Deaf Sentence: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ (Author)
Key Phrases: lime avenue, hearing instrument, Alex Loom, New Year, Boxing Day (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In British writer Lodge's (Author, Author) modest 13th fictional effort, an elderly man's hearing loss embroils him in a sticky situation with a beautiful, manipulative young woman. Sexagenarian Desmond Bates wears a hearing aid after being diagnosed some 20 years earlier with acquired deafness and consistently misinterprets people's words (which Lodge milks to maximum comic effect). Bates longs for activities after his retirement from teaching applied linguistics, other than contemplating e-mail spam about erectile dysfunction and watching his wife, Winifred, enjoy her success as an interior designer. The novel takes the form of his newly begun daily diary. At a gallery event, Bates mistakenly agrees to help shapely, enigmatic American student Alex Loom with her Ph.D. thesis on suicide notes. It quickly becomes clear that Loom's intentions are anything but academic and her instability shakes not only the sound foundations of Bates's family life but his long-since-stagnant fantasy life as well. Lodge's amiable, deliberate narrative tickles like a feather, but his frequent pauses for lengthy, expository grace notes may not appeal to every reader. (Sept.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Deaf Sentence, structured mostly as Desmond Bates's diary, marks a departure for David Lodge. Although filled with humor, the novel moves in a more poignant direction than the author's previous work. Desmond is a sympathetic and well-drawn protagonist, but the New York Times found Alex to be "something of a cartoon." Although most critics were moved by the story's development from a lighthearted comedy into a more serious exploration of aging and mortality, the New York Times Book Review faulted the book's shift away from Alex (and the potential for comic disaster) and toward Desmond's relationship with his dying father. Despite these minor criticisms, most readers should enjoy this well-written work by a veteran novelist.
Copyright 2008 Bookmarks Publishing LLC

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Viking Adult (September 18, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0670019925
• ISBN-13: 978-0670019922
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #217,124 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "What shall I do with myself today?", October 5, 2008

By	E. Bukowsky "booklover10" (NY United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

David Lodge's "Deaf Sentence" is a seriocomic novel about a man whose quality of life is steadily declining. Desmond Bates, a former professor of linguistics, takes early retirement, mostly because of a hearing loss that began twenty years earlier. He suffers from "high-frequency deafness...caused by accelerated loss of the hair cells in the inner ear...." Since there is no treatment for this condition, Desmond resorts to hearing aids, which prove to be inconvenient and, in some circumstances, useless. As he dourly observes, "deafness is a kind of pre-death, a drawn-out introduction to the long silence into which we will all eventually lapse."

Now in his sixties, Desmond's existence settles into a boring routine. His wife, Winifred (whom he calls Fred), on the other hand, is rejuvenated, partly as a result of the flourishing new interior design business that takes up most of her time. Adding to his gloomy disposition is Desmond's concern for his eighty-nine year old father, Harry, who lives alone in London. Not only is Desmond's father also going deaf, but there are alarming signs that he is no longer able to care for himself adequately. Unfortunately, Harry refuses when Desmond offers to hire someone to look in on him and lend a hand with household chores.

"Deaf Sentence" is a deeply affecting novel that springs from the author's personal experience with high-frequency deafness. The book succeeds on many levels and is enhanced by Lodge's clever use of language, entertaining literary and cultural references, and vivid descriptive passages. One day, when Desmond is strolling across the campus where he used to teach, he encounters a horde of students pouring out of their classes. "I floated on their tide like a piece of academic wreckage," he muses with a hint of self-mockery. The author elevates the mundane by poignantly exploring the ebb and flow of marital relationships, the physical and mental decline that accompanies aging, and the toll that illness and disability take on both the victim and his family. Lodge conveys his knowledge of all these themes subtly, sensitively, and with a healthy dose of bracing humor.

Desmond is an engaging first-person narrator, who sometimes lapses into the third person, presumably to give himself a breather. Fred is a devoted and sympathetic spouse, but as the years go by, she is becoming more and more exasperated by her husband's habits, especially his increasing reliance on alcohol as an anesthetic. Desmond is beginning to feel like "a redundant appendage to the family, an unfortunate liability" who no longer commands the respect that he once took for granted. To complicate matters further, an attractive but unstable young student named Alex Loom threatens to upend Desmond's already shaky existence when she asks him to supervise her dissertation on "the stylistic analysis of suicide notes." Should he risk getting involved with this possibly predatory female?

The novel draws us in more and more as the suspense builds. We wonder how Desmond and Fred will adjust to the shift in their respective roles; what Desmond will do when his father can no longer live alone; and whether or not Desmond will give in to the lovely Alex in order to salve his battered ego. Lodge's vivid characters soon become familiar acquaintances whom we get to know so well that it is difficult to part with them. In this touching, funny, and wise book, David Lodge deftly and unsentimentally illuminates the challenges and frustrations that, sooner or later, everyone must face.

32 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars "Deaf and the maiden, a dangerous combination", September 21, 2008

By	Michael Leonard "MikeonAlpha" (Silver Lake, Los Angeles, USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Although this novel ends with a birth and a death, for most of its pages, Deaf Sentence celebrates life, albeit one that is a little disadvantaged. Forced to retire because of his rapidly diminishing hearing, linguistics professor Desmond Bates is not exactly going through a mid-life crisis, but in the preceding months has reached a point in his life where he is subtly questioning everything. Desmond has had a fulfilling career teaching at a local northern University, and he's mostly happily married to his entrepreneurial wife Fred "Winifred" who runs a trendy design store called Décor. But even as Desmond settles into a middle-aged life, he worries about his increasingly spotty sexual performance. While Fred seems to be getting better with age, blooming into the flower of independence with a stunning new career and new look helped along by her best friend Jacci, Desmond has grown older and deafer, and subject to occasional erectile dysfunction that is exasperated by the advertisements for Viagra that daily always seem to appear in his email box.

It comes as no surprise then that Desmond, somewhat hampered by his hearing loss, falls into predictable daily routine, his communication with those around him becoming difficult at best as his family, friends and colleagues mostly stand by, confused and embarrassed most of the time and ultimately unable to relate to his misunderstandings in the conversation. With sex becoming an object of anxious rather than pleasurable anticipation, "although blindness is tragic, deafness may be comic, "Desmond receives a completely unexpected and completely disturbing call from a young and seductive student by the name of Alex Loom.

An intriguing person but a bit of an enigma. Alex is writing a thesis about suicide notes and wants Desmond to help her out. An unpredictable and frail girl with streaming blonde hair, Alex becomes ever more obsessed with obtaining Desmond's help and approval. Although Desmond makes clear moral distinctions, his life well-ordered and constricted by his marriage to Fred, he does have a darker side. The visits to Alex at her apartment, ostensibly to give her tips about her research, become ever more disturbing, with Desmond coming to the realization that she's either totally irresponsible or mentally unbalanced. Yet she seems to intuit somewhere in Desmond's psyche a fantasy lurking unsuspected and only waiting to be released.

Determined to maintain the status quo, Desmond also has his 89-year-old father, Harry once a big band musician, the responsibility for his dad's welfare lying heavily on him. He regularly travels down to London to visit Harry who lives in the old family home in the older suburb of Brickley. Living alone and dressing like a tramp, Harry lives closed up in his ramshackle house that always seems to be bathed in a sepulchral gloom. Stripped of all of his life enhancing interests, Harry's only one hobby is saving money while observing prices, and economizing on food, clothing and household bills.

While Desmond anguishes over what to do about Harry, Alex becomes his female nemesis and ultimately his arch manipulator. Indeed, Desmond curses the day that he let this unscrupulous young woman "twist him around the little finger of her flattery". To confess his dealings with her would make him look smaller in Fred's eyes even as he becomes convinced that an acknowledgement of Alex's attempted seductions would further weaken the status of his marriage. Alternating between the first and third person, Lodge's tale drifts from the serious to the humorous as Desmond tries to figure out how to get out of the dilemma of Alex. In the process this affable and kindly man ruminates and entertains the reader with his thoughts on ageing, marriage, seduction, isolation and the advantages and disadvantages of deafness. As the uncomfortable memories of Maisie, his first wife who died of cancer, whirls around him, Desmond cannot help but be a little bitter about his deafness. Even his new found new happiness with Fred has not assuaged his share of misfortunes and his sense of the discontent.

Filled with literary allusions and misunderstood irony, this novel ultimately comes across as a type of modern comedy of manners framed around the themes of life's fragility and the ease with which the marks we leave on the surface of the earth are erased. The chapters on linguistics, while obligatory for comprehending the many facets of Desmond`s character can be a bit difficult to digest, but the narrative generally moves along with sparkling dialogue that is full of guileful observations on life. Most notable for displaying for the minute and humorous details of British family life, the novel's chief pleasure lies in the familiar - a chaotic Christmas dinner with the entire family present, a new years holiday at a sexy leisure resort, a chaotic dinner in a loud Italian restaurant that is filled with irritating background noise, and ruminations on Desmond's future years of tranquility with Fred, still after all that transpires, the decisive love of his life. Mike Leonard September 08.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Character & Poignant Descriptions, October 15, 2008

By	Carol Orme-johnson "carolorm" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Lodge gives a detailed picture of what it's like to go deaf in middle age and all the limitations deafness brings. The deep description of a deaf man's life feels familiar when he faces the same issues everyone does as they age and terribly sad when his hearing loss isolates him from people he cares about. The main character would be interesting even if he weren't deaf, and his deafness adds poignancy that makes this book special.