This is a hair-shirt autobiography, punitively self-critical. One of our finest literary satirists and critics marks his eightieth birthday by tracing his life from humble beginnings to his first major success, aged 40, with Changing Places in 1975. Rags-to-riches? Not really. More a monochrome tale of debilitating anxiety and shyness than a racy account of his inevitable rise and rise. The year 1935 was a good time to be born because kids like David Lodge could get into grammar schools and go to university. But it was also good because nothing much happens after the war to drag him from his desk. In fact, nothing much happens to him. That is the point. An honest book, plainly narrated (his parents are always “Mum” and “Dad”), it concentrates on the importance of o