David Lodge's novels have earned comparisons to those of John Updike and Philip Roth and established him as "a cult figure on both sides of the Atlantic" (The New York Times). Thinks . . . , his witty new novel about secret infidelities and the nature of consciousness, unfolds in the alternating voices of Ralph Messenger, director of the Centre for Cognitive Science at the University of Gloucester, and Helen Reed, a novelist and writer in residence at the university. Mutually attracted, the two end up in a moral standoff that is shattered by events that dramatically confirm the truth of Ralph's dictum: "we can never know for certain what another person is thinking."
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Inimitable British writer Lodge (Small World; The Art of Fiction) is at his best in another of his comedies of manners set in the academic world. His 10th novel is distinguished by gentle satire, vigorous intelligence, sometimes ribald humor and a perspicacious understanding of the human condition. At the fictitious University of Gloucester, science and literature collide in the persons of 40-something Ralph Messenger and Helen Reed. Ralph's research as the director of cognitive science and his wit and charisma as an explicator of artificial intelligence make him a bit of a star in Britain, and with the ladies. He delights in opportunities for extramarital activities within the confines of the don't-ask-don't-tell arrangement he's established with his wife. Ralph's worthy opponent, newly widowed Helen, a novelist and Henry James devotee, has come to the university to teach creative writing. Helen represents the religious conflict common to Lodge's characters. She has nostalgic respect for her Catholic upbringing, but she's enduring a crisis of faith. Because of her strong moral conscience, she disapproves of Ralph's infidelities. Yet sparks fly during their heated debates, and they share an undeniable attraction and mutual respect. Ralph argues convincingly for artificial intelligence as the next rung on the evolutionary ladder, but Lodge's own opinion clearly corresponds to Helen's: she's dubious of a machine that could embody human consciousness, "a computer that has hangovers and falls in love and suffers bereavement." The perfectly paced story unfolds alternately via Helen's diary, Ralph's audio-dictated journal and an omniscient narrator. Although still politically aware, Lodge is arguably less concerned with social commentary (as in his Booker-nominated Nice Work) than with human nature, and he digs deeper here than in Therapy into the universal mysteries of death and the soul. Readers and booksellers will be more than pleased by this entertaining and appropriately thought-provoking novel. 6-city author tour.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.From Library Journal
Lodge has a fondness for penning novels in which the lives of his central characters are comically juxtaposed, either geographically (Changing Places, Small World) or professionally (Nice Work), and in this latest outing he pits literature against science. Newly widowed Helen Reed has accepted a post as writer-in-residence at the University of Gloucester, one of England's recently converted polytechnical institutes, where she finds herself drawn to Ralph Messenger, director of the school's Center for Cognitive Science and one of its leading lights. And although the attraction is mutual, they diverge markedly in their views on adultery. Ralph has long enjoyed a quasi-open marriage to an American wife who turns a blind eye to his philandering, as long as he doesn't embarrass her in public, while Helen is still mourning her faithful husband, Martin. Through Helen's diaries and Ralph's voice transmissions, the reader is taken inside their conscious minds as they explore their feelings for each other, as if, as Helen herself observes, they could see inside a cartoon bubble over their heads reading, "Thinks.-" Once again, Lodge splendidly succeeds in delivering a lively novel full of insight and wit. Recommended for public and academic libraries.
- Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
30 of 31 people found the following review helpful
By Eileen Galen
Format:Hardcover
David Lodge by his own admission has been writing novels since he was 17. He's in his sixties, now, and is a master of the craft. He has produced coming-of-age novels, comic romps, academic novels, comical and bittersweet stories of yearning and loss - along with a variety of other conventional and experimental works. He has a big heart. In addition he is a prolific critic and essayist. He is great at parody, and has firm and interesting opinions regarding Catholicism, academia, modernity, the writing life, sex, death, relationships between friends, spouses, and lovers - among many other things.
"Thinks" is both an academic novel and a comedy of manners - containing elements of all of the above. Within a plot both complicated and much too simple the fictitious University of Gloucester provides the setting for the events. A bright, sexually and intellectually restless - and highly verbal - married but chronically adulterous scientist, Ralph Messenger (a dead ringer for Lodge himself, down to each facial feature) meets a younger female writer-in-residence at the school. She is a grieving widow, feeling out of place, away from her home in London, and out of sorts. They close in on one another and pull away - throughout the novel. It's a troubling (and troubled) dance.
The story unfolds by means of the transcripts of Messenger's stream-of-consciousness on-the- fly musings into a tape recorder. (In perfect Lodgeian fashion, Messenger self-consciously edits the transcripts.) Messenger fancies himself a modern, but is confounded by some of modernity's trappings. In alternate chapters, the diary entries of Helen Reed, a novelist of some acclaim and considerable self-awareness, are used to let us in on her thoughts and feelings.
So what's the problem? Messenger is a familiar man: we've watched him in action in other novels of Lodge's. Unfortunately in this one he possesses much less of the the tenderness, the heartrending confusion, and (sometimes comical) sexual frustration and/or energy - and vulnerability - that made so many of Lodge's previous protagonists so irresistibly appealing. In addition, Messenger/Lodge's self-referencing begins to seem precious. Characters from past novels (including Robyn Penrose from "Nice Work") make cameo appearances that seem almost token.
Helen Reed's diary entries are not sufficiently believable- for they are often wooden, much too full of tedious description of the obvious - and usually lacking in any trace of the register of a diary. She doesn't seem to be writing for herself, but for Lodge's presumed audience. This is a real problem in this novel.
The story entertains by means of plotting and timing. As usual from David Lodge there is wit and parody, self-consciousness without narcissism, humor and foolishness, desire and the reasonable wish to connect - occasionally running amok. In addition there is Lodge's basic decency toward all. I had hoped for more, though, from such a capable mind - and wonderful writer.
11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Here Lodge uses so many standard tricks that you could almost say he was parodying himself: university setting (Small World, Nice Work, Changing Places); a writer as persona (Therapy); parodying other writers (The British Museum Is Falling Down); an incorporated lecture (everything) - this time on consciousness, particularly as it relates to cognitive science and AI; altering perspectives (Therapy); altering styles (Changing Places, How Far Can You Go), particularly diarising (Paradise News, Therapy), lapsed Catholics (several), explaining/defending his writing technique to the reader as part of the text (most overtly in How Far Can You Go), oh, and, of course, fornication and/or adultery (everything). Maybe it's a conscious thing and trainspotters like myself are supposed to pick the deliberate references to all his other novels along the way: Robyn Penrose drops in; Keirkegaard is mentioned; Catholic birth control gets a cameo (although that's pretty endemic) etc.
As ever he's researched his topic thoroughly and made it palatable. There are passages of his bravely incisive honesty - as when he really gets down to the bones of what Helen (his lapsed catholic novelist/academic lead character) wanted out of her children's catholic education: a mild and conveniently temporary faith, and enough bible knowledge to appreciate such a rich store of literary allusion - something she probably couldn't admit to herself at the time. His settings generally feel authentic - he has the sense to depict the sort of places he's actually been, or to get good advice. Moreover his novels are tailor made to be discussed: glancing at the opening paragraph in this review, give me 2500 words on similarities and differences in this and any other of his books; here he gives Helen some perfect lines to lift to explain why a novelist (himself) would construct a book in a certain way. There are many pleasures in reading him.
That being said, however, the novel as a whole felt a bit hollow. I suspect its greatest weakness is the great morass of sex and talk about sex that you have to trawl through along the way. Extra-marital sex isn't quite the utter redemption/salvation it is of Out of the Shelter, Therapy and Paradise News - for a change bonking is not the climax and unequivocally happy resolution - and while Helen's affair does initially appear to do her a power of good, there's no future in it, and she actually begins to look quite foolish. However there are just too many pages devoted to the bedroom for Lodge to be merely offering mature analysis of an interesting topic without being overly coy. At some point it becomes gratuitous, just as Tom Clancy will gratuitously throw in car chases and flying bullets to distract us from his lack of insight. It's not quite erotic literature, but it's definitely voyeuristic - sort of a gossip novel, not getting carried away with detailing pulsating members and the like, but relishing just who's doing what to whom for just a bit too long and a bit too frequently.
And I really thought Lodge would be over this by now - I'm reminded of the fool chiding King Lear, something about how he couldn't be old because he's clearly not yet wise. When is he going to get this sex thing into perspective? It's not nothing, but it's not everything either. A while ago Lodge did pick that his local bishop may not have had all the answers, but doesn't appear to have lost faith in the philosophy of something as juvenile (and stupid) as Pretty Woman. The writer of Ecclesiastes gave it a fair burl, but did eventually work out that among other things sex wasn't the ultimate place to find meaning.
As ever he's researched his topic thoroughly and made it palatable. There are passages of his bravely incisive honesty - as when he really gets down to the bones of what Helen (his lapsed catholic novelist/academic lead character) wanted out of her children's catholic education: a mild and conveniently temporary faith, and enough bible knowledge to appreciate such a rich store of literary allusion - something she probably couldn't admit to herself at the time. His settings generally feel authentic - he has the sense to depict the sort of places he's actually been, or to get good advice. Moreover his novels are tailor made to be discussed: glancing at the opening paragraph in this review, give me 2500 words on similarities and differences in this and any other of his books; here he gives Helen some perfect lines to lift to explain why a novelist (himself) would construct a book in a certain way. There are many pleasures in reading him.
That being said, however, the novel as a whole felt a bit hollow. I suspect its greatest weakness is the great morass of sex and talk about sex that you have to trawl through along the way. Extra-marital sex isn't quite the utter redemption/salvation it is of Out of the Shelter, Therapy and Paradise News - for a change bonking is not the climax and unequivocally happy resolution - and while Helen's affair does initially appear to do her a power of good, there's no future in it, and she actually begins to look quite foolish. However there are just too many pages devoted to the bedroom for Lodge to be merely offering mature analysis of an interesting topic without being overly coy. At some point it becomes gratuitous, just as Tom Clancy will gratuitously throw in car chases and flying bullets to distract us from his lack of insight. It's not quite erotic literature, but it's definitely voyeuristic - sort of a gossip novel, not getting carried away with detailing pulsating members and the like, but relishing just who's doing what to whom for just a bit too long and a bit too frequently.
And I really thought Lodge would be over this by now - I'm reminded of the fool chiding King Lear, something about how he couldn't be old because he's clearly not yet wise. When is he going to get this sex thing into perspective? It's not nothing, but it's not everything either. A while ago Lodge did pick that his local bishop may not have had all the answers, but doesn't appear to have lost faith in the philosophy of something as juvenile (and stupid) as Pretty Woman. The writer of Ecclesiastes gave it a fair burl, but did eventually work out that among other things sex wasn't the ultimate place to find meaning.
Lodge does at least seem to be self-aware enough to realise that sex does seem to dominate the book to an obsessive degree so, through mouthpiece Helen, he offers a defence. When she is questioned about the sex in *her* novels she explains that of course the frequency and deviancy is exaggerated, but more standard monogamous relationships just aren't interesting enough for the reader. This lame defence really isn't worthy of a writer who:
a) has the skills to write about a range of issues, characters and experience without needing to fall back on titillation - as if it's the only possible subject that can sustain interest (he might as well endorse Clancy as writing the only readable fiction - readers can't cope unless there's a bomb about to go off somewhere and some macho posturing and biffo every few pages);
b) has literally read thousands of good novels where titillation isn't used at all;
c) has read myriad others that don't shy away for a moment from dealing powerfully with issues of fidelity and sexuality, without crossing the line into prurience (Lodge, in contrast, rushes over the line and can only manage to drift back again now and then).
The irony for me (and I suspect many others) is that what is inadequately explained as a concession to entertain readers actually makes the novel more tedious. I don't read Lodge for seedy revelations, and I suppose if that was what I was after I could find better elsewhere anyway. He can write with passion, humour, insight and wit - but you have to endure a lot of other stuff to get there in this book.
So, a bit of a blast for one of my favourite writers - I'm more aggrieved I suppose because I hope for more - definitely more than just playing with styles almost as a student exercise and thinking lashings of sex can cover paucity of substance.
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This captivating comedy of academic manners has a satisfying weightiness lacking in most other books of its genre because it is also intellectually challenging. Here Lodge indulges his interest in the esoteric subject of cognitive science--the study of consciousness and the processes of thought--by giving us two intriguing characters at opposite extremes of the cognitive spectrum and then letting the sparks fly, at first intellectually, then "socially."
Ralph Messenger is the clever and manipulative Director of the Holt Belling Center for Cognitive Science at the imaginary University of Gloucester, a nuts-and-bolts scientist investigating the physical, quantifiable aspects of thought and consciousness. Helen Reed, a visiting lecturer and grieving widow, on the other hand, is an artist, a novelist who celebrates feeling, imagination, and creation. When Ralph, an unapologetic woman-chaser, finds Helen irresistibly attractive, their totally different worlds collide, exposing the reader to various theories of cognitive science but also illuminating the limitations in explaining the soul, love, relationships, imagination, and the creative life.
Clandestine rendezvous, academic gamesmanship, office politics, secret lives kept hidden from spouses, and even involvement in pornography all contribute to the ensuing complications and suspense. The sometimes farce-like action is kept in check, however, by the very real presence of death, which hovers over the action and grounds the comedy, adding to the realism and providing a setting for arguments about whether the soul and Heaven can exist in a strictly scientific world.
The many delights of this novel are highlighted by Lodge's choice of appropriate points of view for his characters. Ralph's self-involved maunderings are in stream of consciousness, constantly flitting from his serious research to daydreams about sex. Helen's reminiscences appear in introspective journal entries. Third person narratives, which advance the story line, are interspersed with a variety of clever diversions-including parodies of Martin Amis, Irvine Welsh, Samuel Beckett, Fay Weldon, Henry James, and Gertrude Stein by Helen's students. Thinks is a literary treasure trove which will keep you fascinated and involved, even if you, like me, have no huge interest in cognitive studies. Mary Whipple
Ralph Messenger is the clever and manipulative Director of the Holt Belling Center for Cognitive Science at the imaginary University of Gloucester, a nuts-and-bolts scientist investigating the physical, quantifiable aspects of thought and consciousness. Helen Reed, a visiting lecturer and grieving widow, on the other hand, is an artist, a novelist who celebrates feeling, imagination, and creation. When Ralph, an unapologetic woman-chaser, finds Helen irresistibly attractive, their totally different worlds collide, exposing the reader to various theories of cognitive science but also illuminating the limitations in explaining the soul, love, relationships, imagination, and the creative life.
Clandestine rendezvous, academic gamesmanship, office politics, secret lives kept hidden from spouses, and even involvement in pornography all contribute to the ensuing complications and suspense. The sometimes farce-like action is kept in check, however, by the very real presence of death, which hovers over the action and grounds the comedy, adding to the realism and providing a setting for arguments about whether the soul and Heaven can exist in a strictly scientific world.
The many delights of this novel are highlighted by Lodge's choice of appropriate points of view for his characters. Ralph's self-involved maunderings are in stream of consciousness, constantly flitting from his serious research to daydreams about sex. Helen's reminiscences appear in introspective journal entries. Third person narratives, which advance the story line, are interspersed with a variety of clever diversions-including parodies of Martin Amis, Irvine Welsh, Samuel Beckett, Fay Weldon, Henry James, and Gertrude Stein by Helen's students. Thinks is a literary treasure trove which will keep you fascinated and involved, even if you, like me, have no huge interest in cognitive studies. Mary Whipple
Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
Too much thinking in Thinks...
That may be a strange claim to make for Lodge, the quintessential novelist of academe, but I felt that the characters, especially the two main characters, were too much thinking... Read more
Published 3 months ago by S. Smith-Peter
4.0 out of 5 stars
A "puzzler," but still a darn good read
David Lodge's book, THINKS..., is a puzzler. (Okay, I'm stealing this comment from a Darwin quote found in the book: "Crying is a puzzler. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Timothy J. Bazzett
4.0 out of 5 stars
Thinks
Plot Kernel: A cognitive scientist (male) and a novelist (female) are teaching at a small University (fictional) in England. The man, married but unfaithful, heads his department. Read more
Published 22 months ago by Sam Adams
5.0 out of 5 stars
Many stunning observations
This is a great parody of the limits of cognitive science, as compared to the mastery of "human nature" that is the novelist's main tool in crafting stories, overlaid as a "he said... Read more
Published on October 12, 2009 by Constance Michener
3.0 out of 5 stars
Between 3 and 4 stars
Lodge writes with assurance and wit but unfortunately his characters are 2-dimensional in this standard academic romance novel. Read more
Published on September 28, 2009 by Blusuede
3.0 out of 5 stars
What game?
I'm less convinced that much in the way of thinking really is going on in this novel. Granted it is an entertaining read, in a fairly light fashion, but 'thinks..'? Read more
Published on January 1, 2008 by The Lucid Librarian
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good, but not great
Anyone who has read David Lodge's earlier books will be on familiar ground with this story. It has an academic setting and centers around two intelligent but very different people... Read more
Published on May 17, 2007 by S.J.
4.0 out of 5 stars
So glad you can now purchase a copy in the U.S.
Lodge's brilliance is at work once again.
I read about this work in an airplane magazine in Europe about a year before it was released in the U.S. Read more
I read about this work in an airplane magazine in Europe about a year before it was released in the U.S. Read more
Published on June 11, 2005 by Peter L. Kraus
3.0 out of 5 stars
Familiar settings, mixed results.
David Lodge goes back to the familiar turf of the newer (fictional of course) universities in England, and similarly to what he did in Nice Work, he juxtapposes two characters from... Read more
Published on April 1, 2005 by Itamar Ronen
5.0 out of 5 stars
Clash of disciplines
A novel about cognitive science, and there are a lot of quite long conversations between the two principal characters about mind-body philosophy which, though central to the... Read more
Published on March 10, 2005 by Ralph Blumenau
