Customer Reviews

Home Truths

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

David Lodge is justly revered as both one of the best comic novelists of recent decades and as a writer who explores serious moral themes through his satire.
Folks then were somewhat disappointed when this novella was published, because it's not quite up to the standards of his novels. Perhaps they're being a tad
fanatical.

As Mr. Lodge acknowledges up front, Home Truths began life as a play and for purposes of this novelization he did not make major alterations. This leaves it
with all the unnaturalness of theater--a single setting, just four characters, and a reliance on dialogue--despite the new format. You can either accept the
limitations this imposes and be grateful for a chance to read an awkward but worthwhile piece that wasn't coming to a theater near you anytime soon, or you
can dwell on the matter and not enjoy the book.

Adrian Ludlow is a somewhat accomplished but now mostly silent author who's "retired" to an isolated English cottage with his wife, Eleanor. Over
breakfast one morning they agonize over, and thrill to, a newspaper interview their old friend, screenwriter Sam Sharp, gave to an up and coming journalist, Fanny Tarrant, who's made her reputation
by eviscerating the self-absorbed celebrity subjects of her profiles. A representative sample from the story on Sam reads:

The first thing you notice about Samuel Sharp's study is that it's plastered with trophies, certificates and citations for prizes and awards, and framed press photographs of Samuel Sharp,
like the interior of an Italian restaurant. The second thing you notice is the full-length mirror on one wall. "It's to give the room a feeling of space," the writer explained, but you can't help
thinking there's another reason. His eyes keep sliding sideways, drawn irresistibly by this mirror even while he's speaking to you. I went to see Samuel Sharp wondering why he had
been so unlucky in matrimony. I left thinking I knew the answer: the man's insufferable vanity.

It gets worse. But the truth is even these old friends are enjoying seeing him get his comeuppance, because he is just as vain as he's made out to be in the article.

However, Sam soon arrives at the cottage and enlists Adrian's help in a scheme to get back at Ms Tarrant. Adrian will submit to an interview too, but even as he's being profiled he'll secretly profile
her and sell the resulting hatchet job to a rival paper. The middle portion of the book--Act II, if you will--consists of the counter interviews. Ms Tarrant turns out to be not only quite attractive and a
decent enough sort but also an unabashed fan of Adrian's best known novel. Adrian remains guarded as he digs into her life and eventually convinces her to try his sauna. Eleanor, who'd not wished to
be a party to the charade, arrives home at a guilty-looking moment and, when Adrian is out of the room, simply unloads on him to the eager journalist. In particular, she's devastating in regards to the
difficulty that his inability to duplicate the success of that early novel had on their home lives. She tells a number of painful pent up truths, but tells them to someone who may now share them with the
whole world.

In the final act, Sam and Eleanor and Adrian,, who's stopped speaking to his wife entirely, anxiously await the arrival of the paper that will have the dreaded profile. But as they wait Ms Tarrant shows
up unexpectedly. Unbeknownst to the cottagers it's just been announced that Diana was killed in a car accident while trying to escape the paparazzi, so no one's likely to read or remember a profile of
forgotten novelist Adrian Ludlow. Unfortunately though, Ms Tarrant just happens to have a second piece in that morning's paper, one that's particularly harsh towards the suddenly martyred Princess.

Mr. Lodge brings forward a series of interesting points here. There's the strange nature of our celebrity culture, which sees oceans of ink and film devoted to people who are rarely worth knowing
about and who, more often than not, have done nothing of real value. As Fanny Tarrant says:

I perform a valuable cultural function. [...]

There's such a lot of hype nowadays, people confuse success with real achievement. I remind them of the difference.

But there's also a strange symbiosis between the celebrity and the journalist such that there's truly no such thing as bad publicity and the supposed exposer of the ugly truths about the rich and famous
ends up being just another celebrant. And what surprises all of them, people who should be wise to the rules of the game if anyone should, is how much they are affected by news of Di's death:

As the sound of the TV news coverage became audible, Adrian sat down on the chaise lounge to watch with the other two [Eleanor and Sam]. "I don't know," he said. "A death can
make a difference. Even the death of someone you never knew, if it's sufficiently..."

"Poetic?" said Sam.

"Yes, actually," said Adrian. "Arousing pity and fear, whereby to provide an outlet for such emotions."

"Good old Aristotle!" said Sam. "What would we do without him?"

"We pity the victim and fear for ourselves. It can have a powerful effect," said Adrian.

"Be quiet, for heaven's sake," said Eleanor, who was sitting between them. "I can't hear what they're saying." A representative of some relief agency was discussing the Princess's
work for victims of landmines with the anchorman.

"You think we're in for a national catharsis, then?" Sam said to Adrian, leaning back and speaking behind Eleanor's back.

"Conceivably," said Adrian.

And when the papers finally come, with a story about their own lives, they stay glued to the TV instead.

A full novel would have given Mr. Lodge an opportunity to spin out his own ideas about the strange vicarious lives we lead--where a modern nation can become obsessed by the murder trial of a
former football star or by the death of an oft scorned royal--but he at least presents some questions for us to ponder. And, like all his work, it's very amusing. If you approach the book with a
willingness to accept it for what it is, you'll certainly enjoy it.

This witty, ironic novella plays with comtemporary assumptions and cliches about the media and its supposed victims. Lodge's terse novel adaptation of his play reveals insight into the virtually inseparable egocentricities and insecurities of authors and critics alike.

Do not be misled by this volume's lack of bulk. Lodge's minimalist cast of characters and settings suffiently frame his hypothesis on the appearance and reality of literary endeavor. Consequently, the characters reveal "home truths" about themselves through their actions and reactions to each other, commencing with a slash and burn expose of a successful teleplay writer by a notorious interviewer/critic.

Similar to Lodge's other fictional characters, the stars of *Home Truths* are familiar, flawed, semi-sympathetic, and all too human, which makes themexquisitely comical. David Lodge scores high marks for this appealing satire. Don't miss it!

Many excellent books have been adapted into good plays, but it often doesn't work quite so well when it's reversed. "Home Truths," originally a play penned by the same author, is not amazing but it is amusing and occasionally thought-provoking.

Adrian Ludlow and Sam Sharp were best friends in the sixties, but now are merely "old friends." Adrian published one much-loved book and some mediocre ones before going into semi-retirement with his wife Eleanor; Sam, on the other hand, is a rising screenplay writer in Hollywood. But when the acid-tongued Fanny Tarrant writes a humiliating article about Sam, he entreats his old pals to help him.

Adrian tries to dig some dirt on Fanny, while revealing personal details about himself -- that he and Sam both slept with Eleanor in the sixties, when everyone was experimenting with relationships. Eleanor is enraged when she learns of this, and Sam isn't too pleased either. Will Fanny publish the embarrassing story?

It's not a huge or deep story, but it makes a sort of witty commentary on the media and how they affect and are affected by the people they report on. The rather exaggerated media article and the material on Princess Di (a woman whose death was partly attributable to the bullheaded press) add to the feeling.

The writing is very spare, as if Lodge merely wrote down the basic movements like stomping out, pulling down a piece of clothing, opening a door and so on. The dialogue -- unsurprising for a play-turned-novella -- is the main force in this story. The characters aren't perfect, and become rather annoying at times -- Adrian is stuffy, Sam is a bit self-absorbed, and I felt that if Eleanor wasn't happy, she should have said so outright rather than drifting around in a sort of identityless cloud.

It reads more like a play with action inserted and "he said" instead of the character's name. But "Home Truths" is a fairly amusing and well-plotted little story.

As Lodge indicates in his Author's Note, this novella is based on his play of the same title first produced in February 1998. The novella continues to have the feel and sound of a play. The location never changes and we see the characters interacting as though on a stage. Action out of the house is reported rather than directly observed. While this does lend the work a degree of artificiality, the reworking of a play does translate pretty well into the novella format. Lodge's ideas are interesting and topical and his characterizations are well observed. As usual with Lodge's fiction, Home Truths is well put together and nicely paced. However, it is not for those who want a long read - I finished it in about an hour and a half.

I'm a great fan of Lodge's novels, so I was surprised to find a title published in the UK in 1999 with which I was not familiar. Short, too -- only 115 pages. It turns out to be a novelization of a stage play, which means it's about 95 percent dialogue. Which is okay with me, since Lodge is very good at divulging character through dialogue. This one is about Adrian Ludlow, ex-novelist, now living with his wife in a cottage under the flight path from Gatwick, and his long-time friend, Sam Sharp, a financially very successful screenwriter. It's the early summer of 1997 and Sam has recently been savaged by a London newspaper interviewer called Fanny Tarrant -- one of those paparazzi-in-print whose reputations are built on making gleeful mincemeat of the famous. There are any number of editors who would like to see Fanny taken down a peg or three, and Sam has a plan for revenge. Fanny also had approached Adrian about an interview and he, being no fool, had declined. But what if he were to agree, and then write his own scathing counter-interview, turning her own methods back upon her? Adrian agrees, not entirely for Sam's sake, . . . but, of course, none of it goes quite according to plan. Not for Adrian, not for his wife, Eleanor, not even for Fanny. As Lodge quotes from the OED, a "home truth" is "a wounding mention of a person's weakness," and that's what this piece is about, in spades. This isn't one of Lodge's major efforts, but it's certainly worth reading.

David Lodge is English, a former professor, who writes with a sharp eye about the vanities of English academic and light intellectual (television, news columnists) life. He surely has a fine, if basic comic flair. One can't help but feel that much of the great body of work he has written in the past thirty of so years is very autobiographical, but even that charge he attempts to address in this recent work, a reflection on the elusiveness of success defined in one's own terms.

This is a ninety-minute reading, built around the play on which it is based. It does "read" like a play, but that is not a hindrance. Lodge makes his points quickly and adroitly. The four characters expose themselves with ease, although there is less sex than there is history. After all, the main characters are now near fifty. Life has had some sad turns. The young interloper provides the basis for opening old wounds.

For aging boomers, who once felt that their lives and careers held great promise, this will offer some reflection.

Okay. First of all, I've read most of Lodge's books and recommend THERAPY, PARADISE NEWS, and NICE WORK, in that order. now, you've read all of those. what to do? HOME TRUTHS is quite clever and leads you to some illuminating thoughts like all of Lodge's books. THe ending is particularly well done. THat said, it is a short book -- about an hour's worth--and it is adapted from a play of the same name (and reading the book is not that different from reading a playscript.) But I would have regretted not reading it, so it gets 4 stars. Maybe Lodge is working on something longer.

Obviously adapted from a play, this very short work consists mostly of dialogue, with very little exposition and almost no narrative. For this reason, it will be disappointing, particularly to David Lodge fans like myself, who have been eagerly awaiting his next novel. On the other hand, the characters are sharply drawn, and the themes -- what is public and what is private, what is honesty and what is betrayal -- are significant ones. One is left, after this "quick read," wishing to know more about these characters and themes, and hoping that, unlike his hero, Adrian Ludlow, Lodge is not "semi-retired" from fiction, and will publish another full-length work soon.

Although this is promoted as a novella, in fact it is a reworking of the play "Home Truths." It's David Lodge 'Lite,' as far as I can tell. It is dialogue and stage directions - hurriedly monkeyed with so as to pass for a novella. The story is simple: a middleaged novelist and his wife are visited by an old friend who has become a successful writer of screenplays. Together they decide that an annoying and aggressive journalist should get her comeuppance. Not deep or passionate, and not particularly witty, either. A disappointing story from a usually first-rate writer.

There's an oft-quoted / paraphrased theory of fiction writing that says "the form finds the story." I know Neil Gaiman has blogged about the concept: how occasionally he's struggled trying to tell a story in a certain way only to discover it works better as something else (trying to write a short story when what it really wants to be is a poem, for example). And of course Alan Moore is famous for his refusal to have anything to do with adaptations of his work into other forms of storytelling (see the movie versions of Watchmen, V For Vendetta, From Hell, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen) because he told the story in the style and format it fit best in, and it didn't need to be anything else.

I have occasionally toyed with turning both of my less-than-successful attempts at one-act plays into novellas. David Lodge's Home Truths made me think twice about it. Lodge's novella is a prose rendering of his play of the same title. His short note at the beginning tells you so, and also tells you that he put back in dialogue cut from various productions of the play. The problem is, the novella doesn't feel like a novella -- it feels like a playscript with very very explicit stage directions added in, and one odd veering-off into something that could not actually have been staged the way it's written (which, perhaps, was Lodge's whole intent for the piece, but since most of it sticks to what conceivably would have been an English Country Home One Room Drama, the piece that doesn't take place in that one room feels highly highly out of place.)

The plot, in short, is this: retired author Adrian Ludlow and his wife are visited by their old friend Sam Sharp, who is quite upset a scathing profile done by paparazzi-journalist Fanny Tarrant. A revenge scheme is set up, involving Adrian being interviewed by Tarrant at the same time that he interviews her. Will the retired author give up his own beloved privacy to skewer the woman who skewers famous people?

I have a feeling if I had seen Home Truths staged, I'd have enjoyed it quite a bit. The very British snappy patter speaks to me, and the topic is ... well, topical, perhaps even moreso now than when the play was written in 1998 (the action takes place around a pivotal cultural moment in 1997). But in book form, Lodge uses an awful lot of "he said" style dialogue tags that quickly get repetitive and actually annoying, cutting into the flow of the story. And in the end, the point Lodge seems to be trying to make is almost too cliche precisely because of that pivotal cultural moment Lodge relies on to make the point.

Reading this novella was instructional for me as a writer, but not something I'd recommend eagerly to others.