- Hardcover: 352 pages
- Publisher: Martin Secker & Warburg Ltd; First Edition edition (1 Mar 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0436445026
- ISBN-13: 978-0436445026
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16.2 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 119,025 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
In Thinks..., David Lodge writes another witty satire on the vagaries and triumphs of contemporary British academic life and achieves a fine balance between multiple points of narrative interest. He gains much momentum from psychologically nuanced romantic intrigue, and also manages to offer intelligent speculation on the state of play in the scientific and philosophical investigations into the nature and workings of human consciousness, without preaching or becoming ponderous.
Thinks... recounts the experiences of Helen Reed, distinguished novelist, who accepts a creative writing teaching gig at the fictional University of Gloucester after the sudden death of her husband. Here she meets Ralph Messenger, scholar, spin doctor, philanderer and head of the illustrious Colt Belling Centre for Cognitive Science. Scientist and novelist spar:
She asks them what they were working on. Jim says robotics, Carl says affective modelling. Kenji says something indistinct that Ralph repeats for her benefit--genetic algorithms. "I can guess what robotics is," says Helen, "but what on earth are the others?"The form of the novel carefully mirrors its intellectual concerns. We are given Ralph's attempts to tape-record his random thoughts; Helen's more introspective diary and the often hilarious writing assignments of Helen's motley crew of students, who attempt literary solutions to the problems Ralph poses Helen. Written with enviable deftness, Thinks... manages to be generous to its characters and serious about the intellectual and ethical questions it poses for itself without losing satiric bite. --Neville Hoad
Carl explains that affective modelling is computer simulation of the way emotions affect human behaviour.
"Like grief?" Helen says, glancing at Ralph.
"Exactly so," he says. "Though Carl is actually working on a program for mother-love."
"I'd like to see it," says Helen.
"I am not able to give a demonstration, I'm afraid," says Carl. "I am rewriting the program."
Product Description
Ralf Messenger enjoys the affluent lifestyle afforded by his position as director of Holt Belling Centre for Cognitive Science. When he meets Helen Reed, a distinguished novelist, a stand-off between them is formed by their mutual attraction for each other under impossible circumstances, but all that is about to change...
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First Sentence
One, two, three, testing, testing ... recorder working OK . . . Olympus Pearlcorder, bought it at Heathrow in the dutyfree on my way to . . . where? Can't remember, doesn't matter . . . The object of the exercise being to record as accurately as possible the thoughts that are passing through my head at this moment in time, which is, let's see ... 10.13 a.m. on Sunday the 23rd of Febru - San Diego! I bought it on my way to that conference in . . . Isabel Hotchkiss. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
One, two, three, testing, testing ... recorder working OK . . . Olympus Pearlcorder, bought it at Heathrow in the dutyfree on my way to . . . where? Can't remember, doesn't matter . . . The object of the exercise being to record as accurately as possible the thoughts that are passing through my head at this moment in time, which is, let's see ... 10.13 a.m. on Sunday the 23rd of Febru - San Diego! I bought it on my way to that conference in . . . Isabel Hotchkiss. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Excerpt | Back Cover
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A dazzling feast from David Lodge,
By A Customer
This review is from: Thinks... (Hardcover)
One of David Lodge's recurring themes is the tension between two different worlds. In "Nice Work", the sparks flew between an industrialist and the modernist English literature lecturer Robyn Penrose (who, promoted to Professor, makes a cameo appearance in "Thinks" - brief reappearance of characters from previous novels being another Lodge trademark).In "Thinks", Ralph Messenger, a cognitive scientist at a modern but already decaying university, spars with Helen Reed, an attractive widow and English novelist whose books, written in the third person and past tense, are "so old-fashioned in form as to be almost experimental". Debate is joined as to the meaning of consciousness, with Helen doubting Ralph's beliefs that it can be reduced to a series of impulses in the brain. The intellectual sparring develops into a deeper relationship, as Helen is confronted with a revelation about her past life which leaves the reader stunned in sympathy. Lodge himself reserves the third person past tense stuff to the last chapter. Earlier, he dazzles us with his vast array of styles, ranging from stream of consciousness (self-deprecatingly referred to at one point as an outdated literary form), diary, present tense narrative, e-mail exchange and a series of hilarious parodies of other novelists' styles as Helen's students are deployed by her to prove to Messenger that consciousness has an essential human element (I particularly enjoyed the Irvine Welsh parody). There are other classic Lodgeisms along the way: no other writer has his gift for observational humour. Congress with a woman of ample proportions is compared to "making love to a bouncy castle", and I won't spoil another analogy involving a bird's nest by saying anything more than that it had me in stitches of simultaneous laughter and revulsion! As with all Lodge's books, once taken up it has to be read to the end in one sitting, even into the small hours on a weekday with work beckoning. I am not sure that "Thinks" is his best book (cognitive science did not grab me as much as some of his other themes), but it is streets ahead of anything else around. The tragedy is that his books are so long anticipated and so soon read. At one point in "Thinks", Helen wonders why, with the histories of so many people on the earth destined to remain forever unknown, novelists should bother to invent so many additional characters and work so laboriously to give them colour. Before long, she fears, readers forget most of the novel's contents anyway. If this is David Lodge speaking, sending out a cri de coeur to his readers, wondering whether his efforts are worth it, the answer from this reader at least is a resounding yes. Please do not make us wait 5 years for your next book Mr Lodge.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
An elaborate joke?,
By
This review is from: Thinks... (Hardcover)
Lodge's new novel is a romping good read but it's also deeply unoriginal: everything you expect to happen does happen so that a grieving woman finds out that her dead husband wasn't such a saint after all and so is able to move on (Yawn); while when the police arrive looking for a member of department who's been downloading child porn from the Net the culprit is exactly who you think it is. I found myself wondering if Lodge is attempting a literary joke, setting himself the task of writing the archetypal academic-adultery novel.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A GOOD READ,
By bibliophile (essex) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Thinks (Paperback)
I have to say that I was glad that I did not read all the reviews for David Lodge's novel Thinks, as I do not think that I would have bothered to read it, as it would appear to be predictable, and not a very good campus novel. I enjoyed it, even if I did struggle to get my head round some of the cognitive science. Yes it did remind me a little of The History Man, but that's ok. I liked Ralph getting his comeuppance with his daliances towards the end of the book, but I believe novels are meant to be read to be enjoyed, and expand your imagination, and I certainly enjoyed this novel, and keeps David Lodge as one of my favourite authors, because he writes about aspects which seem to actual;ly occur, and you can identify with. A good read.
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