{Small World (3)}[29th February 1988]

[Redbook5:21-22][19880229:0045]{Small World (3)}[29th February 1988]

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19880229.0045

The end of the final episode of 'Small World', tonight, is a relief: I couldn't have stood many more of these co-incidences.* The theme of strip-tease recurs throughout both works; but Persse's feeling of disembodiment when he asks the fundamental question of the panel in the lecture-theatre, is similar enough to [the Narrator]'s question of xS (concerning the Universe) to be unnerving. I do not recall this being a feature of the question in the Grail legends.

The sad thing is that in 'Small World'** these features are generally introduced tongue-in-cheek, after the fashion of the self-conscious; but I mean them, generally, in deadly earnest.

*[See [Redbook5:17][19880214:2326b]{Small World (1)}[14^th February 1988];

[Redbook5:20][19880221:1030]{Small World (2)}[21st February 1988] (last previous entry);

[Redbook5:21-22][19880229:0940]{Small World (3) [continued]}[29th February 1988];

[Redbook5:49-50][19880312:2005c]{The Grail Quest Circle}[12th March 1988].]

**[David Lodge, 'Small World: An Academic Romance' (1984)]

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