Get A Vida Em Surdina Compiled By David Lodge Issued As Version

Lodge continua a não me desiludir, Mais um excelente livro, parcialmente autobiográfico, cheio de humor e de "coisas sérias" também, Death sentence, deaf sentence. Rutirement, retirement. That is this novel in four words, A serious comedy with knowingly laboured puns,

Since the narrator is a retired professor of linguistics who is going deaf this must be a postcampus novel, The narrator's professional knowledge allows him to understand why he can't distinguish any more between the sound of different consonants, Its not quite Beethoven, as the narrator admits but the situation still has its own poignancy,

In addition to this the narrator reflects on his changing relationship with his wife, and his fears about his father both of which are affected by his increasing deafness.


I enjoyed the construction of the characters, the son working in low temperature physics which involves eliminating the energy from particles who has eliminated feeling from his life in the wake of his Mother's death, the daughter giving birth as the Narrator visits Auschwitz and as the narrator's father slips away from life.


The narrator is particularly nicely done, He almost reminds the reader that history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as comedy, and this idea is a leitmotiv in the story.
First his deafness, introduced as tragedy when the consultant gives him the prognosis but then is swiftly undercut by his second deafness when his hearing aid is run over by a van and his third when his hearing aid is lost beneath the seat fixings of the car.
However this idea is also used to serious effect, The visit to Gladeworld a prison like holiday centre with chalets parallels the visit to Auschwitz, the Sonderkommando there parallels his own role in the death of his first wife and later his father.


As with sitelinkTherapy or sitelinkThinks there is an interplay between the comic, the serious, the learned and the everyday.
This allows Lodge to assert a cultural unity and the work becomes a state of the nation novel, Not in a strident way, but realistic in tone and taking in everything from care homes to the kitchen sink via the supermarket cafe.


Interesting to see how Lodge uses the same material in different ways in his books, The affair with a student taken from sitelinkThinks and reused here or the father from sitelinkNice Work aged a bit to play a different part in sitelinkDeaf Sentence.
What a pleasure it is to read a book that surprises you, challenging your narrow understanding of what good writing is,

Because I did struggle with Deaf Sentence at first, Its written in a journal format, which lends itself to a sort of maximalism of the contents of the narrators head, Every detail of what its like to perform various regular tasks is relayed, with the effect that I started to find the trivial was crowding out the profound.


But I got used to the style after a while, and I finally started to notice what the author was leaving unspoken: the hundred points of connection being built up between everything being narrated.
Desmond enables his wife to die at home, but seeks to put his father in care, Desmonds awareness of every semitone of meaning his wife conveys with the word “darling”, and his our brusque “management” of his fathers decline.


Gradually, the point of the novel emerged from the chatter, revealing a poignancy and an insight I hadnt expected, All those words describing all those thoughts turned out to be the perfect vehicle to show that in the end we are all alone inside our heads, and that our only hope of connection with anyone is imperfect, human language.
That in this context, love is simultaneously hopeless and essential, That death above all is a severing of communication with those that love us, And that in the face of impending death, how tragically absurd are the misunderstandings and frailties that force a distance between us.


Deaf Sentence is an expertly constructed novel, effortless to read, yet rich, moving and possessed of a clear, humanist vision.
Confesso que nunca tinha lido nenhum livro deste autor julgo mesmo que nem sequer tinha ainda ouvido o seu nome, por isso, e depois de ler algumas opiniões positivas, foi com algum alguma expectativa que iniciei esta leitura.


David Lodge faznos entrar na mente de Desmond Bates, um exprofessor universitário com problemas sérios de surdez, que está a braços com a sua recente entrada na reforma e consequente monotonia, ao mesmo tempo que lida com a sua bem sucedida esposa, com o seu pai idoso e com uma estudante que o procura como orientador numa tese de mestrado com um tema algo invulgar.
Todas estas situações e relações são constantemente influenciadas pelos problemas de audição de Desmond, e os malentendidos adquirem muitas vez um tom cómico.


Este foi um livro que gostei imenso de ler, porque, apesar de em termos de história não ser propriamente muito dinâmico para além da situação com a aluna universitária, não acontece muita coisa, a forma cativante como David Lodge nos relata o diaadia de Desmond faznos virar página atrás de página, como se fôssemos levados numa viagem deliciosa, sem destino fixo.
Fiquei decididamente com vontade de experimentar mais livros deste autor inglês,

Excelente trabalho de tradução de Tânia Ganho, especialmente tendo em conta a dificuldade de manter o sentido original dos malentendidos provocados pela falta de audição da personagem principal.
E, de um modo geral, toda a tradução está muito boa, You just can't go wrong with David Lodge he is such an articulate and amusing writer, His main character is a retired linguistics professor whose rather curmudgeonly observations on modern society are hilarious, along with his descriptions of agerelated hearing loss and coping with an even more aged father.
One subplot involves a manipulative young grad student who wants to seduce him, Then there are his relationships with his ambitious wife, plus assorted children and stepchildren, There was even a segue involving the professor's visit to Auschwitz, which didn't seem to fit into the plot at all but nevertheless, it was a very engaging read, as usual.
Writing style

compared to Alan Bennett
What a lovely and beautifully written novel about a hardofhearing linguist trying to navigate through the noises and silences of his life.
These noises and silences are at turns confounding amp illuminating, disturbing amp comforting, and tragic amp comic, Lodge takes his time telling this story and some people may not like the pace of the book, which can meander seemingly aimless at times.
The beauty, nuance, and insight in this story lay in these perambulations, though, All in all, a lovely and fulfilling read told with humor, sensitivity, and insight, .