Before I Go To Sleep
I read Before I Go To Sleep by SJ Watson over a matter of hours last night. I was sold on it by its intriguing premise. The idea of inexplicably losing massively important memories and the impact of that is something I've been pondering a lot lately. It is a psychological thriller starring a protagonist with a broken psyche. In some respects this resembles Julie Myerson's Then, also about a woman who can't remember her past, but whilst that story takes place in a post apocalyptic landscape, this story takes place as a contemporary "real world" novel.
Christine Lucas has both retrograde and anterograde amnesia, she doesn't remember most of her life but on a day to day basis will remember what is happening until she goes to sleep,when her memories will be wiped clean again and she will start from the beginning. This is, for those of you who've not seen it, precisely what happens to Lucy Whitmore in the film 50 First Dates. Unlike Lucy, who in the whimsical comedy goes to eat waffles in a pretty Hawaiian cafe each day before painting a delightful mural to the strains of the Beach Boys 'Wouldn't It Be Nice', Christine rather normally wakes up in Crouch End, and stares into the bathroom mirror at a face which is hers, yet middle aged.
Husband Ben, is her caretaker and explains everything on a daily basis before leaving for work. On the day we meet Christine, she gets a phonecall from Dr Nash - a doctor who has been treating her without Ben's knowledge for some time. He explains she is now keeping a journal to help her remember and tells her where she hides it. When she opens it, on the front page is written : DON'T TRUST BEN.
And so it begins, as we struggle alongside Christine to patch together her life story and remember the event which so badly injured her. Watson avoids making Before I Go To Sleep too much of an irritating prose Groundhog Day by using Christine's journal primarily to tell the story, she reads her journal daily, recaps herself, and then continues it. Doing this is a clever means of sidestepping what could have been a massive pitfall for a novel such as this.
It's a debut novel, and a good one, though I wonder how much inspiration was taken not merely from 50 First Dates but the 2000 Christopher Nolan film 'Memento' in which an anterograde amnesiac tries to remember what happened to his wife. It differs enough from each film being more grounded in the lives of ordinary people in an extraordinary circumstance and is a lot more realistic about the human outcomes of this kind of event. Well until the end I guess, which in a way, though a good twist is a bit of a shambles in terms of believability. I liked this book, I thought it was clever, but I didn't think it was amazing. 7/10
Showing posts with label Sinister. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sinister. Show all posts
Saturday, 23 July 2011
Friday, 25 March 2011
Book #12 Her Fearful Symmetry by Audrey Niffenegger
Her Fearful Symmetry
Welcome to the "difficult second novel", when you've had a seriously massive hit with your first real novel, 'The Time Travelers Wife' (note intended for cave dwellers and well, time travellers) where on earth do you go?
It's tough as the weight of expectation is upon Niffenegger, and I expect many people picked up this book in the hopes of a new Time Travelers Wife, and were sorely disappointed. Not so me, if it had been a story with a similar feel to the former, I would have felt the author had just been and churned it out, and thought her initial success was a fluke and she lacked talent and imagination. This new novel proves she has both those qualities.
For me, though I will not have the same affection for it as I do its predecessor it is neither a greater nor a lesser book, it is more a shift sideways.
The novel has three strands to it, I suppose. The first is a study of the complex nature of the relationship of twins, particularly identical twins, and how that relationship can be at once joyful and suffocating. It focuses on two sets of twins, Edie and Elspeth Noblin and Edie's daughters Julia & Valentina Poole, who are similar in their problems yet different too.
The novel begins with the words 'The End', Elspeth's end, her death, and the novel begins from there, which reminded me of a line from a TS Eliot poem 'in my end is my beginning', because Elspeth's death is the catalyst of the first chain of events.
Elspeth leaves her estate to her nieces, who she has never met and who are barely aware of her existence. It is clear that at some point in the past, something happened between Edie and Elspeth, their relationship irretrievably broke down and despite being twins, they never saw one another again.
Julia and Valentina's relationship is overly interwoven, with Julia controlling what choices they make as a duo never as individuals, and, Valentina fragile and timid, unable to strike out alone.
The second strand of the book is three interlocking love stories. The first is Elspeth and her lover Robert, their tale being told partly through Robert's memories, and partly by Elspeth herself. The second is Martin and Marijke, their upstairs neighbours, which I wondered if it was included solely for light relief from the rest of the novel, and the third is Robert and Valentina, after Robert becomes drawn to her following Elspeth's death.
The third strand is what gives the novel it's uniqueness, it's a ghost story as well as a love story, Elspeth's ghost is trapped in her flat, and with the Highgate Cemetary in London serving as the novels backdrop, there is a clear attempt to add Gothic flair to the novel, which sometimes succeeds.
The novel is in so many ways about death, the death of relationships, the feeling that you are dead inside, the idea of being alive but not really living, and death and the afterlife itself, but it's still a very alive book.
The final third of the book brings with it two almighty twists, one of which there are earlier hints of and the other which shocks, at least it didn't occur to me personally that it was coming, and so that added to the novel's enjoyment for me, despite a more than passing nod to 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison.
I probably will never read this book again, but I would recommend it, just don't come looking for a Henry DeTamble and a Clare Abshire, you won't find them here. 8/10
Welcome to the "difficult second novel", when you've had a seriously massive hit with your first real novel, 'The Time Travelers Wife' (note intended for cave dwellers and well, time travellers) where on earth do you go?
It's tough as the weight of expectation is upon Niffenegger, and I expect many people picked up this book in the hopes of a new Time Travelers Wife, and were sorely disappointed. Not so me, if it had been a story with a similar feel to the former, I would have felt the author had just been and churned it out, and thought her initial success was a fluke and she lacked talent and imagination. This new novel proves she has both those qualities.
For me, though I will not have the same affection for it as I do its predecessor it is neither a greater nor a lesser book, it is more a shift sideways.
The novel has three strands to it, I suppose. The first is a study of the complex nature of the relationship of twins, particularly identical twins, and how that relationship can be at once joyful and suffocating. It focuses on two sets of twins, Edie and Elspeth Noblin and Edie's daughters Julia & Valentina Poole, who are similar in their problems yet different too.
The novel begins with the words 'The End', Elspeth's end, her death, and the novel begins from there, which reminded me of a line from a TS Eliot poem 'in my end is my beginning', because Elspeth's death is the catalyst of the first chain of events.
Elspeth leaves her estate to her nieces, who she has never met and who are barely aware of her existence. It is clear that at some point in the past, something happened between Edie and Elspeth, their relationship irretrievably broke down and despite being twins, they never saw one another again.
Julia and Valentina's relationship is overly interwoven, with Julia controlling what choices they make as a duo never as individuals, and, Valentina fragile and timid, unable to strike out alone.
The second strand of the book is three interlocking love stories. The first is Elspeth and her lover Robert, their tale being told partly through Robert's memories, and partly by Elspeth herself. The second is Martin and Marijke, their upstairs neighbours, which I wondered if it was included solely for light relief from the rest of the novel, and the third is Robert and Valentina, after Robert becomes drawn to her following Elspeth's death.
The third strand is what gives the novel it's uniqueness, it's a ghost story as well as a love story, Elspeth's ghost is trapped in her flat, and with the Highgate Cemetary in London serving as the novels backdrop, there is a clear attempt to add Gothic flair to the novel, which sometimes succeeds.
The novel is in so many ways about death, the death of relationships, the feeling that you are dead inside, the idea of being alive but not really living, and death and the afterlife itself, but it's still a very alive book.
The final third of the book brings with it two almighty twists, one of which there are earlier hints of and the other which shocks, at least it didn't occur to me personally that it was coming, and so that added to the novel's enjoyment for me, despite a more than passing nod to 'Beloved' by Toni Morrison.
I probably will never read this book again, but I would recommend it, just don't come looking for a Henry DeTamble and a Clare Abshire, you won't find them here. 8/10
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