Varying Degrees of Success: A Memoir 1992-2020

by David Lodge

In a career spanning six decades, David Lodge has been one of Britain's best-loved and most versatile writers.

With Varying Degrees of Success he completes a trilogy of memoirs which describe his life from birth in 1935 to the present day, and together form a remarkable autobiography. His aim is to describe honestly and in some detail the highs and lows of being a professional creative writer in several different genres: prose fiction, literary criticism, plays for live theatre and screenplays for film and television. Few writers have excelled in so many different forms of the written word.

Lodge's creativity, and his wonderful sense of humour, have made his work popular in translation in numerous countries, and his extensive travels around the world are recorded here. Each of the three memoirs has its own thematic focus. In this latest one it is on the hope and desire of writers to make a significant and positive impression on their readers and audiences. The elation of success, and the depression that follows disappointment, are familiar emotions to most writers in varying degrees. David Lodge describes these feelings with rare candour.

Varying Degrees of Success provides the reader with a privileged insight into the working practices and the creative life of a major British novelist.

224 pages, Hardcover

Published May 27, 2021

About the author

David John Lodge was an English author and critic. A literature professor at the University of Birmingham until 1987, some of his novels satirise academic life, notably the "Campus Trilogy" – Changing Places: A Tale of Two Campuses (1975), Small World: An Academic Romance (1984) and Nice Work (1988). The second two were shortlisted for the Booker Prize. Another theme is Roman Catholicism, beginning from his first published novel The Picturegoers (1960). Lodge also wrote television screenplays and three stage plays. After retiring, he continued to publish literary criticism. His edition of Twentieth Century Literary Criticism (1972) includes essays on 20th-century writers such as T.S. Eliot. In 1992, he published The Art of Fiction, a collection of essays on literary techniques with illustrative examples from great authors, such as Point of View (Henry James), The Stream of Consciousness (Virginia Woolf) and Interior Monologue (James Joyce), beginning with Beginning and ending with Ending.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note to self: paperback release = Vintage, 8 September.

[Harold · Rating 3 out of 5]

The best British writer never to have won the Booker Prize, I’ve read all his books with pleasure, especially Out of the shelter. This last part of his autobiography is a bit disappointing; he mentioned his problems like depression and deafness, but it stays at the surface, I expected to read a bit more about it. Sometimes Lodge is a bit grumpy, like he expected more fame and fortune than he got, especially as a playwright. But I think that, apart from the Booker, overall he got the respect he deserved.

[Paulo Borges · Rating 4 out of 5]

Terceira parte das memórias de David Lodge.
A mesma honestidade e minúcia dos volumes anteriores.
A mesma leitura compulsiva e recompensadora.
Até já ou até sempre.

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The third volume of Lodge's autobiography is a wonderful account of the latter part of his life and his various literary and dramatic endeavours. I thoroughly enjoyed it, although I would have preferred if he had included more details on his personal life, as he did in this previous two volumes

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating insight into the highs and the lows of this highly successful writer's creative processes.