‘Therapy’ by David Lodge

So, what was it that first drew me to Therapy? Before picking it up off the shelf last weekend I knew nothing of the book, or indeed of its author, David Lodge, and yet I was almost instantly taken with it. Was it the ambiguous one word title that did it for me? Or was it the mention of Kierkegaard? Surely the putty grey cover couldn't have done it? I'm not at all sure what led me to purchase Therapy with such little hesitation, but I bought it, I read it, and now I am going to deliver my verdict.

Therapy is told in the first person form by one Laurence Passmore, a successful fifty-eight-year-old sitcom writer who is nicknamed 'Tubby' by all and sundry due to his good living mid-life spread. When we first meet Tubby he is suffering with an unidentified knee complaint; a series of agonising twinges that creep up and give him hell when he least expects it. He tries everything: acupuncture, aromatherapy, physiotherapy. Even knee surgery at the harshly depicted local general hospital proves futile. Further to his mysterious knee injury Tubby also finds himself in the grip of an inexplicable mid-life angst, in spite of the knowledge that he has more than enough reason to be happy. Things take an abrupt turn when Sally, his wife of thirty years, tells him of her desire to separate. As he realises, not without irony, that he finally has something to be cut up about, Tubby seeks comfort in the existentialist philosophy of Kierkegaard and makes a pilgrimage back to his South London boyhood in order to make peace with his new situation in life.

I certainly enjoyed Therapy. Just when you think that the narrative is grinding to a halt before your very eyes the book takes a dramatic turn and in doing so earns your attention back. David Lodge is a wonderful comic writer, and the depiction of Tubby's quaint 1950s boyhood is a particularly charming sequence. Therapy does get a touch repetitive at times, but I am quite sure that this is deliberate, for Lodge makes many allusions to Kierkegaard's ideas regarding repetition. The novel won't be to everyone's liking, I'm sure, but on the whole there is a lot to like about Therapy.

This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in February 2012.