David Lodge: Nice Work
"[...] Set in 1986, in the fictional city of Rummidge, the book describes the relationship between Robyn Penrose, a feminist university teacher specialising in the industrial novel and women's writing and Vic Wilcox, the manager of J. Pringle & Sons Casting & General Engineering ("Pringle's"). [...] The relationship between Robyn and Vic reveals their weaknesses. Robyn's academic position is precarious because of national budget cuts to education and the universities. Vic has to deal with industrial politics at Pringle's. The plot is a pastiche of the industrial novel genre, alluding to North and South by Elizabeth Gaskell.[7] This gentle ribbing acts to undermine the postmodern and feminist position of Robyn, who accepts the hand of fate despite ridiculing its role as the sole restorative capable (in the minds of authors of industrial novels) of elevating the female to a serious social position. Robyn acquires insight into the pragmatic ethos whose encroachment on university culture she resents and about the physical reality of factories of which her only prior knowledge was literature.[8] In his turn, Vic learns to appreciate the symbolic or semiotic dimension of his environment and discovers a romanticism within himself that he had previously despised in his everyday life. [...]" (Wikipedia)
Vic Wilcox entdeckt seine Liebe für Gedichte von Tennyson, einen spätromantischen viktorianischen Dichter, der zu seiner Zeit zu den drei bekanntesten Personen in Großbritannien zählte: Königin Victoria, Premierminister Gladstone und Tennyson. (Er wurde oft dem Ästhetizismus zugerechnet, was er nicht gern sah.) Vic Wilcox beeindruckt er durch seine Liebeslyrik, denn zu diesem Zeitpunkt ist Vic in Robyn verliebt.
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