Author, Author, o la celebración del ser y del autor (Parte II)

Abstract

In the last years David Lodge has been particularly concerned with the way in which both science and the humanities are challenging the traditional idea of the self as unique and autonomous: “If the self is a fiction, it may perhaps be the supreme fiction, the greatest achievement of human consciousness, the one that makes us human.” For Lodge the novel is the genre that best reflects the subjectivity of human experience, thus offering us the richest and most comprehensive record of human consciousness. His last novel, Author, Author, like the previous one, Thinks... is a clear apology of the autonomous, individual self, not only because its main character is a writer, Henry James, who always defended that the subject of the novel was the whole of human consciousness, but because it allows us to have access to his inner thoughts and feelings, precisely those that cannot be described by science.