Books
David Lodge has never been one to take the easy way out, and his new novel Author, Author, a biographical novel of Henry James, one of the towering figures in English Literature, remains no exception.
The novel succeeds in the culmination and combination of Lodge's detailed critical studies and potent characters of psychological depth.
The novel concerns itself with the life of Henry James, utilising flashbacks from the author's deathbed in 1915, to examine the significant events that affected his life and art. The novel begins with James' death, surrounded by worried servants (struggling to cope with his growing irrationality); then we are shown his remarkable life, focusing on his friendships with the affable Punch illustrator George Du Maurier and with Constance Fenimore Woolsan.
It is these two relationships, particularly the latter, which form the core of the book and express most clearly Lodge's thoughts on James, and on the nature of success, and its importance to the novelist.
This focus on such a particular aspect of Henry James' life, now much ignored, suggests that in his latest novel Lodge is keen to bring something personal to his novelisttic art. James' relationship with Maurier seems to be particularly interesting to Lodge; he is after all a bestselling author who first achieved popular success with his novel Trilby at a time when James was largely being overlooked by the critics.
Comparisons between James and Lodge gain a particular potency through the latter's treatment of James. Perhaps the only lack of success that blights Lodge's prolific and popular writing career is an ambivalance towards his efforts to avoid the convoluted style of many theorists in his own, considerable, critical works. If Lodge offers a tale of an unappreciated genius, and depicts James' life from stylistic struggle to eventual triumph, then it is also meant to relate to his own distinctive writing career, even if it is far removed from that of James.
Unfortunately for Lodge the potency of such a comparison is challenged by the book's reception. Any crude dismissal may be vitiated by the care with which Lodge has built up a picture of genius, but the vexed comments are validated through a comparison between Author, Author and The Masters, Colm Toibin's Booker-nominated novel on Henry James.
Just as the eminence of Henry James never gave way to widespread popularity, so too has the commercial success of David Lodge's work never quite translated to critical acclaim.
His popularity has been reduced as authors such as Ian McEwan, Martin Amis and Julian Barnes have taken the critical and commercial spotlight, while new writers increasingly challenge this status with early novels, lessening the importance of Lodge's position - something made painfully obvious with the release of The Masters in close proximity to Author, Author.
Author, Author is the product of a great literary imagination, one capable of reforging the personality of one of twentieth century literature's most aloof characters into a valid picture of his psyche.
But the novel is also the result of careful critical consideration, in which the impressive investigation of a detailed biography is not sacrificed to the unusual focus of a life-story which forms one of the best biographies of a reclusive genius without resorting to a display of fastidious research or academic methods.
Author, Author is a sensitive, effectual portrait of a great artist that is always interesting despite its complicated subject matter.
6th Oct 2004