I haven't kept up with Lodge's more recent novels -- I'm most familiar with his sendups of academic life, which are all the funnier once you know some of the key players in real life. But I read a review of this novel that made it sound interesting, and I'm really glad I did -- it's moving and real -- not at all like the satirical silliness I had associated with his earlier fiction, though there is a dry wit running through. The protagonist is adjusting to retirement, his encroaching deafness, and his aging father's decline -- in other words, Change. The choice is always alienation or connection, and this character was completely compelling even though I'm in a somewhat different lifestage.