33rd out of 101 books
—
19 voters
Author, Author
by
David Lodge
Henry James takes center stage in David Lodge�s brilliant novel of literary ambition, creativity, and rivalry as revealed in James�s public career and private life. Pivoting on the dramatic first night of his play, Guy Domville, and thronged with vividly drawn characters, Author, Author presents a fascinating panorama of literary and theatrical life in late Victorian Engla...more
Paperback, 400 pages
Published
November 29th 2005
by Penguin Books
(first published 2004)
Friend Reviews
To see what your friends thought of this book,
please sign up.
Community Reviews
(showing
1-30
of
686)
I always found the biographies (romanticized or not), memoirs, diaries quite fascinating. To see authors become characters but also to see an era revived with its artists that (often) struggle and (sometimes) succeed it's a tribute to our (righteous?) curiosity. But it's also an invasion of their so human weaknesses not always justified by the controversial theory that the person behind the oeuvre can make the oeuvre better understood.
However, Author, author was more to me than a biography. Even...more
However, Author, author was more to me than a biography. Even...more
Feb 14, 2008
Jeremy
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
lovers of Henry James and historical fiction
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Despite my admiration for David Lodge, there were points in this longish book where I wondered if should have dedicated 400 pages of reading time to an unread Henry James novel, rather than a somewhat fictionalized biography. On the plus side, I knew nothing about James' unsuccessful theatrical ambitions, and I also did a bit of ancillary reading on his close friends the Du Maurier family, and at some point, I am likely to follow up on Constance Fenimore Woolson, perhaps via Emma Tennant's Felon...more
Il existe de nombreuses raisons d’écrire ou de lire une biographie. La plus courante étant la fascination de la personne que l’on y fait vivre (même si cette personne est soi-même dans le cas de l’écriture d’une autobiographie). Tout dépend de ce que l’on espère y trouver, des anecdotes sur un personnage aimé ou détesté, des informations sur son auteur ou encore un petit reflet de soi.
Il est cependant plus rare de lire la biographie d’un individu dont on ignore tout.
C’est pourtant ce que j’ai fa...more
Il est cependant plus rare de lire la biographie d’un individu dont on ignore tout.
C’est pourtant ce que j’ai fa...more
Lodge, David. AUTHOR, AUTHOR. (2004). ****. Although I’ve only read a few of his books – all of which have been excellent – I am struck by the versatility of Lodge’s ability to write novels consisting of vastly different voices and styles. Although most of the ones I’ve read use humor as the carrying theme relating his principal characters, this novel relies on pure research and dialog, mostly based on factual occurences. It is the story of the friendship between Henry James and George du Maurie...more
A superb factional account of Henry James' life in England. Brilliantly constructed to begin towards the end of his life, reflecting in the middle his years attempting to become a playwright, and returning at the conclusion to the end of his life and subsequent death.
The book brings to life many of the great literary and artistic people of the day who James mixed with. There is George du Maurier, George Bernard Shaw, a young Arnold Bennett and a young Herbert, H G, Wells and even a glimpse of Os...more
The book brings to life many of the great literary and artistic people of the day who James mixed with. There is George du Maurier, George Bernard Shaw, a young Arnold Bennett and a young Herbert, H G, Wells and even a glimpse of Os...more
I'm so gutted. Henry James is one of the writers closest to my heart so I was very excited about this book. He's not necessarily a writer I've read extensively - because I haven't, of his 23 novels and almost 150 short stories and novellas, I've read maybe half a douzen books- but for many other reasons. He wrote beautiful, sometimes melancholic, other times insanely clever books, he both experienced and wrote at length about living abroad and being an immigrant in England (which, being put in a...more
I find it hard to say anything about this book. Not because I didn't enjoy it — I did, though I found it hard to get on with it at times — but because writing a review about a fictional biography of a writer who insisted (apparently) to be known, loved and critically appreciated only through his (published and edited) work and not through his life, feels like lending one's voice to a double betrayal. Were it not for the fact that David Lodge managed to stay away from making up too much of the in...more
If there’s anything to praise David Lodge’s ’Author, Author’ for, it is its author’s craft. ’Author, Author’ is a well-constructed novel exhibiting good pacing and diction. Portraying the years Lodge has deemed critical for Henry James’s development as a master of the realist novel (his failure as a playwright in the early 1890s), ’Author, Author’ is also a courageous effort – a novel about a novelist – that has been obviously well-researched. In its own way, too, it is an inspiring novel for yo...more
This was more boringly written than how I remembered it, which is a shame. It doesn't exactly sparkle and crackle with the kind of life that you find in works like the movie "Amadeus," which has a similar storyline. You can definitely tell that Lodge researched the shizz out of this... unfortunately, this was also the book's downfall for me. At times it just reads like a list of what Henry James wrote in his journal and who he went out to dinner with and It's so rigidly true to life that the nov...more
"Author, Author" is a fascinating, if fictionalized, look at the great Henry James, presented here as a very human author who is concerned not only with his art, but with such mundane things as money, his reputation, and the true feelings of his friends. The story(ies) here is James's failed attempts to write for the stage, and his friendship with George DuMarrier, which is somewhat shadowed by Henry's jealousy of his friend's unprecedented success. Complex and finely drawn, Lodge's book reminds...more
Part-biography, part-fiction, with some literary theory thrown in for good measure. I definitely picked this for David Lodge, rather than Henry James who, up to now, I'd never read. But, having just started 'The Portrait of a Lady', it's easy to see the inspiration for this novel's verbose and slightly stilted manner. And Lodge and James share a flair for dialogue.
It is not a flattering portrayal but it is an overwhelmingly human one. James' feelings and experiences - battering of professional c...more
It is not a flattering portrayal but it is an overwhelmingly human one. James' feelings and experiences - battering of professional c...more
David Lodge is one of my very favorite "dryly observant Brits," and I've been reading him for a long time. Think: Saul Bellows with a great sense of humor.
Lodge is best at the "town versus gown" thing, and I still can't read a NY Time opinion piece by Stanley Fish without recalling what a hammering Lodge gave him by fictionalizing his worst qualities in "Changing Places." THIS novel, however, acquired too many of the faults of its inspiration, Henry James. It was tedious, not trenchant; convolu...more
Lodge is best at the "town versus gown" thing, and I still can't read a NY Time opinion piece by Stanley Fish without recalling what a hammering Lodge gave him by fictionalizing his worst qualities in "Changing Places." THIS novel, however, acquired too many of the faults of its inspiration, Henry James. It was tedious, not trenchant; convolu...more
This novel which reads as a biography of Henry James for the last couple of months of his life and the period of 5 years when he attempted to become a successful playwright. Other periods of his life are briefly alluded to. I gained an appreciation of the difficulty of being a playwright, an understanding of the very sociable Henry James, his close friends and how he went about writing his short stories and novels. This novel isn't the usual witty Lodge book. It is a drier read and very detailed...more
Poor David Lodge. What are the odds he'd find himself pitted against Colm Toibin in the battle of lightly fictionalized accounts of Henry James's life? Lodge falls woefully short; Toibin is more insightful, more sympathetic, and far more skilled, which makes him the closer kindred spirit to James. I like Lodge's work a lot, but found myself almost bristling as I read Author, Author, and wanting to know what on earth gave Lodge the idea he could understand a master like James, much less get in hi...more
Dec 26, 2011
Ellen
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
british-literature,
fiction
What a book! As I read through it I found I could hardly put it down. I'd read for hours and lose sleep, saying to myself, "Oh, just a couple of more pages...".
The first and last chapters of the book are about the death of the writer, Henry James; those in between follow James' attempts to become a successful playwright in the English theater. I hate to spoil the book for you so I'm not going to comment as to his success or failure, but I encourage you to pick this book up as soon as possible an...more
The first and last chapters of the book are about the death of the writer, Henry James; those in between follow James' attempts to become a successful playwright in the English theater. I hate to spoil the book for you so I'm not going to comment as to his success or failure, but I encourage you to pick this book up as soon as possible an...more
This is a piece of historical fiction about Henry James during the years he was hoping to be a playwright. It is boring and lacks entirely the wit and humor I expect in a novel by David Lodge. I did learn from this book the derivation of the name "Svengali," and it is interesting to note who is famous during their own time, and who gains with history. Although why Henry James, with his interminable sentences, is so revered I will never understand.
This is a good read for people who at least know, better yet like, Henry James. It is slow in pace, pays great attention to detail and puts you into the situation of an ambitious writer who can never quite live up to his own standards.
It is also worth reading for people who write and can never be sure that what they write is any good at all. (I fall into this category myself.)
It is also worth reading for people who write and can never be sure that what they write is any good at all. (I fall into this category myself.)
Una "biografía" diferente de Henry James, centrada en su faceta de autor teatral. Pero lo más destacable me ha parecido el fantástico retrato de una época literaria, donde se entrecruzan H.G.Wells, Ford Madox Ford, Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, Barrie... y el gran best seller de George du Maurier "Trilby", hoy casi olvidado. Y finalmente, lo injusta que puede ser la popularidad literaria con sus contemporáneos. Todo eso contado por uno de los más competentes estudiosos y enseñantes de la lit...more
Was concerned for the first 50 pages or so that I wasn't going to enjoy this but David Lodge, as ever, came good. It became an absorbing account of Henry James' dealings with the world of the theatre and it's interesting to see how little change has actually taken place in many respects. Also made me think I really ought to go back and revisit him as a novelist. Having been put off by studying "Portrait Of A Lady" at the tender age of 17 he's someone I've tended to avoid. This novel, however, le...more
What a beautiful tribute to Henry James ! As a big fan of HJ, I absolutely loved it. It is also interesting to see the different ways and purposes of authors, how they come up with ideas, how they choose (or not) whether they'll write novels, short-stories or plays, etc... How even Henry James who is such a monument in literature struggled to make a decent living. It's a fascinating journey in the world of writing.
This book shows Lodge' versatility. A novel set in Victorian London portraying Henry James fears. The novel is over 600 pages long. HJ anxieties are always caused by desperation, deep apprehensiveness of failing to succeed. HJ managed to be remembered among the greatest but failed a calmed life. I am also imperfect. I did not finish reading, impatience won.
Aug 24, 2012
Rita
marked it as to-read
MAYBE I would like parts of this book... Probably not to read the whole thing [400 pp]
"Lodge's first venture into fictionalized biography", taking Henry James as his subject.
"...not about James's success as a writer, but an affectionate and witty look at the man."
"Lodge's first venture into fictionalized biography", taking Henry James as his subject.
"...not about James's success as a writer, but an affectionate and witty look at the man."
I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11301617
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11301617
I like David Lodge, and this rating is probably not fair. But I had just read The Masterby Colm Toibin, and this so feeble by comparison, I couldn't make myself continue reading it.
I might try it again one day...
I might try it again one day...
There are no discussion topics on this book yet.
Be the first to start one »
Professor David Lodge is a graduate and Honorary Fellow of University College London. He is Emeritus Professor of English Literature at the University of Birmingham, where he taught from 1960 until 1987, when he retired to write full-time.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was Chairman of the Judges for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989, and is the author of numerous works of li...more
More about David Lodge...
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, was Chairman of the Judges for the Booker Prize for Fiction in 1989, and is the author of numerous works of li...more
Share This Book
2 trivia questions
More quizzes & trivia...

Loading...










view all 3 comments























