* * * *
After the more serious H
is for Hawk, I fancied a riveting read. The kind of book that hooks its
readers by the teeth, pulls us through the narrative, twisting in one direction
before yanking back, leaving us exhilarated, disorientated and gasping for air.
A friend bought me Before
I Go To Sleep for my birthday last year and I am ashamed to say it has
taken me this long to read it – as a fellow English student I hope she understands.
She couldn’t have chosen a book that encompasses my definition of a “rivieting
read” more. At first, it seems an interesting but not too thrilling exploration
of Christine Lucas’s fight with amnesia. Readers follow Christine as she begins
to keep a diary of her life, which was erased from her memory after an
unspecified accident. As each day goes buy Christine begins to realise certain
inconsistencies in her husband’s stories. What actually happened to her and
what her life was like before is an unknown and ever-changing variable.
Every morning when Christine wakes up she roles over to see
an older, hairier man in bed and groans at the prospect of dealing with an
unmemorable one night stand. She gets up, avoids the artfully placed slippers of
this man’s wife and silently sneaks into the bathroom. That’s when Christine
realises something is wrong. Not only has her supposed night of debauched
drinking led her to the bed of a strange man, it also appears to have given her
the face of a forty year old woman. Framing her reflection are photographs of
herself with the hairy man, photos that show a life together, a marriage.
Before I Go To Sleep charts
Christine’s desperate attempts to take some control over her own life. With the
help of Dr. Nashe she begins a diary of her own experiences so she no longer solely
relies on her husband, Ben. In dreams she remembers old friends, but nothing
quite adds up with what Ben has told her.
S. J. Watson beautifully articulates the paranoia that comes
with not knowing your own mind. As readers we follow Christine’s struggle to
believe her psychiatrist, her husband and, most of all, herself. When I first started
reading I thought that the plot was going to be pretty predictable and was
certain that I had nailed the ending. Never have I been more wrong. Before I Go To Sleep may not be the most
well articulated novel, but it’s many twists and turns surpass even Gone Girl in shocking its readers.
It seems there is a trend for unreliable narrators at the
moment, with the wonderful Elizabeth is
Missing and Gone Girl coming out
of it I, for one, hope it continues. Unreliable narrators are hardly a new
technique - what is Chaucer’s Wife of Bath if not an unreliable narrator?
Vladimir Nabokov is the king of this literary device and reading Pale Fire was a testing experience. If
you want to be driven out of your mind with frustration then I thoroughly
recommend it. It is a brilliant book, but not one to lounge on the beach with.
This new surge of novels devoted to the complexities of the mind call for a
slightly different reaction from their readers, more Chaucerian than Nabokov,
but on the whole much more enjoyable.
Before I Go To Sleep had
me riveted to my seat from Clapham Junction to Exeter and by the time I stepped
onto the platform I was starting to wonder whether what I remembered was real
or just a dream.
Before I Go To Sleep was made into a film last year starring Nicole Kidman and Colin Firth. I recommend watching it with someone who hasn't read the book!
Photocredits: wikipedia; backstreetmafia; iwatchmike
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