The subject of enthusiastic and widespread reviews, David Lodge's fourteenth work of fiction displays the humor and shrewd observations that have made him a much-loved icon. Deaf Sentence tells the story of Desmond Bates, a recently retired linguistics professor in his mid-sixties. Vexed by his encroaching deafness and at loose ends in his personal life, Desmond inadvertently gets involved with a seemingly personable young American female student who seeks his support in matters academic and not so academic, who finally threatens to destabilize his life completely with her unpredictable—and wayward—behavior. What emerges is a funny, moving account of one man's effort to come to terms with aging and mortality—a classic meditation on modern middle age that fans of David Lodge will love.
David Lodge (born January 28, 1935, London, England—died January 1, 2025, Birmingham, England) was an English novelist, literary critic, playwright, and editor known chiefly for his satiric novels about academic life, especially the Campus trilogy: Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984), and Nice Work (1988).
Lodge was educated at University College, London (B.A., 1955; M.A., 1959), and at the University of Birmingham (Ph.D., 1967). His early novels, known mostly in England, included The Picturegoers (1960), about a group of Roman Catholics living in London; Ginger, You’re Barmy (1962), Lodge’s novelistic response to his army service in the mid-1950s; The British Museum Is Falling Down (1965), which uses stream-of-consciousness technique; and Out of the Shelter (1970), an autobiographical coming-of-age novel. How Far Can You Go? (1980; also published as Souls & Bodies) was well received in both the United States and Britain and takes a satiric look at a group of contemporary English Catholics.
Several of Lodge’s novels satirize academic life and share the same setting and recurring characters; these include Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984), and Nice Work (1988). The latter two were short-listed for the Booker Prize. Among his later novels were Paradise News (1991), Therapy (1995), Thinks… (2001), and Deaf Sentence (2008). Author, Author (2004) and A Man of Parts (2011) are based on the lives of writers Henry James and H.G. Wells, respectively.
In addition to writing fiction, Lodge coauthored the plays Between These Four Walls (produced 1963) and Slap in the Middle (produced 1965). His works of literary theory included Language of Fiction (1966), The Novelist at the Crossroads, and Other Essays on Fiction and Criticism (1971; rev. ed. 1984), Working with Structuralism: Essays and Reviews on Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Literature (1981), Write On: Occasional Essays (1986), and After Bakhtin: Essays in Fiction and Criticism (1990). The Art of Fiction (1992) reprints essays from Lodge’s columns written for The Washington Post and the London Independent, and The Practice of Writing (1996) contains essays, lectures, reviews, and a diary. The essay collection Lives in Writing was published in 2014.
Lodge was the recipient of numerous honors. He was made a Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 1997 and a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1998. His memoirs are Quite a Good Time to Be Born (2015), which recounts his life from 1935 to 1975, and Writer’s Luck (2018), set in 1976–91.
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