My reading has gone to pot a bit this month – this represents only the sixth book I’ve finished so far (although I appear to be part-way through three more). It was on my print TBR at least – the second volume of Lodge’s memoirs is in my TBR project and Gill kindly gave me this, the first volume, last Christmas. I chose it to read on Monday as it felt appropriate, covering a large chunk of the Queen’s early life and her coronation up to almost her Silver Jubilee (although it turns out she’s not mentioned at all!).
David Lodge – “Quite a Good Time to be Born: A Memoir 1935-1975”
(23 January 2022, from Gill for Christmas)
Lodge planned to do his memoirs in two chunks, covering half his life each, and indeed did, so this takes him from birth to forty, taking in his family history as well. He kept diaries apparently, and he has letters and, from the age of about 17, Mary, later his wife, to remember stuff.
It was a good time to be born, with free education and the experience of a huge sociological shift in British life – he’s slightly too old to take part in 1960s counterculture etc but by that time is working in universities, so sees it happening with his students.
Excitingly, while I knew he was born in Brockley, South London, I didn’t realise his address was 8 minutes’ walk from where I lived in Brockley in the 1990s, and then obviously I knew he’d taught at Birmingham and lived there, but I had no idea he’d lived for a while in one of the “jerry-built”, poky and badly insulated 1930s semis on Reservoir Road, Selly Oak – where I lived in the earlier 1990s! So it all came alive for me in a very nice way.
Once his childhood is over, and trips to see his auntie in Germany, we get the development of his twin careers as novelist and academic – the academic side of things including writing books on literary theory that I’m afraid I haven’t read, while I have read all of his early novels, some of them a couple of times. There is satisfying detail on the novels and their writing, editing and publishing, and also on the academic administration side of things, interesting for being at the very university department I attended later (Lodge was an honorary professor by the time I got there: I attended a talk he did on adapting one of his novels for TV, and I have met him a couple of times since, and have even introduced Matthew to him).
He is a bit old-fashioned in some attitudes, finding women of his acquaintance becoming more interesting to him with the dawn of second-wave feminism and offering a few terms we wouldn’t really use now (this was written in c. 2014, we need to remember). He talks movingly but “of the times” about the birth and childhood of his son Christopher, who lives with Down Syndrome, using the terms that were used around the time but making sure we know of the full, rich life his son lives.
As we progress through the book, Lodge encounters people I knew myself – John Sinclair, who founded the COBUILD corpus linguistics-based dictionary project I worked on in the 1990s; Mr Shapiro, who used to come into Special Collections at the library when I worked there, and there’s always that thrill of actual recognition, isn’t there.
An entertaining and substantial book which I heartily enjoyed. I appreciated Lodge’s honesty about the anxiety he experienced at times, the worries over his novels and encounters with the publishing industry and the pull between family, writing and academia. Once I’ve finished some of the other books I’m reading, I’m looking forward to the second volume.
Lisa Hill
Sep 23, 2022 @ 09:54:35
I like his satires of university life…
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Liz Dexter
Sep 23, 2022 @ 16:20:18
Yes, they’re my favourites, especially as they feature my own alma mater!
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Deb Nance at Readerbuzz
Sep 23, 2022 @ 11:41:57
It’s lovely that you have found several connections to his life.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 23, 2022 @ 16:20:46
I expected it but didn’t expect I’d have been able to see his old house from my old house!
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peterleyland
Sep 23, 2022 @ 11:52:26
Thanks Liz. He is a very interesting writer. I particularly like Nice Work. There is a lot about him here that I didn’t know. I think the second one might tackle his encroaching deafness, a problem which I share and which I hesitate to read about, but maybe when I’ve read the review…
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Liz Dexter
Sep 23, 2022 @ 16:21:39
Yes, that was a favourite of mine, too. I didn’t actually take to his novel about being deaf, as I felt it made things too silly. I will make sure to report on that aspect as it comes up in the next volume.
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kaggsysbookishramblings
Sep 23, 2022 @ 12:30:41
Some lovely resonances with your own life there, Liz – I do like it when that happens with a memoir!
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Liz Dexter
Sep 23, 2022 @ 16:21:59
Yes, it really added a nice extra layer!
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volatilemuse
Sep 23, 2022 @ 16:29:46
So interesting to read this. I used to love his books but hadn’t thought about him for years.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 23, 2022 @ 16:55:53
I do recommend this as it’s so good on his development as a writer. I did stop reading his new books at one point though as I didn’t enjoy Deaf Sentence and then he did two using a historical figure in a novel, something I don’t really like!
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volatilemuse
Sep 23, 2022 @ 17:03:52
Thank you Liz. I’ll definitely bear this one in mind for my autumn reading list.
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heavenali
Sep 23, 2022 @ 17:26:39
Glad you enjoyed this, it’s great when you can picture places written about. I felt like that about the Kit De Waal memoir I reviewed today. I have only read one David Lodge book and I didn’t love it.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 26, 2022 @ 08:57:13
Yes, it was really fun! I will probably know some of Kit de Waal’s places, too, really keen to read that one now. I’m not sure he’s for you, and I drifted away from him myself when he started writing novels about real people!
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Bill Holloway
Sep 24, 2022 @ 11:38:58
What fun to read such an important bio and to find so many links to yourself. I enjoy his novels. I enjoy his lit theory, which I read 20 years ago, and probably should read again.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 26, 2022 @ 08:58:24
I had a violent reaction against lit theory at university and claimed I was all about Death of the Author and the reader creates the book (I do actually believe that to a large extent now, however I feel I may have claimed it at the time in order to avoid a chunk of reading!!). I might actually read his as he made efforts to get it readable and not dense and horrendous.
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thecontentreader
Sep 25, 2022 @ 13:34:07
I love his books, he is quite funny. I have read The Deaf Sentence which I really enjoyed. I have also read The Art of Fiction which I also enjoyed.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 26, 2022 @ 08:59:14
I didn’t take to Deaf Sentence but love his earlier ones. I should read his lit theory books really …
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Lory
Sep 25, 2022 @ 16:09:47
I read his campus novels years ago. I enjoy reading about the “real story” behind the novels, when the author has used life experience to create fiction.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 26, 2022 @ 09:00:00
Even though I officially subscribe to Reception Theory (the reader creates the book, etc.) it IS indeed fun to see this information laid out. I think you’d enjoy this for that reason.
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Nicola Scott
Sep 25, 2022 @ 22:09:22
I remember discovering his campus novel Nice Work when it was serialised in Cosmopolitan many years ago and I adored it. Particularly Robyn the central character. Great review I’dclike to read this memoir.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 26, 2022 @ 09:02:42
Oh, I forgot that had happened! I was very excited when the TV adaptation came out and they panned down the Bristol Road past my old university residence in the opening credits!
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JacquiWine
Sep 28, 2022 @ 08:58:37
Funnily enough, I was just thinking about David Lodge the other day – a writer I read in the days of my youth but who seems to have sipped off the radar over the past 20 years. It sounds like a most enjoyable read, not least given the social changes that took place in this period.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 28, 2022 @ 09:16:25
How funny! Yes, I lapped up his mid-period campus novels, esp because they were about MY campus, and then went off him with Deaf Sentence and his two subsequent ones that were novelisations of real figures’ lives, a no-no for me. This is good, in fact probably better than the second volume, which I’ve nearly finished now.
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Book review – David Lodge – “Writer’s Luck” | Adventures in reading, running and working from home
Sep 29, 2022 @ 08:41:26
elkiedee
Sep 29, 2022 @ 15:02:02
I didn’t enjoy Deaf Sentence as much as some of his earlier books. I thought that might have been partly timing though, as I was trying to read it during late pregnancy and serious fatigue (anaemia). I did find the account of his character’s deafness quite useful in understanding my mum’s husband’s difficulties and told my mum about it. Mum & Owen enjoyed it more.
This memoir has been on my TBR forever, Writer’s Luck mysteriously disappeared from the library stock when they reopened after lockdown, and I’ve only just realised there’s a third volume.
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Liz Dexter
Sep 29, 2022 @ 15:04:30
Ah, yes, I could see that would be useful. I just felt he made it too comedic and that put me off (not pg or anaemic at the tiime!).
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Rebecca Foster
Oct 13, 2022 @ 17:02:19
I’m catching up on blogs today. I really enjoyed this one; the second volume not so much. At one point I called him one of my three favourite writers (along with A.S. Byatt and Julian Barnes), but I’ve not had good luck with trying to reread him recently.
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Liz Dexter
Oct 14, 2022 @ 05:24:34
Glad I’m not alone there – in both aspects! I didn’t like Deaf Sentence then his next two were about real people, fictionalised, so no thank you. But I would re-read his earlier ones.
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