LIVIN’ LODGE: (Sorry. Sorry. Sometimes these puns happen, without my deliberate consent….) Lots of responses to my post on How Far Can You Go?/Souls and Bodies. Thanks so much to everyone who wrote in! Let me clarify two quick points before we go to your emails.

1. I’m pretty sure, on reflection, that the thing that soured me on this book was the fact that only one of the children was characterized, in such a way that I twigged to the author’s manipulation of the reader. As soon as I realized this I think the book was over for me. It’s the kind of strenuously bad writing that I like least, where characters are gameboard counters rather than individuals. And so although it really is a major flaw, I’ll readily admit that when I sussed it I stopped enjoying and engaging with the book; after that I got mulish and growly, and I’m sure I was unfair. The book has a lot of real merits, many of which are drawn out in your comments.

2. A couple people mentioned this, so I should note that I wasn’t clear in my initial post: I get that “How far can you go?” is first used in a context of sexual propriety, but then expands to encompass liturgy, theology, and life in general. That might, actually, be one of my favorite things about the novel! Too often, writers use metaphors clumsily, with too much emphasis on the thing it’s a metaphor for rather than on the thing itself. (I can never remember which is the vehicle and which is the tenor….) I loved that Lodge was concrete, and very funny!, describing the bored boys in religious education class asking the priest, “Father, how far can you go with a girl?”, and then used that question to center his novel.

OK. On to you people!

Amy Welborn reviewed two Lodgebooks here. Worth your time, of course, as AW is the Catholic Blog Queen.

Doctor Weevil: I read Lodge’s first seven novels back when there were only seven of them (20 years ago?). Here’s what I recall:

I don’t know whether he continued the pattern, but he started out alternating serious and comic novels. I much preferred the latter (2nd, 4th, and 6th).

Of the serious ones, I remember nothing except bits of How Far Can You Go?, notably the scene where the friend tells Nicole’s father that she is most likely retarded. Something about feeling like a murderer and forever after associating the smell of sawdust with bad news, since he told him in the workshop?

I loved the comic ones. Changing Places and Small World, in that order, make a pair of academic novels with many of the same characters. Highly recommended, but read them in that order.

I’m even fonder of the The British Museum Is Falling Down, which is sort of a Catholic academic novel about an impecunious grad student trying to write his dissertation at the BM while worrying about whether his wife is pregnant with their fourth child — intermittent discussion of the rhythm method throughout the book. One thing I somehow missed on the first read-through is that there are 10-12 parodies of other writers distributed through the book. The second time through, after learning that from the preface, they were obvious, even (somehow) the parodies of authors I had never read, such as C.P. Snow.

[later he added this postscript]: A minor point, but . . . . In my previous, I said that the three comic novels I recommended were Lodge’s 2nd, 4th, and 6th, but they may well have been 3rd, 5th, and 7th. If you have one of the recent ones at hand, it probably lists them in order. (Most of my books are in a storeroom a few miles from here, so I can’t easily check. Maybe I should go dig them out.)

Charles Murtaugh (where late the sweet blogs sang!): Congrats on discovering him — “Souls and Bodies” is dated, but still worth it no matter which side of Humanae Vitae you are on. “Thinks” was marvelous, but I think the best of his Catholic-oriented novels was “Paradise News,” and his funniest is “Small World.” “Therapy” is also excellent, also pretty Catholic-y. But “Small World” is one of the funniest books I’ve ever read, and it really helped lift me out of the depressive phase I was in at the time I read it. “Nice Work” is also an excellent book, again more funny than Catholic although all his books have a good deal of humor.

[later in postscript]: I always read the first meaning of “How Far Can You Go?”, title-wise, to be: how far can you “go,” sexually, without committing a mortal sin? Isn’t that a big issue for the main character and his fiance, prior to their marriage? (It was >10 years ago that I read it, so I could be mis-remembering.) The other meanings reverberate from that one.

[Eve adds: I should perhaps note that Prof. Murtaugh is one of the main reasons I read Lodge in the first place! Very neat to have him comment.]

Cole Kendall: I periodically discover an author and devour the majority of his or her opus in a few months. My David Lodge phase was sometime around 5 to 10 years ago. I read most of his fiction up to that point, and the one
you read was definitely one of the weaker books. He is on firmer ground in academic satire, and there are a number of novels where his nerdy English literature prof navigates the complex world of the modern academe. I have not read any of his writing on writing, which I gather is more carefully thought out, and about which those who are serious about such things seem to think worthwhile (sorry for the convoluted grammar but other difficulties in life leave me only modest energy for clear writing).

Bill Walsh: I haven’t read Souls & Bodies, but I’ve read Thinks…, Therapy, Small World, Nice Work… and maybe one or two others. Lodge is a very good writer with a genuinely humane sensibility. I think like many artists he breaks down a little when dealing with intellectually (rather than emotionally) complex issues like, say, V2. I enjoy his work very much, though, and would encourage you to check him out further. (For a
contemporary British novelist who grapples very successfully with Big Philosophical Questions, check out Michael Frayn. You’d love The Trick of It. Also, he wrote the screenplay for the incredibly funny Clockwise, which you should rent immediately if you haven’t seen it….)

[Eve says: Thanks again, to all (including those not quoted here).]