David Lodge- The british museum is falling down (1965)

Summery

The British museum is falling down (1965)

David Lodge

➢Story:

ⓣ     1960s (see “Beatles” p.38), November (p.11)

ⓛ     London (see “the British Museum” p.12, “Thames” p.35, “Bloomsbury” p.38, “the  Great        Russell Street” p.39), the British Museum (p.39ff)

ⓟ    

·         Adam Appleby, twenty-five years old, post-graduate student (p.11)

·         Barbara Appleby, Adams wife (p.12)

·         their children (p.13):

◦   Clare, firstborn

◦   Dominic, a year younger than Clare      

◦   Edward, the youngest

·         Mrs Green, the renter, widow (p.28)

·         Father Finbar Flannegan, catholic priest (p.33)

·         Bernie Schnitz (p.92, p.164); the rich, fat American (p.33, p.49)

·         the door-keeper at the British Museum (p.40)

·         the two men at the ticket office in the British Museum (p.41)

·         Camel, Adams friend (p.44)

·         the Chinese (p.60)

·         Pond, an acquaintance of Adam at the British Museum (p.61)

·         Professor Briggs, Adams supervisor (p.74)

·         the three butchers (p.109-110)

·         Mrs Rottingdean (p.114)

·         Virginia, Mrs Rottingdean's daughter (p.110)

 ⓐ

1.   Adam Appleby wakes up one November morning and reflects upon his current situation. He is married, has got three children, is writing his thesis, his leg hurts and the period of his wife Barbara is overdue.

Being catholics, the do not use any contraceptive devices, but employ the basal temperature method and live in constant fear of being pregnant again. Adam gets up to make tea for his wife while she is taking her temperature, both orally and rectally. When he wants to dress he can't find a pair of underpant, because Barbara had washed all of them the day before and they were still damp.

After burning one of his underpants trying to dry it on the stove he decides to wear one of Barbaras underpants. He leaves the flat and is on his way to the British Museum.

2.   On the stairway he meets Mrs Green. She hands him a letter. Adam drives his scooter. When standing in line at traffic lights he meets Father Flannegan, who misunderstands Adam for offering him a ride.

During the drive Adam starts a discussion on the catholic church's attitude on Birth Control. Father Flannegan states “The Church's teaching never changes”(p.36), whereupon Adam asks if it's a woman's duty to give birth to seventeen children, given she marries with twenty-three and is fertile till fourty and points out the changes in .....[read full text]

On the attempt to phone her Adam accidentally receives a call for “Bernie”, the fat American and takes a note saying: “One hundred thousand for books and fifty thousand for manuscripts.”. The next attempt to make a phone call ends up with the operator believing he wants to report a fire at the museum.

6.   The arrival of the fire brigade at the museum causes a chaos, during which Adam fleds into the “stacks” because he is afraid that he will be held responsible for the incident. He ends up on the gallery of the reading room where he encounters the fat American, but is unable to deliver him the message before he disappears again.

He decides to leave the museum and to visit Mrs Rottingdean .

7.   At Mrs Rottingdean's house he meets three butchers in the basement of the building as well as Virginia, her daughter. Eventually he sneaks upstairs and meets Mrs Rottingdean. She offers him a unpublished manuscript of Merrymarsh for the price of £250, locks him up in the living room and leaves him to study the piece, which turns out to be of no special interest.

Just as he tries to escape Virginia enters the room and locks the door behind her, hiding the key under her shirt. She tries to seduce Adam. According to her Merrymarsh isn't the uncle of Mrs Rottingdean, but her lover and she states that she holds written proof of this, namely a autobiographical novel about the love affair.

8.   After leaving Mrs Rottingdean Adam goes to a postgraduate sherry party, where he meets Camel and Pond as well as a few other postgraduate students. He drinks a number if sherries and talks to Professor Briggs about Barbaras pregnancy and his .....

11.               (Epilogue) Barbara reflects on the events of the day, Vatican Roulette and hers and Adams future.

➢Discourse

·         narrator: narrative views changing. Bigger part of the book is conveyed through a narrator in a clear and humorous style. First person; Epilogue and p.73

·         isotopies: Sex, contraception, Roman Catholic belief, London(architecture), English Literature (Fiction),…

·         metareferences: one-day-novel → James Joyce Ulysses; “sick rose”(p.11) → poem by William Blake (“[…]love/Does thy life destroy.” l.7-8); the “Reading Room ticket”-scene (p.40-44) → Franz Kafka; “I met Mrs Dalloway grown into an old woman”(p.48) → Virginia Woolf; “[…]you might pick up a book[…]about an ordinary chap[…]doing just the sort of things you did yourself.” (p.130) → TBMIFD; “[…]I've realised what the longest sentence in English fiction is[…]” (p.175) → p. 172-176 is one sentence; Epilogue → stream of consciousness (Virginia Woolf?); … (many more)

➢Theme