The theme of this novel can be neatly summed up by the quote from its main character that is plastered across the back cover of my edition. Adam Appleby says "Literature is mostly about having sex and not having children. Life is the other way around." As a graduate student in English Literature and a practicing Catholic in the days before the Pill, he should know. He and his wife already have three children, and this novel follows him through a day in which his main concern is that he may soon be having a fourth.
A day in the life of Adam Appleby, it seems in the beginning, is not a particularly exciting affair. He goes off to the British Museum and reads all day, researching for his thesis on "The Structure of Long Sentences in Three Modern English Novels," for which he has not even chosen his three novels yet. On this day, however, Appleby finds himself in so many out of the orninary situations that he never gets to his reading at all. Most of these are quite funny and make for a very entertaining read.
The only real downside to the novel, from my perspective, is its obsession with the Catholic Church's prohibition of birth control. I sometimes felt, while reading the novel, like saying "I get it already. The poor guy can't use a condom, and it's driving him crazy." To be fair, however, I can understand Appleby's point. My husband is also a poor grad student in English Literature, and if we were facing the prospect of even a second child, I suppose we would be a little obsessive, too.
One of the most interesting points of this novel is what might be considered its "gimmick." Appleby has spent so much time reading literature that he has begun narrating his life to himself in the styles of various authors. And so, there are several passages in the novel written in these styles. The Introduction lets us cheat a little, and find that the parodies are of Joseph Conrad, Graham Green, Ernest Hemingway, Henry James, James Joyce, Franz Kafka, D.H. Lawrence, Fr. Rolfe, C.P. Snow, and Virgina Woolf. While I must confess that I am not well-read enough to have spotted all of the parodies, the ones I did recognize were very funny and added to the humor of the novel. Each author seems well-suited to the part of the story told. The Joyce passage, especially, really makes the novel.
All in all, this was a very funny little book, particularly if you can still remember your Lit classes from school, and even more particularly if you are a scholar yourself. I recommend it if you are looking for a quick, funny read that is more than mere "brain candy."
Recommended:
