Rating: 
Summary: Funny, touching, insightful, morally & thematically flawed
Review: Again Lodge does a great job, weaving (this time) a holiday he must have had to Hawaii (and justifiably a working one!), and his interest in theology into his standard redemption through fornication plot. I was struck by the total opposite theme to that of 'Seville Communion': for Pérez-Reverte the priest's seduction is his downfall, his loss of identity and strength; for Lodge it is the (ex) priest's enlightenment and liberation.
There's also that tradition (back to Wodehouse? Even John Cleese) of the inhibited Englishman looking to the fresh and open American to free him. Indeed, the US lover is almost like a Greek chorus, blithely stepping in with all the answers.
As in Therapy the persona is self-consciously narrating himself, but not to be undermined: he's meant to appear pretty self-aware. There's also Lodge's signature toying with other genres and perspectives: diary, postcards, letters.
He is deliberately writing a comedy, so he can't leave Bernard in his lonely disenchanted state, but in How Far Can You Go he managed to present pros and cons of several different perspectives (although even there the priest's hope is in loss of faith and leaving the church), while here he makes it out to be simple: the one essential to happiness is having a good sex life. I get the impression that Lodge partly unconsciously resents the 'wait until lifelong monogamy/marriage' value he was brought up with, perhaps feeling he missed out on lashings of great sex, and had much of his earlier contacts marred by guilt and ignorance due to it having to be hidden. I dare say in some ways he has a point, but it's naïve of him to presume that promiscuity is necessarily better.
This line that Bernard (once he's lost his faith and is getting some) 'has come a long way from being a thurible bearer at Our Lady of Perpetual Succour' is an unfair dismissal of anyone who has ever stayed with the church, as if they are automatically immature and ignorant. Sure, some are - but are we to say that, for example, Jesus was without insight because he was celibate? Moreover it misses the observation of Ecclesiastes: that sex, among other things, will not ultimately satisfy. Not to mention that there are some immature and ignorant people that are getting laid.
There is a hint of some awareness of this when Bernard muses earlier in the novel that if leaving the church was meant to be such a wonderful emancipation, then why has it left him directionless and despairing. But later we find it's just because he hasn't been having good sex. I like the way that in High Fidelity Hornby turns this around, pointing out some of the weaknesses and immaturity in the contemporary opposition to monogamy.
Has Lodge never met a wise believer? He even discounts the myriad Christians he has read so much more of than me in the Western literary tradition. In his concluding lecture on contemporary theology, a helpful and concise summary (albeit something deeply flawed, particularly his wildly erroneous rendering of Jesus' sheep and goats analogy), he seems to assume that spiritual insight works in exactly the same way as technological research or popularity: anyone from any age who believed in a literal heaven or hell (simpletons like Jesus, St. Paul, John Donne, Keirkegaard - Lodge could name so many more than I could if he wanted to) is blithely dismissed, just as one might dismiss some ancient's ill-informed speculations on astronomy. The argument is simply: 'most popular theologians today believe...'. Much as this is a significant fact, spiritual and moral matters don't work to the same empirical testing: you might as well say the Spice Girls have more insight into character than Ben Jonson, because they were born later and shift more units annually.
Lodge, through Bernard, doesn't justify disbelief in hell, merely assumes it as a sophisticated, informed stance. He's particularly arrogant in quoting something from, I think, T.S. Elliot, saying its ironic that the 'best' people tend to be inactive, but the 'worst' (extremists, fundamentalists) are all too active. This one isn't too hard to challenge: it's an intellectual saying to other intellectuals that people like himself are the best because they sit around discussing things interminably but never seem to actually do anything. It might show a little more honesty to say that part of being one of the 'best' people would include your record of passionate action. It only seems to be these weirdo extremists that are blowing up buildings (or, ahem, tending lepers) - and c'mon, it doesn't take too much insight to realise that weirdo extremists don't just happen - even the terrorist ones - but there but for the grace of God go I: if someone starts bombing your home town and you do anything about it, you'll be defined as a weirdo extremist by armchair intellectuals in other parts of the world.
Is it that Lodge knows all this but was fitting to the conventions of comedy - he has to have a simple happy resolution, I shouldn't carp at him for it? (I'm about to give a glowing review to a Wodehouse book, but am hardly faulting him for a ridiculous barrage of marriages) No, he's the one who raised a lot of these issues and he is pushing a point - that's part of his attraction: he gives you a lot more to think about than Wodehouse, and he's generally a honest and insightful writer (here I am panning him, when he has more perceptive thoughts over breakfast than I do in a year). However I do think he's denying the existence of any evangelical with half a brain, and I don't think, given the information available to him, that's justified.
Rating: 
Summary: Fantastic; Lodge at his best and that's saying a lot!
Review: David Lodge is one of the most gifted writers around and Paradise News is one of his best books.
Bernard is an ex-priest who who left the priesthood after realizing that he was and always had been an atheist. His decision to leave the priesthood (which he entered as an adolescent) leaves him with no real meaning in his life until his aunt calls him to her deathbed. With his father, Bernard travels half-way around the world (from England to Hawaii) in an attempt to reconcile his father and his aunt. In doing so, he discovers who he is and what he has been searching for.
The themes in this book (pedophilia/sex abuse, unresolved sexuality among young priests etc.) are especially timely right now but even without these themes the book has an incredible pull and power.
Rating:
Summary: Reconciliation and Renewal in Paradise
Review: In Paradise News, David Lodge does something unusual. His main character is a forty-something virgin, sexually inhibited and celibate by force of habit. Perhaps more uncommon, Bernard is an honest man. He's even a somewhat boring, ordinary man, not particularly neurotic or troubled, and yet still cabable of growth over the course of the novel. More extraordinary still, Lodge gives us a sensible love story and sensible sex. How often do we see that? It makes a refreshing change. But for those who don't think an honest man with moral concerns getting a sensible--if much overdue--introduction to sex and falling in love in a sensible way doesn't sound interesting, think again. Lodge is always worth reading. He entertains (funny situations; the wish fulfillment story of how Bernard's aunt ends the book better off than she started it) and he provokes thought (among other things, vacationing as the modern-day pilgrimage, a pursuit of paradise). The only strikes against this book are that it starts off a bit slow, focusing at first on characters you know will be minor. It picks up speed quickly enough, but the minor characters are perhaps not all they could be--a small concern really, when they are better than many writers would have managed. And the incest theme lacks punch. It may be a sad commentary on the cynicism and jaded sensibilities of my generation when one of us can say, "Ho hum, incest again", but that's the way it is. The incest serves its purpose in the novel, but that whole subplot just wasn't as interesting as the larger story of Bernard's renewal. And as that IS intersting, Paradise News is well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Reconciliation and Renewal in Paradise
Review: In Paradise News, David Lodge does something unusual. His main character is a forty-something virgin, sexually inhibited and celibate by force of habit. Perhaps more uncommon, Bernard is an honest man. He's even a somewhat boring, ordinary man, not particularly neurotic or troubled, and yet still cabable of growth over the course of the novel. More extraordinary still, Lodge gives us a sensible love story and sensible sex. How often do we see that? It makes a refreshing change. But for those who don't think an honest man with moral concerns getting a sensible--if much overdue--introduction to sex and falling in love in a sensible way doesn't sound interesting, think again. Lodge is always worth reading. He entertains (funny situations; the wish fulfillment story of how Bernard's aunt ends the book better off than she started it) and he provokes thought (among other things, vacationing as the modern-day pilgrimage, a pursuit of paradise). The only strikes against this book are that it starts off a bit slow, focusing at first on characters you know will be minor. It picks up speed quickly enough, but the minor characters are perhaps not all they could be--a small concern really, when they are better than many writers would have managed. And the incest theme lacks punch. It may be a sad commentary on the cynicism and jaded sensibilities of my generation when one of us can say, "Ho hum, incest again", but that's the way it is. The incest serves its purpose in the novel, but that whole subplot just wasn't as interesting as the larger story of Bernard's renewal. And as that IS intersting, Paradise News is well worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: Another fine book by a master comedian
Review: It is so difficult to write a sustained comic novel. Yet David Lodge continues to master the form, this being one of many such as NICE WORK. There are metaphors about "paradise" and a quite sweetly sentimental romance amidst a hilarious satire on vacations and tourist destinations (in this case, Honolulu). But with it all, there is an embracing tolerant affection for his characters, and a genuine unpretentious intelligence at work here.
Rating:
Summary: Another fine book by a master comedian
Review: It is so difficult to write a sustained comic novel. Yet David Lodge continues to master the form, this being one of many such as NICE WORK. There are metaphors about "paradise" and a quite sweetly sentimental romance amidst a hilarious satire on vacations and tourist destinations (in this case, Honolulu). But with it all, there is an embracing tolerant affection for his characters, and a genuine unpretentious intelligence at work here.
Rating:
Summary: A gentle, witty novel about change
Review: Most of Lodge's books deal with academia, generally centering around a rather seedy little University in the mythical working-class village of Rummidge. While the story begins near the school, where the story's principle protagonist is employed part time, the plot quickly moves to the opposite end of the world, both geographically and culturally: Hawaii. Charles Armstrong has arrived with his aged father to visit his long estranged aunt, who married and American and shortly after the war. She's dying of cancer, and wants to see her brother one last time, in part to unburden herself of something terrible that happened between them when they were children. Charles knows nothing of this when he begins his trip, and assumes he'll be there for a week or two to help his aunt settle up. But things are never that simple in a Lodge book. Charles and his father have booked their passage via a discount tour group full of the sorts of broadly drawn caricatures that Lodge does so well. There's an Australian couple coming to meet their son's "special friend" that they assume is his finace', a professor specializing in the anthropology of travel (who is mistaken for a travel writer and given the full VIP treatment), and a family that must be every travel agent's nightmare, to mention a few. As always, Lodge manages to weave all these stories together and bring them all to a satisfying conclusion that is both surprising and pleasant for all- or at least most- concerned.
Rating:
Summary: Lodge's best so far!
Review: Such a great book! It's a good satire of charter tourism, and at the same time it's about faith, paradise and a big life changing step for the main character. This book contains a lot, and it's really worth reading!
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful comedian
Review: This is a deceptively simple book to read with many important themes. It is the tale of people from England who travel to Hawaii on a charter package for holiday. The main characters are a lapsed Irish priest,(Bernard) who teaches theology, and his crusty aged father who are summoned to Hawaii to visit a long lost sister of the father who is on her deathbed. The story is a brisk, breezy satire on Hawaii tourism. With the exception of the main theme and characters, much of the story is not well developed. The main theme, as it involves Bernard stresses growth and change after a lapse of belief in religious dogma. It explores the growth of human love and sexuality as Bernard is able to consummate his relationship with a separated woman he meets in Hawaii, comes to terms with his vocation as a theologian and learns the virtues of love, patience and forgiveness. He comes to appreciate the nature of religious doubt and the attendant spiritual search through human love and through reflections on the human condition as reflected in the works of William Butler Yeats, the Victorian poets, the Spanish philosopher Unamuno, and the Gospel of Matthew, among other sources. There is a book by John Updike called "In the Beauty of the Lillies" which deals with the lapse of faith by an American Protestant Clergyman. In Updike's book, when faith is lost, all is downhill for the protagonist and his family. I think Lodge's book can be instructively compared with Updike insofar as it raises questions of religion, secularism and sexuality. There is more hope in Lodge's book than I find in Updike's for meaningful human life outside the reach of the creeds.
Rating:
Summary: A thoughtful comedian
Review: This is a deceptively simple book to read with many important themes. It is the tale of people from England who travel to Hawaii on a charter package for holiday. The main characters are a lapsed Irish priest,(Bernard) who teaches theology, and his crusty aged father who are summoned to Hawaii to visit a long lost sister of the father who is on her deathbed. The story is a brisk, breezy satire on Hawaii tourism. With the exception of the main theme and characters, much of the story is not well developed. The main theme, as it involves Bernard stresses growth and change after a lapse of belief in religious dogma. It explores the growth of human love and sexuality as Bernard is able to consummate his relationship with a separated woman he meets in Hawaii, comes to terms with his vocation as a theologian and learns the virtues of love, patience and forgiveness. He comes to appreciate the nature of religious doubt and the attendant spiritual search through human love and through reflections on the human condition as reflected in the works of William Butler Yeats, the Victorian poets, the Spanish philosopher Unamuno, and the Gospel of Matthew, among other sources. There is a book by John Updike called "In the Beauty of the Lillies" which deals with the lapse of faith by an American Protestant Clergyman. In Updike's book, when faith is lost, all is downhill for the protagonist and his family. I think Lodge's book can be instructively compared with Updike insofar as it raises questions of religion, secularism and sexuality. There is more hope in Lodge's book than I find in Updike's for meaningful human life outside the reach of the creeds.
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