I’ve finally finished reading Deaf Sentence by David Lodge, and I have to say that I enjoyed reading it very much.
I admit that I approached this book with much trepidation, expecting yet another one of those awful whinging, existential ridden angst about the disabling plight of hearing impairment commonly found amongst the unenlightened [that is, hearing people] and other pseudo liberals and intellectuals who tend the vegetable patch in the town village.
The story is essentially about:
..one man’s effort to come to terms with deafness, ageing and mortality, and the comedy and tragedy of human lives. When the university merged his Department of English with Linguistics, Professor Desmond Bates took early retirement, but he is not enjoying it. He misses the 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, 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 his aged father who stubbornly refuses to leave the house he is patently unable to live in with safety.
Of which the central character’s, Desmond, deafness is but a minor detail. The best way to approach this book, is to ignore any publicity blurb that portrays its own juvenile posturing on deafness as an affliction:
But these discontents are nothing compared to the affliction of hearing loss — a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment, leading Desmond into mistakes, misunderstandings and follies. It might be comic for others, but for the deaf person himself, it is no joke. It is his deafness which inadvertently involves Desmond with a young woman whose wayward behaviour threatens to destabilize his life completely.
Publicity that comes complete with some rather lame jokes, “Come again? You don’t have to be hard of hearing to enjoy David Lodge’s latest novel,”
I don’t want to dwell on the shenanigans that arise from being Deaf/deaf in a hearing world. Those are familiar enough to us who are actually Deaf or deaf. Or the lame jokes about deafness [and not hearing], that the mainstream publicity machine churns out, of which some of us Deafies [and deafies?] can actually write better ones. Which even David managed in Deaf Sentence, with much wit and panache.
If it wasn’t for the deafness theme, I don’t think I would have bothered to read any of David Lodge’s books, which for some reason I was avoiding, even though I have four of them: A David Lodge Trilogy: Changing Places - Small World - Nice Work and Therapy. In this case, a familiar topic or theme served as an introduction to a good writer and good writing.
Without the central character’s deafness, the story would be a run of the mill tale about one man’s effort to come to terms with deafness, ageing and mortality, and the comedy and tragedy of human lives. In this book, deafness gives the reader a different perspective through which to view life, ageing, and mortality.
What the hearing reviews have ignored [the ones that I have read] is the culpability of the hearing response to the central character’s deafness. By blaming deafness for the breakdowns in communication, misunderstandings, and changes in relationships, the issue of hearing people’s own unwillingness to adapt to deafness [in a loved one or otherwise] is conveniently sidestepped.
Yet while David dramatises deafness as the cause of personal and social estrangement, and makes some rather illuminating observations, his solutions are technology, shouting to make oneself heard, or the clichéd lipreading classes, he inadvertently illustrates quite starkly, how hearing people can be quite unwilling to adapt to the changes demanded by deafness, and how the responsibility for resolving the “problem” of deafness is solely that of the person who is deaf. So, it is the deaf person who has to wear the hearing aids, it is the deaf person who has to make the greater effort at communication, it is the deaf person who has to attend lipreading classes, it is the deaf person this and it is the deaf person that, and it is the deaf person who is taken for the fool in communication breakdowns and misunderstandings.
The unfortunate thing about Deaf Sentence, is that it does not explore the issue of deafness beyond the clichéd and stereotypical. It is content to wallow in the shallow waters of assumed knowledge [pandering, but never challenging]. It is David’s story, and he is the author, and the choices are his to make. But it would be interesting to see if deafness is a one off theme, or if it will feature in his future work.
Further Reading:
