Sorry, if you haven’t read the book, there are some spoilers—watch out!

I don’t mean to sound überfeminist, but I just hate the character Helen for sleeping with the creep Messenger. How could she have let herself fall in love with him, even though she knew he was a philandering pig? Poor Helen, she never knew a man who wasn’t a cheater.

Yes, I found this book a bit depressing-it made it seem like everyone in the world has a farce marriage or else is helping someone else cheat on their marriage. :( And I just wasn’t digging all the questions about consciousness-although the bits about writing were mildly interesting. It was exciting enough, however, not to give up on the book-I just had to see if Helen would give in to Messenger.

I read this after diving into Dennett, et al on consciousness, etc. —and since I had already been exposed to Lodge via Small World, thought I’d give it a read. Not bad book, but nothing to recommend it either. Lodge seems to have the luxury of “novelizing” whatever literary or social theories he happens to be interested in at the moment. The novel as intellectually “vehicle” or plaything. Not bad, but not great.