A Spot of Bother
April 27th 2011 10:28
The earliest breakdown occurs on pages 73/4, while George is watching a tedious documentary about a man who is dying.
"When the man's cat climbed onto the tartan rug in his lap to be stroked someone unscrewed a panel in the side of George's head, and tore out a handful of very important wiring.
He felt violently ill. Sweat was pouring from beneath his hair and from the backs of his hands.
He was going to die.
Maybe not this month. Maybe not this year. But somehow, at some time, in a manner and a speed very much not of his choosing.
The floor seemed to have vanished to reveal a vast, open shaft beneath the living room.
With blinding clarity he realised that everyone was frolicking in a summer meadow surrounded by a dark and impenetrable forest, waiting for that grim day on which they were dragged into the dark beyond the trees and individually butchered.
How in God's name had he not noticed this before? And how did others not notice? Why did one not find them curled on the pavement howling? How did they saunter through their days unaware of this indigestible fact? And how, once the truth dawned, was it possible to forget?"
In spite of that grim sequence, the book is full of hilarity and wit, and vivid characters. Even the most unpleasant of them has a way of drawing you into their lives.
Haddon can also sum up a character in a sentence. Describing George's sister-in-law: "...the woman could make you feel greedy and self-centred just by the way she wore a shapeless fawn cardigan." [pg 199]
It's a very quotable book, and I'm only sorry I haven't marked more of the sections I'd like to keep a note of. The problem is that it's so readable you don't want to stop and take notes.
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