"But at a certain age, the age at which promotions and Chairs begin to occupy a man's thoughts, he may look back with wistful nostalgia to the day's when his wits ran fresh and clear, directed to a single, positive goal."
— Lodge, David (b. 1935)
Author
Work Title
Publisher
Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd.
Date
1975
Metaphor
"But at a certain age, the age at which promotions and Chairs begin to occupy a man's thoughts, he may look back with wistful nostalgia to the day's when his wits ran fresh and clear, directed to a single, positive goal."
Metaphor in Context
[...] The British postgraduate student is a lonely, forlorn soul, uncertain of what he is doing or whom he is trying to please--you may recognize him in the tea-shops around the Bodleian and the British Museum by the glazed look in his eyes, the vacant stare of the shell-shocked veteran for whom nothing has been real since the Big Push. As long as he manages to land his first job, this is no great handicap in the short run, since tenure is virtually automatic in British universities, and everyone is paid on the same scale. But at a certain age, the age at which promotions and Chairs begin to occupy a man's thoughts, he may look back with wistful nostalgia to the day's when his wits ran fresh and clear, directed to a single, positive goal.
(p. 16)
(p. 16)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
David Lodge, Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (New York: Penguin Books, 1992).
Date of Entry
07/01/2012
