Tribute: In David Lodge’s (1935-2025) writings, the fictions of Derrida and spectres of Marx

If there is such a thing as an eloquently disarming break-up letter, it is to be found in David Lodge’s scandalously delicious novel, Nice Work. But what on earth is a disarming break-letter? Or a phone call? Or text message or DM? Is it possible to sweeten a tragic message from the loser who doesn’t have the guts to break up in person?

That’s what Charles leaves for Robyn, both struggling, junior academics on the verge of disenchantment in 1980s’ England. But Charles’s disenchantment, as the letter reveals, has now reached a point of crisis that has energised a volte-face in both love and labour. That’s a rub on so many levels. Not only Charles is leaving the intellectual Robyn for the working-class origin investment banker Debbie who makes “thirty-thousand odd a year”, but he has also decided to abandon his straggling career as a lecturer in English to be a banker working with securities and investments.

Nothing about this is either eloquent or disarming to Robyn. Her response to Charles’s breakup letter left on the doormat of her house in Rummidge (a fictionalised Birmingham where Lodge spent most of his career) is: “You shit”. And subsequently, “You utter shit”. But she recognises herself that the…

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