19 hours ago
7
I was deeply saddened to learn of the death of David Lodge, age 89, one of my literary heroes (a good obituary appeared in the Guardian on January 3). He was an outstanding critic who wrote serious (but readable) academic criticism mostly about literary theory but also wrote excellent analyses for a general audience (his introduction to an edition of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim totally changed how I look at that great novel). But he was also an excellent novelist in his own right. His justly celebrated trilogy about academia in the mid-1980s is probably his most famous work (Changing Places, Small World, and Nice Work), but almost every one of his novels is is interesting, clever, and compelling.
All told, he wrote 16 novels, 14 works of nonfiction, three excellent volumes of memoir, plus plays, TV scripts, and all kinds of journalism. Is there a writer working today with his range?
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