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Deaf Sentence
Deaf Sentence
Jul 2, 2025 9:41 PM

Author:David Lodge

Deaf Sentence

When the university merged his Department of Linguistics with English, Professor Desmond Bates took early retirement, but he is not enjoying it. He misses the purposeful routine of the academic year, and has lost his appetite for research.

His wife Winifred's late-flowering career goes from strength to strength, reducing his role to that of escort and househusband, while the rejuvenation of her appearance makes him uneasily conscious of the age gap between them. The monotony of his days is relieved only by wearisome journeys to London to check on the welfare of his eighty-nine-year-old father, an ex dance musician who stubbornly refuses to move from the house he is patently unable to live in with safety.

But these discontents are nothing compared to the affliction of hearing loss, which is a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. In the popular imagination, he observes, deafness is comic, as blindness is tragic, but for the deaf person himself it is no joke. It is through his deafness that Desmond inadvertently gets involved with a young woman whose wayward and unpredictable behaviour threatens to destabilise his life completely.

Funny and moving by turns, Deaf Sentence is a brilliant account of one man's effort to come to terms with deafness and death, ageing and mortality, the comedy and tragedy of human lives.

Reviews

Lodge is the best British novelist never to have won the Man Booker prize… A novel as quietly witty as its title.

—— John Sutherland , The Times

He is not a soothing writer at all, in fact he's rather subversive. Nobody gets away with anything in Trollope

—— Victoria Glendinning

Trollope is wonderful, a major novelist, a joy... particularly admire his empathy with his characters, and the way in which he describes women...unique among male novelists, better even than Henry James, in his ability to enter the lives of women characters, and women on their own

—— P.D. James

Pithy and pungent, almost like Jane Austen

—— Amanda Craig

A testimony to Isherwood's undiminished brilliance as a novelist

—— Anthony Burgess

Tranquility and tension create a quiet triumph

—— Nadine O'Regan , Sunday Business Post

This intriguing novel, translated with quiet passion by David Colmer, captures how it feels to have ‘no idea what to do next, how to move backward or forward

—— Emma Hagestadt , Independent

Deliberately side-stepping any trite resolutions, The Detour, is a haunting and quietly thoughtful work, written with a restraint and lack of sentimentality that matches the somewhat bleak landscape

—— Alastair Mabbott , Herald

Page-turning

—— The Asylum

The story is deeply involving, the dialogue utterly convincing, and the translation near-perfect. Unpretentious, restrained and profound, The Detour is everything a novel should be

—— Jean Boase-Beier , Independent

Stylishly, subtly, the enjoyment of getting to know another country is conveyed with authority and a perceptions that's rare in our careless times

—— The Oldie

An incredibly emotional read

—— Grazia

A thrilling page-turner

—— Alexander Larman , Spectator

This is a novel that strikes both horror and joy in the reader, the first-person narration deftly articulating Judith's escalating confusion and fear ... A talent to watch

—— Lucy Scholes , The Sunday Times

A touching, delicate book, it's hitting the shelves with high hopes...On March 1, head out and buy Grace McCleen's book

—— Louis Wise , Sunday Times

A distinctive debut that pulls off the use of a child narrator in delightful style

—— We Love This Book

Touching and funny… a compelling and wholly original debut.

—— Marie Claire

Shimmers with little miracles.

—— Peggy Hughes , Scotland on Sunday

This is a promisingly bold book and McCleen is a talent to watch

—— Lucy Scholes , Sunday Times

A gripping and mesmerizing debut of an unforgettable ten-year-old heroine and her battle with good and evil… A harrowing and powerful story about isolation and belonging

—— My Weekly

An original new voice... Haunting and absorbing, this is a joy to read

—— Jackie Carrier , Suffolk Free Press

A seemingly slight work that is, in fact, possessed of almost infinite depth. It's an elegant inquiry into what we can know and how we can know it - and it's gripping too

—— Erica Wagner , The Times, Books of the Year

It sets off a moving meditation on ageing, regret and the unreliability of memory

—— Sunday Express, Books of the Year

Has rightly been praised for its economy and elegance

—— Margaret Drabble , Guardian, Books of the Year

Belatedly and deservedly, this was the year of Julian Barnes

—— Mark Lawson , Guardian, Books of the Year

Exquisitely written and deeply engaging

—— Lorrie Moore , Guardian, Books of the Year

Elegant verbal exactness, analytic finesse and a witty portrayal of contemporary and 1960's life complement the intricate plot

—— Peter Kemp , Sunday Times, Books of the Year

A worthy Booker laureate of this or any other year, our most versatile novelist...a perfect present in these last days of the book as a singular object

—— Philip French , Observer, Books of the Year

A worthy winner of this year's Booker prize: short, but certainly not slight, precise and insightful

—— Kate Cunningham , Herald, Books of the Year

This novel packed more emotion into its 150 pages than any other I have read this year

—— Bob McDevitt , Herald, Books of the Year

Melancholic, suspenseful and thought-provoking

—— Kirsty Wark , Herald, Books of the Year

Several plot twists later, what started off as a thoughtful (and fascinating) meditation on memory becomes something close to a full blown thriller

—— James Walton , Daily Mail

Essential reading for any writer, aspiring or otherwise

—— Patrick Keogh , Guardian

A meditation on memory and regret slyly conveyed through the unreliable voice of a complacent man whose past gives him a nasty surprise

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian

A deserving winner

—— Éibhear Walshe , Irish Times, Books of the Year

Masterful, gripping and, above all, surprising

—— Victoria Hislop , The Week, Books of the Year

Barnes has always has an ear for the bleak comedy of the first person

—— Olivia Cole , GQ

Novel, fertile and memorable

—— Justine Jordan , Guardian

Julian Barnes’ Man-Booker prize-winning novel has extraordinary power and emotional density

—— Simon Shaw , Mail on Sunday

An eloquent meditation on relationships, emotional arrogance and the discomfort of remorse

—— James Urquhart , Financial Times

The key to this slender, tantalizing mystery is on its opening page: what you end up remembering isn’t always the same as what you have witnessed

—— Katie Owen , Daily Telegraph

His art is artful, often openly so, but never showy or obvious

—— Colm Toibin , New York Review

Described in Justin Cartwright’s review as 'a very fine book, skillfully plotted, boldly conceived’

—— Guardian, Holiday Reads

I am eager to read it, though I hear it needs to be read twice to be fully appreciated

—— Colm O'Gorman , Independent
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