Thinksin memoriam Henry James

Abstract

“The possibility of employing on the plane of a single work discourses of various types, with all their expressive capacities intact, without reducing them to a common denominator —this is one of the most fundamental characteristic features of prose”, says Bakhtin in Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics and this statement is perfectly applicable to all the novels by David"Lodge, but especially to Thinks... Lodge not only allows his characters to tell their own stories in their own language, but introduces different styles and parodies the work of some well-known authors. One of the writers imitated is Henry James and in a sense in Thinks... Lodge pays homage to him by having the story narrated as perceived by the consciousness of the characters, by making references to his work and by sharing with him the humanist idea of the autonomous self, under attack in scientific discussion and in the humanities.