Humour in depressive mode
Hapless and flummoxed, Passmore starts wallowing in pessimistic contemplation. Knee-deep in depression, he looks around and fails to locate a reason. His marriage is stable, his platonic relationship with Amy equally fulfilling, apart from his fine car and career as well as the endearing memories of his first girlfriend Maureen.
On the surface, life for Passmore is a roller-coaster; but for his pain in the knee, Lodge reminds the reader in a typically witty manner. However, unceasing hilarity in the novel's initial phases gives way to unexpected gravity as the tale progresses. Driven by angst—and all due to a seemingly frivolous obsession—Passmore finds himself 'looking up' the texts of Kierkegaard, the existentialist philosopher. He relates to sombre thoughts that figure in the philosopher's concept of the unhappiest man: "...on the one hand he constantly hopes for something he should be remembering...on the other hand he constantly remembers something he should be hoping for."
In a seamless narrative, Lodge's comedy acquires a more grim tone with every passing chapter. The ruminations of Passmore subdue the humorist's characteristic chuckle in the second half of the book. Having separated from his wife Sally, however, Passmore's eventual reunion with his childhood love—and her husband—corroborate David Lodge's status as perhaps the best comic writer in recent times.
Therapy manifests a Lodge unlike the author of comic masterpieces like Changing Places and Nice Work. His latest work is a classy narrative about mid-life crisis—for a reason as frolicsome as the protagonist's 'Internal Derangement of the Knee'.