Deaf Sentence

by David Lodge

This book is supposed to be humorous, but it is not. In fact, the title is very humorous, or at least very clever.

Desmond Bates is a retired professor of linguistics. He is also losing his hearing. This is supposed to be funny. Well, it kind of is funny. He often misinterprets what people say, which leads to all sorts of misunderstandings, including his agreement to advise a grad student on her thesis. A thesis about suicide notes. See how this isn’t really funny?

To me, this story was about getting older, which is so not funny. In fact, it’s very depressing.

10/19/08