Volume 42, Number 13 · August 10, 1995
Nice Work
By John Banville
Therapy
by David Lodge
Viking, 321 pp., $22.95
Small World: An Academic Romance
by David Lodge
Penguin, 339 pp., $10.95 (paper)
Decency is a disadvantage in a novelist, especially in a novelist of manners. The best of the English practitioners—Thackeray, Waugh, Powell, Graham Greene—cast a cold eye on the world, expecting the worst of humankind and rarely being disappointed. Even Anthony Trollope indulged himself now and then in a bout of hand-rubbing Schadenfreude when a villain such as Mr. Slope got his comeuppance. The novel is bad news that stays bad news.
Review, 3120 words
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