the other half lives and thinks. It honestly made me question several preconceptions to determine why I believe what I do.
I was madly in love with this book until about 3/4s of the way through, when I thought things got a little soap opera-ish, and weren't resolved as tidily as I wanted. Still, my second Lodge book, and I can't wait to read more. So well-written I'm jealous, and such big issues handled in such a clever, deft way.
I was madly in love with this book until about 3/4s of the way through, when I thought things got a little soap opera-ish, and weren't resolved as tidily as I wanted. Still, my second Lodge book, and I can't wait to read more. So well-written I'm jealous, and such big issues handled in such a clever, deft way.
I found this novel to be less academic in its overall thrust than "Changing Places", though the place of academia and academics in society played a large part of the story. The sexual humor of both books struck me as more towards the 'Benny Hill' end of the spectrum than my tastes lie - I think that is one major reason that these are 3 star books for me rather than 4. I really enjoyed this look at 1980s English universities under the budget cuts of Margaret Thatcher & the parallel look at the conditions of heavy industry in Rummidge (Lodge's fictional city, I guess based on Manchester?). Having come from a similar academic background as Robyn, I could appreciate some of her ideas (though not the semiotics!) and her culture shock when show more dealing with the outside world - the factory, her brother's work in the City - but overall, Lodge's characters don't come across to me as being real people but rather as props for him to get his point across. show less
Third in Lodge's loosely-connected trilogy, following "Changing Places" and "Small World." I loved this. It's a study of opposing characters—opposing forces, almost—wherein factory manager Vic Wilcox and academic Robyn Penrose are brought together and forced to intermingle by bizarre political maneuverings (a governmentally-mandated "Industry Year" to breed understanding among different sectors of Lodge's fictionalized Birmingham; I think I just took more time to explain that than Lodge does). The culture clash is incredibly amusing, poking fun at both sides, and I love the way Lodge slowly draws out the growing understanding between the two parties. Unfortunately, Lodge is rather more cynical than I; I of course wanted those crazy show more kids to make it work. But despite the absence of my longed-for, if unrealistic, happy ending, this book was a total pleasure; it even made me newly glad that I had read "North and South." Quite a feat. show less
I suppose it helps the appreciation of this superb book to have worked without tenure in a modern British university, and also having experience of the commercial pressures of industry, but such subjective qualifications are by no means necessary. Lodge always writes in such a charmingly light-hearted way, and not only about these two contrasting work environments. He observes the frailties and essential struggles of humans so delicately and amusingly that I, for one, find his books irresistible, and not only in this example. Without being awkwardly serious to the extent of making reading heavy going in any way, he nevertheless manages to expose many aspects of the trials of modern living, and I can wholeheartedly recommend it to any show more any thinking reader. show less
Starts on a dry note in an industrial setup but blooms into an interesting war of ideals. Nice work is an apt ending to a flavorful trilogy that started with swapping distinct locations, cultures, relationships... And builds its finale on the plot of swapping work environments and in doing so David Lodge pits Leftist ideology against Rightist ideals... And all this in a tongue-in-cheek fashion. Nice Work is A witty read...
Another excellent novel of comedy and ideas from Lodge. A bit too neat of an ending, but since this is kind of a 19th century Industrial Novel for the 20th century, it fits that all would be wrapped up with a pretty bow at the end.
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55+ Works 19,256 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Nice Work
- Original title
- Nice Work
- Original publication date
- 1988
- People/Characters
- Victor Wilcox; Robyn Penrose; Philip Swallow
- Important places
- Rummidge, England, UK (fictionalised Birmingham); Birmingham, England, UK (as Rummidge)
- Related movies
- Nice Work (1989 | IMDb)
- Epigraph
- Upon the midlands now the industrious must doth fall, / The shires which we the heart of England well may call. -DRAYTON: Poly-Olbion (Epigraph to Felix Holt the Radical, by George Eliot)
'Two nations; between whom the... (show all)re is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, and fed by different food, and ordered by different manners...' 'You speak of--' said Egremont hesitatingly. -Benjamin Disraeli: Sybil; or, the Two Nations - Dedication
- To Andy and Marie, in friendship and gratitude
- First words
- Monday, January 13th, 1986. Victor Wilcox lies awake, in the dark bedroom, waiting for his quartz alarm clock to bleep.
- Quotations
- All the Victorian novelists could offer as a solution to the problems of industrial capitalism were: a legacy, a marriage, emigration or death.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"All right", she says, turning back to Philip Swallow. "I'll stay on."
- Blurbers
- Burgess, Anthony
- Original language*
- Anglais (Royaume-Uni) (Royaume-Uni)
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
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