Does not need a script doctor!
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I usually knock off a book of this length in a couple of evenings. Not so with Therapy for it rewards you for taking your time! The book operates on two levels and illustrates the public and private lives of its hero. On the surface Laurance "Tubby" Passmore is a very successful and wealthy television scriptwriter, but internally he is a fine blend of neuroses! The book works best when in the hands of the first person narrator. The excursions exploring Tubby's life from the views of observers are less convincing. Tubby is not a wonderful person, but you end up liking and urging him on. I recommend this novel to anyone who likes a well written introspective work. Buy it and enjoy!
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Look back in Angst!
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Laurence "Tubby" Passmore seems to have all the trappings of a successful life but knows that something is missing. He suffers from a variety of ailments and attends a range of therapy sessions on a weekly basis - physiotherapy, acupuncture, cognitive behavious therapy etc. As usual with David Lodge there is lots of male angst but gently blended with humour (including some "laugh out loud" moments). Passmore is so caught up in his own perceived problems that he fails to notice what is going on around him and his marriage and his career begin to fall apart.
The book becomes his quest to find contentment and meaning to his life. But it is all done with a lightness of touch and at the end comes to a very satisfying conclusion.
Lodge is particularly good when he writes as a female character (even if it is a male character pretending to be a female!) He does this even more successfully in Thinks - so if you liked Therapy you should read Thinks next.
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is the journey the best bit?
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‘Therapy’ – a book I returned to reread remembering that it dealt interestingly with middle aged Angst; I found parts 1 and 2 rather hard going because there was so much negativity amongst the comedy – which fits of course with ‘Tubby’ Passmore’s fascinations with Kierkegaard. If you are looking for comfort then hold out for the 3rd part where he goes to find his Catholic childhood sweetheart, when the climate turns sunny in more ways than one.
In Part 1 he is ‘angsting’ generally about life, the universe and everything and trying out a range of therapies to deal with what his physoitherpaist calls‘Internal Derangement of the Knee’- IDK or 'I Don't Know'. A wealthy sitcom writer (is it really so well remunerated a profession as suggested?) he feels pride in his work but this is in danger because of a departing actress and a dangerous clause in his contract. He recognises guiltily that he doesn’t always listen to his wife Sally but believes his marriage it in good shape and the end of the part comes with the shocking announcement:
‘Sally just came into my study to tell me she wants a separation. She says she told me earlier this evening, over supper, but I wasn’t listening. I listened this time, but I still can’t take it in.’
Part 2 recounts, written as in the words of people he has been interacting with, Tubby’s frantic search to get himself back on track through sex, trying to reverse past choices and find salvation through identifying himself with Kierkegaard, including the philosopher’s strange failure at romance when he rejected his fiancée in spite of being obsessively in love with her for the rest of his life. Lots of comedy but with a very bitter flavour and you see Tubby’s own low self esteem come through hot and strong.
In part 3 we return to the first person, with a memoir of his teenage romance with Maureen, ending in his following her onto the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. (Interestingly I found out that David Lodge was responsible for making a TV documentary of this pilgrimage before writing this book). Tubby yearns to be called Laurence again as he was in his youth, but when Maureen meets him she adopts the name Tubby and I got the feeling that in accepting that he accepts his ageing and himself – IDK and potency problems fade away and a satisfying compromise of his life comes in the last pages. It is this journey, (along with the threat to the tennis coach’s pony tail in part 2 – you have to read it!) that has stayed with me most strongly from earlier readings. The story of the journey makes a healing read.
If you’re a serious Kierkegaard scholar you may be able to make more sense than I have been able to of how the abstract concepts are interpreted by Tubby, but his developing obsession with the Danish philosopher and his mind boggling ideas is rather endearing. It contrasts interestingly with Maureen’s (and of course David Lodge’s) Catholicism.
I enjoy David Lodge because he writes really well and intelligently, has great humour on a lot of levels and builds satisfying complex worlds. I know enough about his academic subject of English Literature to get a kick out of picking up some of the references and pastiches but am uneasily aware that there is a lot that I miss (sometimes picking up on a reread)– and it is perfectly possible to read his books without worrying about that at all. It is also fun when he brings references of previous books into later books, like Alison Lurie does. I also like the insights he brings me as a woman into the male psyche – Tubby’s obsession with football for example makes more sense after reading ‘Why men lie and women cry’ and reading how Tubby tries to write in the first person as a woman in parts of Part 2 shows a male perception of how women think – mirrors within mirrors. This goes with a healthy respect for feminism and a tendency to provide strong women as a nice positive role model for an anxious female. Having looked him up on Google I see that some people think he is too structured with the way he tidies up all the details but personally I have no quarrel with that. I would recommend ‘Nice Work’ and ‘Paradise News’ if you enjoyed this book – personally I haven’t enjoyed ‘Thinks’ so much.
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Therapy
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This is, I feel, not up to his usual standard, and whole heartedly agree with one of the reviews I have read that says that Part 2 is the funny part of what is reviewed as a funny book. It is obviously well written but somehow lacks his usual style.
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Therapy - a therapeutic read
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Some books make me want to tell everyone how good they are, which is why I'm writing this review. 'Therapy' combines a page-turning story with the kind of sharp observations of daily life that made me laugh with recognition. Laurence - Tubby - is a wealthy, successful television scriptwriter with a happy marriage and family life, a beautiful family home plus flat in London, friends, security, and the car of his dreams. He also has a crippling condition which defies diagnosis and cure, and which he calls IDK - 'Internal Derangement of the Knee' or 'I Don't Know'. This condition seems symptomatic of a mysterious Internal Derangement of his Life as he approaches his late-fifties, which expresses itself in various forms, such as the Low Frustration Tolerance which gives rise to many hilarious episodes as he meets with stupid notices, out-of-order escalators, barriers that come down just as he gets to them, and the many absurdities and paradoxes of life at the end of the twentieth century. His attempts to understand his condition take him on journeys across the Atlantic and through Europe, as well as philosophical journeys through the works of Kirkegaard and his constant reference to dictionaries and encyclopaedias. David Lodge's fascination with the craft of novel-writing shows in the surprising twists and turns of the novel, as Laurence tells his own story from different angles, exploring his derangements. In the end, having tried every therapeutic approach from surgery to cognitive behavioural therapy, acupuncture to physiotherapy, Laurence has to become his own therapist. I would guess that I am not alone in recognising my own derangements in this novel and taking pleasure in finding that this fine novelist has mapped out the territory with breathtaking accuracy and wonderful humour.
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