The British Museum Is Falling Down by David Lodge author of Paradise News, my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/paradise-news-by-david-lodge-author-of.html where you find a few hundred reviews - 8 out of 10

 

The British Museum Is Falling Down by David Lodge author of Paradise News, my note on this is at https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/07/paradise-news-by-david-lodge-author-of.html where you find a few hundred reviews

 

8 out of 10

 

The British Museum Is Falling Down is the sixth book by David Lodge that I enjoy, first there was the mesmerizing, hilarious Changing Places - https://realini.blogspot.com/2021/05/about-magnum-opus-changing-places-by.html first installment in the Campus Trilogy, based on the writer’s own stint in America

 

However, The British Museum Is Falling Down is closer to How Far Can You Go https://realini.blogspot.com/2023/08/how-far-can-you-go-by-david-lodge.html both books have Catholicism and the doctrine that forbids birth control, of any kind, and the only way to limit the number of children is Natural Law

That is, married couples – there is no other sanctioned kind of sex, and even the marital one is just meant to be procreative, engaged in just to have offspring, maybe they have changes somewhat, with Pope Francis being more open-minded, but they must still be very strict, surely – have to look out for the fertile days

 

Adam Appleby is a young research student, in 1965, married to Barbara, they have dated, but entered marital status quite ignorant of sex, both being practicing Catholics, there was no other conceivable manner, they have had three children, and given that the wife is feeling sick, the period is some days late, they may be having another baby

That is especially frightening, given that at twenty-five, he has no means to provide for the family, they live in a small space as it is, and another child would mean that he or she would have to be brought in the same room with the parents, and then where would Adam work, in the bath, with books and papers on his knees?

 

As he is traveling on his failing scooter to the Museum, to research for his thesis, Adam is very depressed, but he will meet this fat, cigar smoking American, we would learn his name is Bernie Schnitz, as the foreigner is trying to place a call to Colorado and is trapped in the phone booth – there were no cell phones back then

And that was so unfortunate, I did not have a phone in our flat, and thus had to queue for hours to use one, in the commie days – then I fought in the Revolution of 1989, and the link to the article in which I am mentioned, in Newsweek, is at the end of the note – so Adam helps the American, and he gets some cigars

Furthermore, this will be a providential encounter, because this fellow might provide (spoiler alert) the way out, this is a comedy and needs happy end, as the novelist explains in the after word, which is in fact what you should read, if interested in information about this opus, for it explains everything, with an expert pen

 

The hero receives a letter form the relative – we would see later what the real connection was – of a rather unremarkable Catholic writer, stating that she has some letters and papers from the deceased, and Adam thinks this might be his chance (it is such a desperate situation) seeing that there could be some material there

Not about this relative unknown, but he was seeing important men of letters, so he travels to the house, where we encounter some…butchers from Argentina, and the awkward host, but the surprise, interesting, erotic element is provided by Virginia, the daughter of the landlady, kept pretty much under lock and key, but very curious

 

She says she is nineteen, but then we understand that she is just seventeen and determined to get Adam to change her status as a virgin, though she claims to be knowledgeable, and just sort of nymphomaniac, bringing Anais Nin https://realinibarzoi.blogspot.com/2024/10/the-model-and-other-stories-aka-by.html to mind

What the mother has is not just outrageous, it is also unusable – expect of course, Bernie Schnitz, who has a huge budget to buy manuscripts for the Colorado university that wants to get prestige and has a fortune wot use will buy that and so much more – but the daughter is offering something much more enticing

 

Nevertheless, she wants sex with the visitor, in exchange for letters and an unpublished novel she has, really interesting, because they tell the real story of the mediocre Catholic writer, who had at middle age an erotic affair with this innocent woman – as she was some decades back – he stumbles into the room where she is taking a bath…

Then there is seduction, intercourse, explicit exchanges and the writing of a novel where the characters are really the real lovers, with only the names changed, and that is ‘literary discovery’, it could help Adam get out of the financial hole where he is, it is just that his faith would not allow for this sex out of wedlock

 

What to do is a big question, and he is faced with horrible poverty, destitution really, the end of his career before it even started, and then trying to get around this girl and her trap, so he returns in the evening, we have comical situations, David Lodge explains that he is using satire and makes references to great authors

Eventually, he meets again with the American, who had wanted to…buy the British Museum and then take it stone by stone to rebuild in Colorado, and without that, he will just buy manuscripts – spoiler alert again – through Adam, and ergo the hero is saved, he will have money through this proposition and all is well when it ends well, let me just quote something serious and so wonderful, first a piece of dialogue ‘What do you think 🤔 of anus? I beg your pardon? The novelist, Kingsley Anus...I like 👍 👌 😳 his work. There are times when I think I belong to him more than to any of the others'

 

Then this analysis before the novel emerged as the dominant literary form, narrative literature dealt only with the extraordinary 💙 or the allegorical- with Kingsley and Queens, giants and dragons 🐉, sublime virtue and diabolic evil 😈   there was no risk of confusing that sort of thing with life. Buy as soon as the novel got going, you might pick up a book 📖 and read about an ordinary chap called Joe Smith doing the sort of things you did yourself. The novelist still has to invent. Fantastic number novels that they've just about exhausted the possibilities of life. All of us are enacting events that have already been written about in some novel or other. Effect is very disturbing 😐 when you do tumble to it'

 

 

Now for my standard closing of the note with a question, and invitation – maybe you have a good idea on how we could make more than a million dollars with this http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/02/unique-in-world.html?q=unique+in+the+world – as it is, this is a unique technique, which we could promote, sell, open the Oscars show with or something and then make lots of money together, if you have the how, I have the product, I just do not know how to get the befits from it, other than the exercise per se

 

 There is also the small matter of working for AT&T – this huge company asked me to be its Representative for Romania and Bulgaria, on the Calling Card side, which meant sailing into the Black Sea wo meet the US Navy ships, travelling to Sofia, a lot of activity, using my mother’s two bedrooms flat as office and warehouse, all for the grand total of $250, raised after a lot of persuasion to the staggering $400…with retirement ahead, there are no benefits, nothing…it is a longer story, but if you can help get the mastodont to pay some dues, or have an idea how it can happen, let me know

 

As for my role in the Revolution that killed Ceausescu, a smaller Mao, there it is http://realini.blogspot.com/2022/03/realini-in-newsweek-participant-in.html

 

Some favorite quotes from To The Hermitage and other works

 

‘Fiction is infinitely preferable to real life...As long as you avoid the books of Kafka or Beckett, the everlasting plot of fiction has fewer futile experiences than the careless plot of reality...Fiction's people are fuller, deeper, cleverer, more moving than those in real life…Its actions are more intricate, illuminating, noble, profound…There are many more dramas, climaxes, romantic fulfillment, twists, turns, gratified resolutions…Unlike reality, all of this you can experience without leaving the house or even getting out of bed…What's more, books are a form of intelligent human greatness, as stories are a higher order of sense…As random life is to destiny, so stories are to great authors, who provided us with some of the highest pleasures and the most wonderful mystifications we can find…Few stories are greater than Anna Karenina, that wise epic by an often foolish author…’

 

‚Parturiunt montes, nascetur ridiculus mus’

 

“From Monty Python - The Meaning of Life...Well, it's nothing very special...Try and be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try and live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations.”