Changing Places Summary
"1. Flying."
Professor Exchange: The chapter alternately follows two planes moving in the opposite direction from shortly after their take-off to the moment of their landing. It is the 1st of January 1969 and two English literature professors are changing their places for six months. One goes to the State University of Euphoria, the famous centre of learning located in the most attractive country in America between Northern and Southern California. The other goes to the University of Rummidge, an obscure college in an ugly industrial city in the English Midlands. The Englishman Philip Swallow, aged forty, is bound to Euphoria, while the American Morris Zapp, of the same age, is bound to Rummidge.
Swallow's Career: Philip Swallow is a postgraduate student and junior lecturer at Rummidge. He has low self-esteem, no ambition, and the last major work he finished was his MA thesis. All his academic attempts are marred by his obsessive perfectionism. He managed to finish his MA thesis only under the liberating influence of a wonderful honeymoon in America. He originally went to America on a fellowship at Harvard but he missed his love and fellow student Hilary Broome. Hilary gave up her studies and came to marry him and accompany him on his proposal. After their return to Rummidge and after the births of their three children, Amanda, Robert, and Matthew, the marriage lapsed into a tedious routine.
The Radical Boon: Philip Swallow is offered the exchange only when his colleague gives it up in favour of a more attractive post. The head of the department intends to cheat him out of a senior lectureship in favour of a more capable candidate, which could be done more easily during Swallow's absence. Swallow happily anticipates the sense of freedom he once already felt in America and is overjoyed to escape from his domestic responsibilities. In the plane Swallow meets his former student, the highly unconventional radical Charles Boon. Swallow is shocked to find out that
Professor Exchange: The chapter alternately follows two planes moving in the opposite direction from shortly after their take-off to the moment of their landing. It is the 1st of January 1969 and two English literature professors are changing their places for six months. One goes to the State University of Euphoria, the famous centre of learning located in the most attractive country in America between Northern and Southern California. The other goes to the University of Rummidge, an obscure college in an ugly industrial city in the English Midlands. The Englishman Philip Swallow, aged forty, is bound to Euphoria, while the American Morris Zapp, of the same age, is bound to Rummidge.
Swallow's Career: Philip Swallow is a postgraduate student and junior lecturer at Rummidge. He has low self-esteem, no ambition, and the last major work he finished was his MA thesis. All his academic attempts are marred by his obsessive perfectionism. He managed to finish his MA thesis only under the liberating influence of a wonderful honeymoon in America. He originally went to America on a fellowship at Harvard but he missed his love and fellow student Hilary Broome. Hilary gave up her studies and came to marry him and accompany him on his proposal. After their return to Rummidge and after the births of their three children, Amanda, Robert, and Matthew, the marriage lapsed into a tedious routine.
The Radical Boon: Philip Swallow is offered the exchange only when his colleague gives it up in favour of a more attractive post. The head of the department intends to cheat him out of a senior lectureship in favour of a more capable candidate, which could be done more easily during Swallow's absence. Swallow happily anticipates the sense of freedom he once already felt in America and is overjoyed to escape from his domestic responsibilities. In the plane Swallow meets his former student, the highly unconventional radical Charles Boon. Swallow is shocked to find out that