SOURCE: "The Three Small Worlds of David Lodge," in Critical Survey, Vol. 3, No. 3, 1991, pp. 324-30.

In the following essay, Laing discusses the plot, themes, and techniques of David Lodge's novel Small World (1985), considers alterations including a shift in point of view and compression of events in the serial adaptation for British commercial television in 1988, and examines issues of the television medium central to Lodge's 1987 documentary "Big Words: Small World. "

David Lodge's novel Small World was published in hard-back in 1984, put into paperback in 1985 and turned into a six-part television serialisation in 1988 by the ITV company Granada. In this essay I consider first the main narrative structure and issues of the novel, then the changes made in the process of transforming the story into television serial drama, and finally some further issues of television form arising out of a documentary on a literary conference ('Big Words: Small World') presented...