Customer Reviews

I'll Go to Bed at Noon: A Novel

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This second book of Woodward's trilogy is very sad. But, then again, one certainly feels after coming to its conclusion, perhaps life is very sad. The Jones family, or at least all of them with the mother Colette's Waugh blood in their veins - in other words, all save husband Aldous - are afflicted with what I suppose one would call an "addictive personality" if one knew what in the world this term meant in any concrete sense. Perhaps it says something that the most seriously afflicted of all, eldest son Janus, is a true artistic prodigy, but perhaps it doesn't. All these characters who end up drinking themselves to death in the end are rather disparate and impossible to categorise. But, contrary to most of the other reviewers here, I found the two characters around whom the story indisputably wends, Colette and son Janus, likable and fun, despite it all. I found myself pulling for both of them, especially Colette, in their altercations with other more sober members of the family. The feeling the book left with me was that life is an extremely plodding, spiritless affair, unless one indulges in, well, spirits in one form or another, even if it leads to death, which life is going to do, spirits or no. Also, Woodward's prose has so many moments of sparkling grace. Here's the description of the environs around which Janus finds himself stumbling in one of his many nocturnal, drunken perambulations:

"A rich odour of rotting pond life, of the sludge of countless fallen leaves, the sunken treasure of a hundred autumns, lurked in all the blind channels."

Truth be known, I'm not at all sure what to say of this book save that it is full of Wordsworth's "still, sad music of humanity." One is not at all surprised to find Wordsworth's famous view of Tintern Abbey described herein, if all too fleetingly. The title, as another reviewer has pointed out, is taken from the Fool's last words in King Lear.

Fool: And I'll go to bed at noon.

I suppose the overall impression taken from the book is, perhaps, that the besotted fools of this world have, if not more fun, at least a less dreary time of it. They live in a world both blessed and cursed in a way in which the other drab characters do not. We'll see how the last volume turns out.

Four stars, for, if nothing else, a textured, ambiguous view of persons in the throes of addiction without the resort to labelling, 12-step group think, or the other simplistic psychological caricatures to which most other writers resort.

KENT
Now, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.

KING LEAR Make no noise, make no noise; draw the curtains:
so, so, so. We'll go to supper i' he morning. So, so, so.
FOOL
And I'll go to bed at noon

The title comes from the Fool's last words in King Lear, another story of a troubled family-this book tries to convey the horrors of chronic alcohol abuse. Gerard Woodward writes about alcohol abuse in a family in a quiet British suburb. A passing trait of troubled souls from generation to generation. This book was up for a Booker prize and well it should.

This is the second book in a trilogy of the Jones family. I have started backwards, reading the third book first, and now the second. Each novel stands on its own. I read that this could be a story of the author's family. Though steeped in ethanol, the story seems to be as much about the problems that accompanies all our lives, amd the love of parents for their children. Collette and August Jones live in a community just outside of London. They have raised three children, Janus, a remarkable musician who has turned to drink, beer his choice. Julian, a student who tries to avoid all family drama and Juliette, the daughter, the sober one, married to Bill, who does drink. And, then there are the brothers, Janus Brian, who drinks himelf to oblivion every night and Lesley who goes to one of the neighborhood pubs and gets drunk while his friends pour beer down his throat.

This family seems more than maladjusted- there is some sort of destruction in every movement. Coleltte, herself an addict of sniffing glue and then drinking barley wine and now onto whiskey. Her husband, August has also started to drink. How is the family to be saved? Can it be saved? This is not all a sad book, there are many instances of frivolity and fun. You will laugh out loud at some of the passages, and through it all you have hope that this family survives. This is a tale about love- mother for children, hope for the future, sadness and above all survival. We can all see someone we love in this book. Can they be saved?

Highly Recommended prisrob 02-08-09

August: A Novel

A Curious Earth: A Novel

Although this book was a bit slow going, I eventually got caught up in this disfunctional family's affairs. I discovered that this is only one novel of a trilogy and I think this is the last - so I read it in the wrong order. It is really well written and I could totally visualise the family members, their dishevelled lives and untidy house. I grew to care for and enjoy the characters even though their antics were incredibly frustrating. I knew it would all have to end in disaster. A good read. I recommend it.

This novel was a big disappointment. "I'll Go to Bed at Noon" is a story set in London during the 1970s. Colette Jones, a recovering alcoholic, is forced to watch alcohol consume the lives of her brother, son, and son-in law. Eventually Colette realizes that all of her family interactions tend to revolve around alcohol, so she decides to step in and intervene. Colette kicks her alcoholic son out of the house, but unfortunately she doesn't stand her ground for very long, and disaster eventually ensues.

The plot of the book is interesting enough, and I thought the story had some real potential. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Gerard Woodward may be an award-winning writer, but he certainly won't be getting any awards from me. "I'll Go to Bed at Noon" drags on and on and ON, from the first page until the very end. The pacing is unbearably slow, and every single character in the novel is irritating and unlikeable. I didn't care what happened to any member of the Jones family, and I couldn't wait to finish the book. Although the actual writing style of the novel is decent, the story itself is awful. What a waste of 437 pages, and several hours of my life!

If this cautionary tale about the curse of alcoholism doesn't set our collective alarm bells ringing or shake us up into seeing how the problem drinking phenomenon is tearing up the social fabric of our civilized society, then Woodward would in my humble opinion have wasted his time writing this novel. For I don't find any of the Joneses to be charming or endearing enough to excuse their lunatic behaviour or warrant our sympathy for the plight they find themselves in. Janus and his uncle Janus Brian may be gone cases as far as alcoholics and drunks are concerned but the others are just a pathetic lot, lacking in any redeeming qualities, not to mention moral fibre, backbone or integrity, so you can't help but anticipate the disaster that finally befall them.

The father Aldous seems to be in a vague but perpetual state of denial about the state of his family. The mother Colette - an ex-junkie and a recovered alcoholic naïve enough to think that a little drink now and again won't hurt - may be a lovely person at heart (she does after all selflessly care for her dead drunk of a brother) but she's an airhead and downright flaky. The daughter Juliette is to my mind just a cold hearted little witch who's way too eager to get her brother thrown out of the family home so that she and her latest beau can shack up and live off her parents. The other siblings aren't bothered about anything or anyone but themselves. Funny how people think it's all right to as awful as they like to living family members, so long as they don't forget to turn up and say a few kind words at their funerals ! Why bother ? The book works better as a despairing state-of-the-nation commentary on the family as a growingly obsolete institution.

If Woodward intended any humour in this rather ludicrous and rambling story, you'll find it in the last third, which I must admit did raise a few laughs. Even then, the effect was mild and fleeting and the humour only became a painful reminder of the absurdity of the Joneses' situation after the humour has dissipated. Sorry, but the sentiment behind Colette's parting gift to Aldous simply rang false. It read like a desperate attempt to make us like the Joneses more.

Woodward is a promising writer with an engaging style. It's just that the premise he's chosen isn't commensurate with his talent. He should look elsewhere for inspiration. Not a bad read but unworthy of its Booker nomination.

I was very disappointed with this book. The story should have been interesting, family dynamics, alcoholism, London in the nineteen-seventies....but the language used was uninspired and very, very flat. I did read it to the end, hoping it would improve at some point and that the prose would come to life, but wish I hadn't wasted my time.