David Lodge fan thread

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OK, I've been a Lodge fan since I first stumbled across Changing Places. But it's only in the past couple of years, since I've begun to figure out how to write fiction myself, that I've been able to even notice the subtle things he does to make his stuff work. So quiet he is, so unflashy the style... I tend to fall into glitter cannons of alliteration when I get nervous, so his carefulness and steady hand impress me more with every book I read. His new kinda-historical novel, about Henry James, is one of those things that makes me vacillate between get-to-my-stuff-but-first-I'll-scarf-just-one-more-chapter inspiration and walking away from the game, inferior head hung low. The research alone he must have done for the thing... criminy.

So. Anybody else? Favorite Lodge?

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Sunday, 22 May 2005 00:11 (twenty-one years ago)

I have a softspot for Out of The Shelter. I also like a book of criticism of his called The Novelist At The Crossroads. Pretty much liked everything up until Nice Work, when he started to show signs of strain. Last one I read was Therapy in which the best part was the reminiscence about the little girl down the lane, for which part it seemed like he had abandoned the word processor and gone back to the typewriter or paper and pencil to write.

― Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 22 May 2005 10:54 (twenty-one years ago)

I guess all the real David Lodge fans don't post on Sunday, out of repect for his Catholicism.

― Ken L (Ken L), Sunday, 22 May 2005 17:02 (twenty-one years ago)

Excellent writer. As someone who has worked in academia and the foundry industry, the subjects of Nice Work, I found that book very enjoyable, and could almost recognise some of the characters. His style may be easy to read, but there's a lot there, and the plot doesn't always take you where you expect, but it always makes sense.

― andyjack (andyjack), Monday, 23 May 2005 13:26 (twenty-one years ago)

"Small World". It was my first Lodge book and it remains my favourite.

― Ms B, Monday, 23 May 2005 17:15 (twenty-one years ago)

"Pretty much liked everything up until Nice Work, when he started to show signs of strain. "

I actually think he's getting better in a lot of ways -- I was reading Ginger, You're Barmy the other night and as much as I love the book I got sort of snared on a grievous rep...

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 23 May 2005 19:45 (twenty-one years ago)

And his Catholicism really appeals to me -- I love British literature but I was raised Catholic and sometimes the whole Protestant background thing feels alien to me. (I either think "crazy fucking president" or "crazy fucking snake handlers." Well, sometimes I think "You need to get laid.")

― Ann Sterzinger (Ann Sterzinger), Monday, 23 May 2005 19:55 (twenty-one years ago)

Speaking of Lodge's Catholicism, I first came across this author when I saw his "How Far Can You Go?" listed in "99 novels : the best in English since 1939 : a personal choice," by Anthony Burgess. This books tracks a group of English Catholics from the mid-1950s through most of the 1970s. It's quite good, but my favorites are "Small World" and "Therapy."

― Mr. Jaggers, Friday, 3 June 2005 01:11 (twenty-one years ago)

How Far Can You Go? is very good. There is one really hilarious bit where somebody has to bring a stool sample to his doctor and slightly misunderstands the instructions. In the UK it is called Souls and Bodies, no?

― Ken L (Ken L), Friday, 3 June 2005 01:22 (twenty-one years ago)

Yes, Ken, you're right about the book having 2 titles. And the section you mentioned is a hoot.

― Mr. Jaggers, Friday, 3 June 2005 01:37 (twenty-one years ago)

The British Museum Is Falling Down was quite good.

― Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 4 June 2005 00:26 (twenty-one years ago)

I liked it, although I don't remember too much about it. Maybe each chapter is a pastiche? Maybe he considers it an early work? Was it his second book?

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 4 June 2005 00:53 (twenty-one years ago)

It's definitely one of his earlier books. It's actually been a while, but it involves the protagonist attempting to finish his doctoral work on an obscure writer while attempting to not have any more children while attempting to maintain his Catholicism.

― Hurting (Hurting), Saturday, 4 June 2005 03:21 (twenty-one years ago)

The title is from the lyrics of "A Foggy Day," no? Maybe I should take this over on the other board, but every time I think of this book, I think about turning on one of those nighttime music shows with Jools Holland or David Sanborn and seeing a black and white clip with a woman sitting at the piano saying: "Hello, I'm Hazel Scott and this is my band, Charles Mingus and Max Roach. Now we're going to play for you 'A Foggy Day."" It was great.

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 4 June 2005 14:23 (twenty-one years ago)

The British Museum is Falling Down (published in 1965) is Lodge's third novel, published after:
The Picturegoers, published in 1960
and
Ginger, You're Barmy, published in 1962.

― Mr. Jaggers, Saturday, 4 June 2005 15:41 (twenty-one years ago)

I knew there was a little more to the story of the title. I just reread Lodge's intro to the book and he says that the correct lyric is of course "The British Museum had lost its charm" which is what he wanted to call the book. But he didn't realize he had to get permission from Ira Gershwin and George's estate or whoever owned the rights and then he couldn't get it. He came up with some alternate titles, one being Wombsday, since there were various structural similarities with Ulysses one being that the last chapter was a pastiche of the last, Molly Bloom chapter of U, and some others titles from Paradise Lost, since the main character's name is Adam. The publisher didn't like Wombsday. They came up with the compromise title, which incorporated part of "London Bridge."

― k/l (Ken L), Saturday, 4 June 2005 23:33 (twenty-one years ago)

two months pass...

I don't have an opinion of Lodge's fiction, but I used to haev a completely irrational grudge against him because of something he wrote in a piece of criticism.

Somewhere, he'd said that the monologues in Woolf's The Waves were so mannered that they seemed "unbearably precious." I got all indignant about this because the whole point of the tone in The Waves was to be mannered.

In reproducing the same essay in book form, Lodge softened his language somewhat, and said that the monologues "suffer from artificiality." He must have heard me.

― The Mad Puffin (The Mad Puffin), Monday, 8 August 2005 18:19 (twenty years ago)

A friend and I have been quoting something he said about Robertson Davies for years, that his writing "may be a bit too gamy for some tastes, a bit too redolent of high table."

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 8 August 2005 18:30 (twenty years ago)

is he rather cozy?

― John (jdahlem), Monday, 8 August 2005 19:11 (twenty years ago)

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 8 August 2005 19:22 (twenty years ago)

are his texts rather...cozy?

― John (jdahlem), Monday, 8 August 2005 19:43 (twenty years ago)

i am sure the man himself is a repugnant...prig.

― John (jdahlem), Monday, 8 August 2005 19:44 (twenty years ago)

Seemed like a very nice guy when I saw him do a reading at the old Books & Co, or whatever the place was called next to the Whitney Museum.

― k/l (Ken L), Monday, 8 August 2005 20:01 (twenty years ago)

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