David Lodge. A novelist and a teacher

Por Juan Carlos Andrés

Despite the fact that since the time of my being an undergraduate I usually have followed the piece of advice I was given about refraining from reading novels published less than twenty years before, I must confess that there are some exceptions that are worth to observe.

This is the case of David Lodge’s novels. Just nowadays I am reading his latest work, A Man of Parts, released last September through Viking-Penguin and, believe me, I am lingering in its pages and chapters because of the intellectual pleasure it endlessly gives.

Its very title deserves to be explained, as it is in the preliminary quotations. There you can find the definition that reads as follows: Parts PLURAL NOUN 1. Personal abilities or talents: a man of parts. 2. short for private parts. (Collins English Dictionary)

Taken into account that the plot consists on H. G. Wells’ life, the English writer whose The Time Machine, The Island of Doctor Moreau, The Invisible man or The War of the Worlds, among many others, are well known all over the world, you can deduce what this story is about: sex and literature. Better said, a biography interspersed with metafiction, in which sex plays a key role from the beginning.