Hangover Square
- Thread starter IdleRich
- Start date
IdleRich
IdleRich
A few of my friends read it when we were at school - and didn't really enjoy it that much from what I remember. I hadn't given it any thought since, until you mentioned it in fact STN, and I thought that I would like to read it and see if I could get something more out of it than my friends did.
crackerjack
Well-known member
My 19-year-old self would've struggled with the lack of incident, but wise old me is loving it. He's birlliant on the subtle power politics of friendships (esp like the way George's old schoolfriend turns up and instantly susses the dynamic between him and Netta) and the spectre of fascism in the background gives it a really original twist.
Read The Ginger Man recently and wasn't sure I was ready for another novel about u/c pissheads, but this is from the opposite angle - full of inadequacy and self-loathing. Halfway in, and now that I've finally finished Tony Judt's Postwar I expect to whistle through the rest.
Read The Ginger Man recently and wasn't sure I was ready for another novel about u/c pissheads, but this is from the opposite angle - full of inadequacy and self-loathing. Halfway in, and now that I've finally finished Tony Judt's Postwar I expect to whistle through the rest.
IdleRich
IdleRich
OK, only got a chance to read a tiny bit more but enjoying it so far. I just want to say that I kind of regret reading the introduction where he describes Netta as "a little bitch" or something similar because that has coloured my view of her already when so far she hasn't done anything wrong at all.
crackerjack
Well-known member
She does. She's a wrong 'un that one.
empty mirror
remember the jackalope
I have this coming to me via the free library so I should get cracking by Monday hopefully.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Really enjoying this now. Love the way little descriptions imply so much, for example when he's talking about men in pubs doing deals with post-dated cheques. I don't know exactly what he's implying but it is perfectly redolent of the seediness that he is trying to get across. As an aside but relatedly, there are two times where he mentions Great Portland Street as though that ought to describe a certain kind of person, what was it known for in the thirties?
crackerjack
Well-known member
I'm done. Don't want to throw in any spoilers so I'll wait for you lot to play catch up.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Me too. Really enjoyed it although it was quite different from what I was expecting in many ways. I imagined that it would be all about the bars of Earls Court and their denizens but really relatively few scenes are set in bars. I like the way it's done that there is a constant suggestion that they've just come from a bar or are just going to one or want to be and this kind of builds up to give a picture that you don't actually ever see clearly.
Also, what do we think this clicking thing is meant to represent? Is he schizophrenic or is it just a metaphor or an excuse or what?
crackerjack
Well-known member
Didn't occur to me it was schizophrenia, though it easily could be. I thought it was a more a device.
jenks
thread death
With fifty pages to go ...
I thought it was schizophrenia. Isn't there a definition of the condition at the start of the novel? - don't have my copy to hand.
I read it about ten years ago - I remember thinking that the whole drifting through life in an alcoholic haze, no real job, going for afternoon sleeps to shake off the booze and then going out agin in the evening, was apretty accurate description of my student days. There was a real sense of relief in me that those days were over - then again i never had murderous urges!
SLIGHT SPOILER BELOW...
It's such a tautly written piece - i love the way that we get an outside perspective half way through which allows us to step out of his head for a while and to see Netta from someone else's perspective - beauty with cruelty.
I thought it was schizophrenia. Isn't there a definition of the condition at the start of the novel? - don't have my copy to hand.
I read it about ten years ago - I remember thinking that the whole drifting through life in an alcoholic haze, no real job, going for afternoon sleeps to shake off the booze and then going out agin in the evening, was apretty accurate description of my student days. There was a real sense of relief in me that those days were over - then again i never had murderous urges!
SLIGHT SPOILER BELOW...
It's such a tautly written piece - i love the way that we get an outside perspective half way through which allows us to step out of his head for a while and to see Netta from someone else's perspective - beauty with cruelty.
IdleRich
IdleRich
Interesting, although it was me that raised the question of schizophrenia I thought that it was just a device, or at least, I did at first, now I'm not so sure. I mean, judging by their reactions his dead moods are obviously to visible to other people and it does seem that he cannot remember the things he thinks or that happen to him in one mood when he goes into the other mood so something really does appear to happen. I think it's a very vivid image these "cracks" in his head as the change of mood starts happening more violently towards the end of the book. I think I can imagine what they feel like and I don't like it.
Yeah, definitely, every word used very precisely - the book really whizzed by.
Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. When I moved to London without a job and later on when I was unemployed again I had periods like this. At the start there is a bit where he lays out how much money he has and calculates how long he can continue this life-style - although he has no plan whatsoever on how to change it when the money runs out; this is barely mentioned but captured very neatly, perhaps because it's something that lots of us have experienced. I'm very familiar with this feeling, after leaving a job with a bit of money and slowly pissing it all up the wall and thinking I need to make a change in x months, then x weeks then going out and getting drunk to not think about it but always having it at the back of my mind when I woke up hungover, then eventually realising the time has come and passed and I haven't done anything - and then going out to get fucked up one last time to avoid thinking about it.
As I said before, I like the way that this is always alluded to but virtually none of the scenes are actually set with the four of them (Mickey, Netta, Peter and George) in a bar drinking. Somehow this helps capture the blurredness of their lives.
jenks
thread death
absolutely
crackerjack
Well-known member
I swear the stronger they got the more I was feelng them.
IdleRich
IdleRich
What was the explanation for his preoccupation with Maidenhead? Something to do with a (deceased) sister or something? I like the way lots of things like this are just alluded to and kind of drift through the story and affect it quite strongly without ever being totally explained. Similarly the business he had with Bob (was it?) that went tits up in some unspecified manner, seems as though that was a defining moment in Bone's life (and not in a good way).