CC BY
13? Anna Podolyaka :-: 3 • Minsk State Linguistic University i
The Free-tongued Lodge in the Chaste Environment of the Classroom: or How to Discuss Nice Work with Students
Lodge is great! Lodge is fantastic! Most teachers admit it and either take his novels for class discussion or recommend them to students for Home Reading and/or Diploma papers. There are others, however, who prefer to leave Lodge in the library when choosing books to be read by their students. Why? Is he too good for their groups? Too boring? Too complicated? The answer is No to all the three questions. The reason here is of ethic nature: Lodge is too shameless in describing intimate, “secret” things and to discuss them with students seems indecent to some teachers. For example, in the very first chapter of Nice Work, even before saying anything about Vic’s education or children, Lodge lets the reader know how many toilets Vic has. None too modest are the episodes describing Vic’s relationship with his wife, Robyn’s life with Charles, and, the apogee, the “inevitable thing” that happens with Robyn and Vic closer to the end of the novel. This - and not the brilliant language, topical problems of education, loss of values, racism, class division of the society, unemployment, etc. - determines the choice of some teachers. The peripheral overweighs the central.
1 came across David Lodge two years ago when 1 first read Nice Work as one of the novels discussed at Perm Seminar. Since then 1 have hazarded my reputation of being a “good”, i.e. highly moral, teacher twice. The first time was when having read Nice Work and fallen in love with it 1 decided to take it with my third-year students. I prepared the plan for each seminar and, intending to include more students in the work on the novel, suggested the idea to one of my colleagues. She enjoyed the book immensely and we started working together. Fortified by our initial successes, we spoke about the novel
and the results of our work on it at the meetings of our department. We pointed out to the following evident advantages:
First, the students simply loved the novel - Written in contemporary English language, it introduced them to the ideas and values of the present-day Britain. Seeing their creative approach to the seminars and lively debate during the term as well as their final projects on Nice Work it was obvious that they were doing it not just “for a tick”, a mark or some other similarly conventional reason but they genuinely loved the book and appreciated the shift from the novels traditionally read at our department;
Secondly, while reading Nice Work the students were inspired to be investigative - as we decided not to give them the booklet with the commentaries ready-made (we did give it to them, but a bit later), one of the tasks for each seminar was to try to explain the realia they come across in the chapters that were being discussed. For this they had to turn to their background knowledge as well as try to draw parallels with other subjects. If this was of no or little help for the proper understanding of the author’s implications/realia/ social details, they consulted some additional sources of information - the Internet (mostly), encyclopedia (in rare cases). At the seminars they presented their possible interpretations, after which I either added or clarified some details referring to the Book of Commentaries (the other sections of the booklet - Introduction, The Comedy of class and taste, Education, The 1980s, etc. - were attached to the seminar plans as appendixes to be studied at home and discussed in class, so nothing from the Commentaries remained uncovered). This method seems to be working as it helps us carry out the main aim of university education - to teach students to learn, find out, investigate, and analyse the obtained information critically (rather than simply open the mouth and passively swallow whatever the teacher has to tell).
Thirdly, the novel can easily be divided into parts (logically completed and reasonable in terms of number of pages) it suits perfectly well our once-a-week seminars (For example: seminar 1 - Vic Wilcox and the economic and political situation in England in the 1980s as shown in the novel; seminar 2 - Robyn Penrose and the
situation with British universities; seminar 3 - minor characters and the concepts associated with them (racism, sexism, feminism), Robyn’s meeting with Vic; etc);
Fourthly, enough number of copies available in the library. At first sight this might sound a lame argument for preferring this novel to, let us say, The Citadel (A. J. Cronin has been taken with the third-year students at our department from time immemorial). Upon a closer view, however, it turns out to be crucial - if the library can’t provide enough copies of some books (or the copies are so shabby that they are completely unreadable) and students have to either share one book with their groupmates or make photocopies, which is inconvenient and non-motivating, we can’t expect them to get ready for each seminar and, what is more important, get pleasure from the process itself).
Our enthusiasm turned out to be catching and some other teachers were eager to borrow the novel. And here we came across some unpredictable and, to my mind, strange reactions: How can you take this with the students? Do you really enjoy reading it? Why do I need to know how many toilets he has? etc. An important point here is that the negative evaluation of the novel was not solely the response of elderly teachers, as the stereotype might suggest, - it came from both young and more experienced ones.
Similarly, learning that we discuss Nice Work with the students, some of the teachers I met at Perm Seminar expressed their indignation. The novel was rejected in their universities on the same grounds - the book is too unedifying to take it with students.
So, to take or not to take? Really, why does the reader need to know all these unnecessary intimate details of the protagonists’ lives? Because they are necessary - this is one of the indispensable characteristics of D. Lodge’s style and he mentions this not because he aims at some particular, wicked readership, but because he writes novels about real people having natural needs and desires (although the writer claims that his characters are imaginary, they are more real than some “real” people in “the so-called real world” are). Besides, these are not key episodes/descriptions, they are not given in the
novel for the sake of themselves. Rather, the “indecent” episodes are just nice light garnish to the main course - the serious ideas the author is concerned with, such as the economic decline if the 1980s, the policy of Mrs. Thatcher, family problems, class division of the society, racism, sexism, etc. All these topical problems are seasoned with the brilliant, witty, modem English language. And this is what a linguistic university should strive for - firstly, keep up with the times and liberalize (the students laugh when they read about Soames’s everlasting courting of Irene as they understand that such paradigm of relationship has already become a dinosaur) and, secondly, introduce its students to the live language of the present-day England (the students sniff when they have to learn numerous words that are marked as archaic in the dictionary, which is understandable as they are not likely to use them anywhere outside the classroom).
The question is How to discuss the novel in the classroom? And here exist two options. The first one was offered by some of the participants of Perm Seminar - discuss everything - the characters, their families, education, homes, values, etc. - but say nothing about the “bad” details, leave them out as if they are not given in the book at all. And if the students mention “the erotic episodes” or the bad words used by Lodge, try not to focus any attention on such remarks and go further discussing something else. Difficult, but possible. And some teachers might like the idea. But I personally see two problems that are likely to come up if this mode of work is chosen. Firstly, it has already been mentioned that being the peculiarity of D. Lodge’s style, such episodes are inseparable from his books — leave them out and you deprive the novel of the thorough analysis. It reminds me of a strategy some parents resort to when their children come home from a kindergarten or a sandpit saying bad words without really understanding what they mean and why people use them. Instead of shouting at the kids and prohibiting ever to pronounce the dirty words, the parents pay no attention to them and take up some other topic or some other activity. The children’s attention distracted - they soon forget about the words. But students are not little children who do not understand that the teacher, for some personal reason, is not ready to dis-
cuss such things with them and tries to shunt. This might result in the second difficulty - not all the students, however good they are, will respect the teacher’s unwillingness to talk. Some might start provoking the teacher, trying to make him/her blush, mumble and stumble. And such behaviour inevitably explodes the reputation of a teacher. Consequently, alongside with the complete analysis of the novel, the price of decency might be the reputation of the teacher.
Cherishing no illusions concerning the students’ awareness -they live in the twenty-first century and study in modem universities, not in the seminary for young ladies - 1 have no doubts that such points should be discussed with them. I well remember a phrase said to us, then students, by one of our professors: “We are linguists and we should know these words as they are a part of the language. But being educated people, we shouldn’t ever use them”. In connection with Nice Work 1 may add that being teachers we should know how to discuss such episodes/words in the classroom without losing face. I believe it should be the teacher who initiates the talk about this very open manner of Lodge’s narration - find out whether the students like it or not, think it acceptable or not - and set certain restrictions, explaining that during the class discussion it is essential to remain within the framework of decency and not resort to the vulgar language. It’s all about respect - if the teacher respects the students and doesn’t think that they are too young to discuss “grown-up” things, the students respect the teacher and the fellow students and the discussion runs smoothly without the need to ignore some important elements (for example, Vic and Robyn’s argument about Semiotics is important but the advertisement chosen to illustrate the difference between metaphor and metonymy is not completely innocent and some teachers might be tempted to ignore the episode, which is a shame). Most students accept the rules and there are no problems. But not all. I had a student (one in three groups) who stubbornly kept on mentioning all such private details. He would say something like “Penny Black, Robyn’s friend who never wears a bra, is a feminist ...”. All my attempts to dissuade him to “remind us who Penny Black is” were vain. Whatever the reason - the desire to challenge me, to make the
groupmates laugh, to overcome some hidden personal barriers/complexes, to show off or something else - he refused to admit the rules. As long as such remarks of his remained inoffensive and more entertaining than dirty 1 let them pass. It was just the way he expressed himself. The important thing here is that the rest of the group felt that such answers did not completely fit the situation. Seeing is believing - my arguments could be less efficient than the chance to feel by themselves the contrast between the atmosphere of the classroom and such free remarks.
In conclusion I would like to sum up the answers to the two questions stated in the title. Firstly, To take or not to take Nice Work with students is the question every teacher should answer for him/herself. But there should be some other reasons for not taking it -the level of the students, the irrelevance of the topics, the inability to cover the novel within the allocated hours - not its allegedly “ill morality”. Secondly, How to discuss the book in the classrooml Apply the golden rule of balance and don’t rush to extremes: don’t call a spade a spade - which is unprofessional and blameworthy - but also don’t ignore the peculiarity of Lodge’s style or try to call an egg a “hen-product” (as Anna loanovna, the empress, did in one of V. Pi-lcul’s novels, trying not to bring up the shameful associations), which is absurd and might undermine the teacher’s reputation. Your students will enjoy working on the novel and you are sure to be satisfied with the results.
