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Deaf Sentence

Author: David Lodge
Publisher: Harvill Secker
Category: Book

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Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

4 reviews
Sales Rank: 1677

Media: Hardcover
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.3

ISBN: 1846551676
EAN: 9781846551673
ASIN: 1846551676

Publication Date: May 1, 2008
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days

Also Available In:

•	Hardcover - Deaf Sentence
•	Paperback - Deaf Sentence

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Customer Reviews:

3 out of 5 stars

Not quite up to the usual Lodge standard August 12, 2008
A David Lodge novel is something to look forward to and I wish I could have enjoyed this one more than I did. Admittedly there are some hilarious misunderstandings, the ones on page 108 caused by the narrator's deafness, made me laugh out loud. However the plot requires more tension and the potential interactions between Professor Bates and the psychotic PhD student Alex never quite take off because they meet rather infrequently. The pathos of his father's troubles tend to dominate the book latterly and together with the trip to Auschwitz, leave one feeling rather gloomy. There is a novel amongst all the diary entries but perhaps this is not the best one that Lodge could have written.

One rather curious feature is the occasional change from first to third person narration, to no great effect. One felt as if Lodge just fancied a change!

3 out of 5 stars

Second rate novel by a first-rate writer July 30, 2008
I look forward to a David Lodge novel like a look forward to spring, only they come along less often, so they are more cherished. This one, however, only engaged me periodically. To me, it felt like a short story grafted on an autobiographical novel, and the combination just didn't seem to work after about the halfway point.

Desmond Bates, retired professor of linguistics at an unnamed northern university, is suffering from deafness, which caused his early retirement and places a strain on his second marriage to posh Winifred. The other strain in his life is his elderly, and decidedly unposh, father, who is similarly deaf, as well as cheap and unwilling to consider moving into any kind of assisted living.

The novel begins with a moving and interesting story of how Desmond confronts a noisy party, at which an attractive girl he later finds out is named Alex and a graduate student at his old university, talks to him while he can't hear a word she says. He finds himself saying yes to things he hasn't heard, only later to discover he has agreed to talk to her about her thesis. Lodge himself suffers from deafness and he writes about it in ways that ring true to my own experience and that of family members with hearing loss.

There is some rich background that might have been better brought closer to the surface here in Desmond's relationship to his daughter, Anne, and son, Richard, children of his first marriage to Maisie, who had died of cancer. Anne barely appears at all (she is pregnant through 90% of the novel), yet names her first child Desmond. Rick is barely mentioned til the end, yet has an important role in the last quarter of the book. There's a contrast between the match Desmond made with Maisie and that which he makes with Fred that is simply not resolved, yet at times is the most important part of the book.

After the excellent opening, the Alex story seems grafted on. Alex turns out to be trouble for Desmond, but even more so for his colleague Butterworth (whose wife is referred to once as "Mrs. Butterworth", which I don't know if that is as funny in England as it is in America). Once it appears clear that she is trouble for Butterworth, she ceases to be much of a threat to Desmond, and the story basically peters out. At the point late in the book where Desmond mentions to her he is going to Poland, and he begins a retrospective of the time in Poland with some dire foreshadowing, one believes that Alex may have followed him there to embarrass him in some way, but the opportunity passes.

The bulk of the novel, and certainly the climax, deal with Desmond's relationship with his dying father. Many of the scenes are handled with care and compassion (Lodge states in an afterword that this was quite autobiographical), but the only conflict is relatively trite and contrived: the father who won't leave home, is paranoid about people stealing from him, can't get along with his son's posh in-laws, etc. Only the idea that the two men, father and son, sharing the same affliction sometimes leads to some comedy, particularly when they have conversations in public at full volume so as to hear one another, seems fresh and alive.

Lodge's late friendly rival, Malcolm Bradbury, left behind some fragments of novels and stories that he never finished, which were published without change and make interesting reading. This book, for all its good points, feels much like Lodge struggling not to leave such fragments behind. It's not clear to me that this was the right choice.

5 out of 5 stars

Comic not tragic June 9, 2008
6 out of 10 found this review helpful

Desmond Bates has been going deaf for the last 20 years. He took early retirement from his position as Professor of Linguistics because he couldn't hear what his students were saying. Now, he faces the frustrations & indignities of deafness every day. His wife, Winifred (Fred), is sympathetic but sometimes irritated. When Desmond meets post graduate student, Alex Loom, he agrees - without realizing it - to a meeting about her thesis on the linguistics of suicide notes. He hasn't heard a word she said at a noisy gallery opening & doesn't realize he's agreed to anything at all. This leads him into a confusing relationship with the manipulative Alex, who wants Desmond to supervise her thesis. Desmond is also worried about his elderly father (also going deaf), living alone in London. This is the most poignant and humorous part of the book. Harry lives in the family home, in increasing squalor, hiding money under the floorboards, and refusing to spend any money on making his life more comfortable. David Lodge has written a beautifully observed novel which illuminates the world of people with hearing loss. Desmond's theory that blindness is tragic while deafness is merely comic is illustrated by the facts of his everyday life - struggles with hearing aid batteries, lip reading classes, & the funny yet frustrating misunderstandings in everyday conversation. Lodge shows the reader the isolation of the deaf in this absorbing novel.

3 out of 5 stars

you'll get a nice warm glow May 23, 2008
8 out of 14 found this review helpful

A sedate but heart-warming story of male ageing, the persistence of marriage in the face of life's little challenges and misunderstandings, and the swirling waters of father/son relationships.

Desmond is a retired Professor of Linguistics who is afflicted - as he feels - by deafness. His deafness leads him into ever more involving scrapes with a psychotic student, his wife, and his decrepit father.

Funny, fun and a bit emotional - not super-Lodge, but Lodge nonetheless. Most reminscent of Therapy, to me, with a similar narrator and narrative devices.