Great author's Brum notes (David Lodge in general)

Name: Daz_S

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Product:	David Lodge in general
Date:	06/10/02 (439 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very readable, doesn't insult your intelligence, well-researched

Disadvantages: Very few

"There are far too many writers around who have nothing to say but insist on saying it again and again in book after book..." So says Adrian Ludlow in David Lodge's novella 'Home Truths'. Can the same be said of Lodge himself? He's clearly aware of the risk: his output has been steady - 12 novels as well as several books of criticism in a 43-year career. Most authors start repeating themselves. Many - Philip Roth for instance - resort to writing endlessly about being a famous writer, until they disappear up their own word processors.

But David Lodge has managed to keep things fresh, although certain themes do recur. Sex, Catholicism, academia, and the business of writing itself are his big themes. But he adds variety by choosing a well-defined subject or setting for each novel. So you get National Service in 'Ginger You're Barmy'; Honolulu in 'Paradise News'; business and industry in 'Nice Work', and cognitive science in 'Thinks...' These are meticulously researched and made accessible without being overly patronising. Within each milieu, Lodge brings his characters (usually a man and a woman) together. You get the impression that even Lodge does not know quite what turn events will take. We're as fascinated as him by finding out what his characters end up doing.

I go back to Lodge for his superb writing skill: few other 'literary' authors are as easy and satisfying to read. Few seem as straight and unaffected. He's a professor; his books have been adapted for TV - 'Small World' was televised in 1988; he adapted 'Nice Work', which won the Royal Television Society's Award for the best drama serial of 1989; he adapted Dickens's 'Martin Chuzzlewit' for the BBC. But he comes across as an ordinary, approachable bloke. I wish he'd taught me.

Lodge, now 67, was born in London. He spent most of his working life at the University of
Birmingham, teaching English from 1960 until 1987. He is Honorary Professor of Modern English Literature at Birmingham. His decision to stay in that unfashionable city, fictionalising it as Rummidge in many of his books, sets him apart from more high-profile metropolitan novelists. You get the impression that Lodge is determinedly untrendy and he doesn't care. You could accuse him of being deliberately provincial, low-key and typically English. But behind that facade lurks great intelligence and insight, equal to any of his more pretentious contemporaries.

His books are often set in the world of daily work; his characters generally share some of his attributes - they are often writers, academics, Catholics (usually lapsed), or all three. Lodge follows that most basic piece of writing advice: he writes only about what he knows, and his books are the better for it. Lodge's novels are usually characterised as 'comic'. This is a little misleading. Some of his books, such as 'Changing Places', are based on an overtly comic premise. But even they are not laugh-out-loud funny. At the risk of damning with faint praise, I'd say the humour is gentle. The overall tone is amused, but don't expect big farcical set-pieces.

Lodge is a critic, so you'd expect him to use a range of narrative devices and technical tricks. He does, but not flashily. Often you'll read a character's thoughts in a journal as a means of getting away from the omniscient author's voice. And here is my only major niggle. Too often these start as convincing first-person accounts, but before you know it, the character is writing rather too knowingly and comprehensively - they have turned into the author. The character Bernard Walsh in 'Paradise News' does this, as does Ralph Messenger in 'Thinks...' My only other gripe would be that some of his plots rely too much on coincidence, but not obtrusively so.

By the end of
a Lodge novel, you've usually had some tension, some humour, a dash of possible tragedy averted, an enlightening discourse on religion or writing, and ended up with things turning out a bit better than you expected. The world isn't quite as bad as it might be after all.

READ HIM if you like: gentle humour; realistic settings and relationships, easy to read, lucid prose.

AVOID HIM if you hate: university novels; explanations of obscure subjects; narrative tricks.

RECOMMENDED READING Start with 'Nice Work' (Amazon - £6.39) or 'Changing Places' (Amazon - £5.59). His latest, 'Thinks?' (Amazon - £5.59) is accessible and entertaining. 'Paradise News' (Amazon - £6.39) is his least successful, with too much theology for my liking.

Those Lodge novels in full: The Picturegoers; Ginger, You?re Barmy; The British Museum is Falling Down; Out of the Shelter; Changing Places; How Far Can You Go?; Small World; Nice Work; Paradise News; Therapy; Home Truths; Thinks...

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