Lives in Writing is a rather good compendium of essays about authors and their work, written by David Lodge, a fine writer himself, with illuminating insight on biographies, autobiographies, biographical fiction, memoirs, correspondence, and diaries. I really enjoyed his takes on authors I was familiar with: Graham Greene, Muriel Spark, Terry Eagleton, Anthony Trollope. And in a testament to just how good David Lodge is, I liked his writing on authors I knew nothing about (Simon Gray, Malcolm Bradbury, John Boorman, Alan Bennett) just as much. Even better was when he wrote about his own writing, the research he did for his novel about H.G. Wells (A Man of Parts) and how he crafted the story–a rather fascinating view into his own creative process.

This isn’t for everyone–not every reader is going to be interested in literary theory, the positives and the pitfalls of mapping biography over fiction, the frustrations of researchers and biographers, and friendships and rivalries between authors, but personally, I find this all rather fascinating, and the author’s erudition and research impressive.

The only criticism I can make here is utter bafflement at the decision to include a chapter on the English cultural response to the death of Princess Diana, which fits neither in theme or style with the rest of the book, and is, in my opinion, the weakest piece of writing within it. That being said, overall, it’s a book lovers’ book, one that makes me, at least, want to read the author’s other work and many of the books by other authors described within. I can’t ask for more than that from a collection of essays–who could?

***

BOOK: Lives in Writing

AUTHOR: David Lodge

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2014

IMAGE CREDIT

Book Cover – Vintage / Penguin.co.uk