Tag Archives: England

Therapy by David Lodge

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Laurence “Tubby” Passmore is the successful, middle-aged writer of a British situation comedy. He seems to have a pretty terrific life, but isn’t happy. He tries all kinds of therapy, but nothing helps until he finds himself surprisingly engrossed in the life and works of Kierkegaard. Just when Tubby feels he’s making progress, his wife announces that she’s leaving him.

Therapy is supposedly Tubby’s journal, but nobody’s journal has this much dialogue (of course, he’s supposed to be a scriptwriter). The story is engaging and Tubby is very good company, even when his life is falling apart. Maybe a novel like this has to have a happy ending, but I was disappointed when it ended that way. It all seemed more real when our hero was suffering.  (8/22/11)

The Rachel Papers by Martin Amis

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Martin Amis was 24 when he published The Rachel Papers, his first novel, in 1974. It’s about a young man, almost 20, who wants to have sex with a fairly uninteresting young woman named Rachel. He also wants to go to Oxford. He is a literary smart-ass, who apparently puts everything about his life on paper: how to seduce Rachel, how to get into Oxford, and so on. We don’t get to read what the young man writes. Instead, we get his interior monologue. It’s funny at times, with many clever remarks, but way too many references to bodily fluids, bad skin and questionable hygiene.  (6/17/11)

David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

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Too long, too uneventful, too false. David Copperfield’s life as a boy is dramatic and involving. As he grows older, his life becomes much less interesting. His role in the story is to observe other people’s behavior. Some of the characters he observes are enjoyable. Many are tedious.

The most repellent part of the book is the account of David’s marriage to a ridiculous young woman. As soon as David begins to think that his marriage was a mistake, his young wife develops a cough. Soon she is an invalid. Within a few chapters, she is dead. This allows David to marry a paragon of womanly virtue he has loved since boyhood.

In the end, all the good characters prosper, the evil ones do not. Happy endings usually make readers feel good, but, in this case, it didn’t.  (12/5/10)