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Editorial Reviews:

Product Description
A witty, tender novel about the travails of old middle age, from a Booker finalist

Desmond Bates is a recently retired linguistics professor vexed by his encroaching deafness and at loose ends in his personal life. Without the purposeful routine of the academic year, he finds his role reduced to that of escort and house-husband while his wifes late-flowering career as the owner of a home design store flourishes. The monotony of his days is relieved only by wearisome journeys to London to check on the welfare of his querulous, elderly father, an ex-dance musician. But these discontents are nothing compared to the affliction of hearing loss, which is a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. It is through his deafness that Desmond inadvertently gets involved with a young woman who seeks his support in matters academic and not so academic; and whose wayward and unpredictable behavior threatens to destabilize his life completely. Deaf Sentence is a funny, moving account of one mans effort to come to terms with deafness and death, aging and mortality, the comedy and tragedy of human life.

Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Our Death Sentences January 5, 2009
Retired professor of linguistics Desmond Bates is at odds with life. As his life becomes circumscribed, his wife 'Fred' short for Winnifred is undergoing a mid-life flowering. She has recently opened a highly successful, upscale design store, and has undergone a metamorphsis in her person appearance. Meanwhile, Desmond must deal with the daily indignities of one who has become hairing impaired. Desmond must cope with a society that does not view the hairing impaired with compassion. His wife and friends are frustrated with the constant need to repeat themselves at higher and higher decibel levels so he can hear them, finally in the end just opting out of trying to communicate with him. Poor Desmond struggles to deal with a variety of hearing devices. Finally his wife suggests he try a lip reading class. Lodge tells us of the struggles of the famous and deaf - Goya and Beethoven, and tells us of homophenes, the deaf persons homophones. The title of the novel is itself a homophene, a phrase that may sound like one thing and yet the person speaking means another - deaf sentence and death sentence.

But the title means more than this because the book is itself an exposition on various deaf/death sentences. Professor Bates encounters a possibly unhinged American graduate student who seeks his assistance in writing her Ph.d thesis on suicide notes. His first wife, Maisie endures the death sentence of cancer. He embarks on a powerful visit to Auschwitz on a lecture tour in Poland, encountering death sentences on a massive scale. Finally much of the novel deals with Desmond's relationship with his elderly father who is increasingly unable to care for himself.

Lodge never goes for the expected. We suspect the personal transformation of Desmond's wife may be the result of a love affair. He quickly disabuses us of this notion. Similiarly we wonder if Desmond will foolishly get enmeshed in a sexual relationship with the strange American grad student a fate to which a colleague succumbs.

If the story seems morbid it is not. There is much humor. A Christmas family dinner is brilliantly depicted. Social encounters although painful provide often hilarious results as Desmond mis-hears what others say to him. Indeed the novel ends with a birth as well as a death.

5 out of 5 stars

For Laughing Out Loud January 3, 2009
I love reading a David Lodge novel and can never wait for them to appear on the book shelves. I haven't as yet completed reading this one and am still relishing every word and wacky situation he conjures up. I find his characters and situations totally credible and the predicaments described of encroaching age in this novel, insightful as they are sad and perversely humorous.

Rarely, oh, so rarely does a novel actually bring one to physical laughter but I have enjoyed laughing out loud many times while reading this novel. My thanks to David Lodge for a splendid, well paced and written novel and please don't keep me waiting for the next one. And no, I am not connected to any book publisher or marketing concern; I just appreciate talented and humorous writing that has a touch of the best of British to it.

5 out of 5 stars

david lodge's best novel December 6, 2008
I loved the book. perhaps i am prejudiced because i am hearing impaired and wear 2 hearing aids, but i bought a copy for a friend(and wife) and both found it uproarious until it became terribly moving. my husband loved it as well and he hears perfectly. the one sentence i memorized and wrote down was"if there have been at various times in our life, trivial misunderstandings, now i see how one was unable to value the passing time". these are words i try to live by every day.

1 out of 5 stars

Deaf Sentence is Deaf to Its Own First Sentences November 23, 2008
4 out of 6 found this review helpful

If only the novel had lived up to its breathtaking opening paragraph, which the author read with such dead-on sensitivity in a recent WNYC Lopate interview. What an ear, even from the near-silence of the head. I expect we'll see more and better work from Lodge yet--maybe more in the vein of this work's astounding opening. Many reviews of this work seem to be in the publisher's pocket--Amazon's "Editorial Reviews" first among them, of course. Peter Kramer's review in Slate (also viewable online for free in a click) nails it--thanks for telling the truth instead of selling out, Mr. Kramer. Take all Amazon Editorial reviews with a bale of salt--they want to sell you the book, just as the publishers and authors do! Include objective, non-lobbyist professional reviews from elsewhere before you buy.

3 out of 5 stars

on the subject of aging November 20, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful

the book was an easy read - with a subject matter that a lot of us can identify with: our aging bodies, retirement, aging parents, lost lust, etc. It started out a little bit like an audiology textbook but got infinitely better as the story went on. The English humor added to the pleasure of it. I would recommend it for the mature audience.

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