Deaf sentence

by David Lodge. Harvill Secker, 2008.

David Lodge’s books include comic gems such as the campus comedy Changing Places, as well as more serious works such as Author, Author. Deaf Sentence is a bit of a mixture. It has comic elements, but the overall tone is darker, even alarming. Retired Professor, Desmond Bates, finds that life has become tiresome and embarrassing due to the onset of hearing loss. While blindness is commonly regarded as tragic, he observes, deafness is often the source of amusement, though not for the deaf person himself. Desmond’s ageing father is a source of further disquiet for him, as the start of some sort of dementia makes itself known. Set against these two strands of plot is a third, less successful element, involving a young, erratic student who is supposedly researching the language used in suicide notes. This plot element is not fully worked out, and is somehow reminiscent of the movie Fatal Attraction, (though no bunnies are harmed). Altogether, though, the novel is written with Lodge’s customary elegance, and successfully draws attention to the under-appreciated struggle many people have with deafness.

- John

Alice Munro wins 2009 Man Booker International

Alice Munro, known for her short stories, has won the 2009 Man Booker International prize (different from the Man Booker Prize). Her new collection is due to be released at the end of 2009, entitled Too much happiness. Her most recent titles include Away from her (which was made into a movie of the same name) and a collection called The view from Castle Rock.

The women

by T C Boyle. Viking, 2009.

T C Boyle’s mastery of the short story is at odds with his ability as a novelist. Having raised expectations with his marvellous early novel, Water Music, about the explorer Mungo Park, he has disappointed on several occasions since. The Women is an ambitious portrayal of the women who loved Frank Lloyd Wright, and it’s another frustrating read. Boyle is capable of enviable sentences and description, but there are many paragraphs here which could be struck out without loss. The novel is supposedly told through the recollections of one of Wright’s students, Tadashi, via an Irish American translator, but the various ironical effects achieved by this method are submerged by the suspicion that the author is being a clever-clogs. The characters of the three wives/mistresses of Wright are comprehensively detailed, but are of minor historical interest compared to the architect himself. With the exception of Peter Ackroyd’s Hawksmoor, novelists have seldom been up to the challenge of putting themselves in the mind of an architect, and Boyle does little to show how Wright’s genius operated. And call me picky, but would people have fed coins into a jukebox in the early 1930s? Did the term ‘jukebox’ exist then? If you haven’t read Boyle before, I’d suggest looking for a collection of his stories first.

- John.