Standard Lodge | Therapy

Therapeutic | Therapy | David Lodge

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	• Therapy David Lodge Penguin (Non-Classics), 1996 - 336 pages average customer review:based on 24 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Thought provoking

I read "Therapy" after having just finished reading "Eleven Minutes". Both novels are about people searching for or rejecting connection. Thought provoking. If you are in the mood to contemplate life and love read these as a set.

Standard Lodge

Standard Lodge: insight, humour, alternative forms, incorporated lecture (Keirkegaard), and an adulterous resolution.

Lodge is consistent. His style reminds me a bit of Hornby (maybe I've got that backwards), the honesty I suppose. I relate particularly to his persona's reminiscences about his first girlfriend - how blithely horrible you can be. I don't think he needed to tie things up with a common technique of his (sex: cf. Out of the Shelter; Nice Work, Paradise News): it seems to be important to him to show how he's overcome his teenage Catholic morals, and he falls back on restoration bedroom farce perhaps cheaply.

Again he's wise to stick to areas he knows about - scenes from Television, Publishing - and from a Catholic Youth Group. He also ties in all this stuff about Keirkegaard - someone who hardly lends himself to a popular novel. He has to work hard to make it fit, but does so. I like his line about Keirkegaard being like flying through clouds: occasionally they clear and you have a moment of intense and profound clarity ... and then suddenly you're plunged back into utter obscurity.

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Therapeutic

Reading Therapy is therapeutic, but then reading any David Lodge novel is therapeutic, because they are inevitably funny, witty, wise, touching and sweet. Therapy is the putative 'journal' of Laurence "Tubby" Passmore, a successful TV sitcom writer whose personal life has soured. He's trying analysis, aromatherapy, acupuncture and platonic romance but nothing quite eases the angst or ameliorates the psychic pain. Eventually he tries a pilgrimage (in several senses of the word) and (well, I can't spoil the ending, but it's David Lodge, so that you know the ending will be satisfying).

This is one of Lodge's best--right up there with Nice Work, Paradise News and his newest novel, Deaf Sentence. There are also some long reflections on Kierkegaard, which are great fun and, as always with Lodge, insightful. If you're feeling blue, save your money. Don't pay for analysis, acupuncture or aromatherapy. Read Therapy.

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Therapy is Theraputic

Lawrence Passmore, known to everyone as Tubby, is a depressed, middle-aged man in the suburbs of London. He doesn't know why he is depressed as he seems to have everything going for him: a smart, attractive wife, accomplished, grown children, an extremely successful tv career, and a beautiful suburban home. But somehow this isn't enough. Even his physical body is complaining in the form of knee pain that the doctors cannot seem to properly diagnose. What follows is a narration by Tubby of his trials and tribulations. His past, present, and depressing woes. He practically creates a life for himself in which nothing can go right.

To solve his life's problems, Tubby seeks out every kind of therapist you can possibly find. He engages in mental therapy, physical therapy, aromatherapy, and acupunture to name a few. When his wife leaves him he seeks out the physical companionship of the women that he knows, only to be rebuked which leads to erectile disfunction. Nothing is going right for poor Tubby who takes to writing in a journal as an outlet for his problems. This writing exercise may just be the thing he needs as he becomes introspective and finds a focus for his energy that may lead him out of his depression.

This is a fun novel despite the dreary plot line. The writing is humorous and light and the reader cannot help but sympathize with Tubby to a certain extent despite thinking that he is a pathetic mess who has created his depression himself. British humor is often more subtle and dry than other types and this novel is no exception. If you find the wry sense of humor funny, than you will very much enjoy this book.

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A handbook for middle age crisis

This book gives a humorous view to the middle life crisis. No issue of it is forgotten, lack of self esteem, adultery, physical decay, depression, compassion and so on. Michelines Passmore lives through all these experiences starting with a knee pain that heralds a process of realizing that the golden age was over. His relationship with women is wonderfully depicted. Abandoned by his wife, he suspected that her lover was her tenis trainer only to realize in an embarrassing situation that he was not her lover at all. The trip to Tenerife with Amy, his platonic love, is hillariously described from both sides. Michelines sadly becomes aware that the power he once had in his work was the only way he could get a woman to his room. However, he manages to redeem himself by finding his first love. This encounter is also delightful.
Lodge also deals with artistic creation and fame and prestige, as he does in other books like Author, Author.
In summary, a great, delicious, hilarious, intelligent book. One of Lodge's best.

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the author of Small World offers a funny, compassionate portrayal of a balding, chubby television writer whose creeping restlessness leads to an obsession with existentialism, brushes with the police, and strange bedfellows. Reprint. 30,000 first printing. NYT.

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