Athena K's Review - How Late It Was, How Late

Ohh boy.  This was a hard one for me.  I've never been into the stream-of-consciousness narration style, and this was that in a working class Scottish accent:

He pushed ahead. The wind felt familiar.  It was a Scottish wind.  Scottish winds fuck ye.  They do in yer ears.  Then there was the poor auld fucking flappers man yer feet, they were fucking swimming even his wrists, for some reason they were sore.  Fucking bracelets man these dirty bampot bastards, desperate; nay fucking need.

 I don't think I ever succeeded in getting past the style.

I really did try  though.  S. Samuels "Sammy" has been on a drinking binge and blacked out an entire day.  Upon stumbling awake, he is apprehended by the police, beaten, and wakes up in a prison cell several hours later blinded.  Perhaps permanently.  James Kelman sets up all sorts of mysteries: what happened in the lost day?  Where did Helen get off to?  How was Sammy really blinded?  What has Sammy been up to for money?  How will Sammy's life change because of his new disability? But don't get your hopes up - this story isn't really about any of these things.  This story is about Sammy, an idealist, a dreamer, dealing with his life in tatters and adapting to new situations.  He is an intelligent man, street smart, with a head for stories and songs.  He's incredibly stubborn - nothing gets his down for long.  But he's also an addicted smoker (who can't stop thinking about his next fix),  an alcoholic, probably a criminal, and certainly a potty-mouth. 

Added to this is perhaps my biggest pet peeve: Kelman gave me no chapter breaks.  Combined with the sentences and paragraphs that run on and don't end cleanly, picking up this book always felt disorienting and the narrative was made even more incoherent.  200 pages in I was dreading having to finish the novel.

Don't get me wrong.  I'm sure there was a lot to like in this book, and some people certainly seemed to have loved it.  The language and narration style were definitely unique, and Sammy has many redeeming qualities.  But I'm just glad I finished it.

Alex's Review - How Late it Was, How Late - James Kelman

You're gony have to read this book. There's nay doubt about it, nay doubt.

Of course, if you're easily offended by strong language aye, then it's probably no for you.

For a potty mouth like me it was aye a bit of a shock like.

Of course I was completely sucked in by the Scottish accent. It was hard going though. I was beginning to wonder if it was ever going to end. With a hundred pages left I was telling anyone that was willing to listen that I deserved a bloody medal for finishing it. I read bits out aloud to the family so they knew what I was dealing with. Well, it just about made Bel's boyfriend fall off his chair in shock at a girl's mother speaking like that. The hubby pronounced it poetry aye. I suspect it's a bloke's book by and large and I'd welcome a discussion with blokes about it.

We are introduced to Sammy as he wakes up from a really bad hangover.....slumped in the corner of a pavement somewhere, wearing someone else's sneakers. He is the perfect anti-hero. I spent most of the book wishing he'd have a bath and a shave. Simple things aye but they really got on me nerves. Does anything happen?...well yes, in a way....You're on the edge of your seat most of the time waiting for it to happen. If you want to witness character development on a grandiose scale then this is the book for you. I felt I knew every inch of Sammy by the end. As readers, we're living and breathing his stream of consciousness, which is exhausting but I was up for the challenge.

Philosophers have argued about what constitutes reality since time immemorial. "What's reality?" they debate amongst themselves..."Is it me or is it you?...Is it this chair or is it this glass of wine?" Obviously some poor wretch is making the bed and cleaning the bath while they pontificate and excruciate over the wretched question. There was a bit of me that wondered while reading this novel..."Is it all in Sammy's head?" Which led me to the next philosophical thought...."How much of our life happens in our head?" Now you're probably thinking - "She's getting all philosophical like that Alex Daw." Aye - mebbe. But it's a fact isn't it? You cannay get away from the voice in your head. You try and avoid it like but it's always there - lurking....waiting to catch you. Commenting on your cleaning of the bath - ooh, it's not like your mam used to do it. Urging you to get on with that reading for Uni so you don't get behind like. Helping you tackle your life - or not, as may be the case.

Some would argue that this scumbag of a character is not worth knowing. But who are we to judge? If you got thumped by a scumbag like Sammy, you'd want to know what provoked him wouldn't you? Well, I would. But then I'm different. I've got that voice in my head. Have you? What does your voice say? Does it endlessly repeat itself ? Does it have a cute accent? Does it love you very much? Does it love anyone else? What makes it change its pitch? Does it keep you together?

Well I didn't get a medal but I did finish this book. As you would expect from an anti-hero, Sammy exits stage left at the end of the novel still wearing those wretched toe-pinching sneakers. And I was gunning for him too. Now that's a sign of a good book isn't it? - that even if it's a bloody struggle, you want to get to the end...to see what happens like.

I'd best get to scrubbing that bath, now...like....mebbe...aye.

J.G.'s Review - How Late It Was, How Late

This was a strange book that grew on me. The dialect and (shall we say?) colloquialisms of the language were difficult. The convoluted plotting was difficult. Most importantly, I was never confident that Sammy--protagonist, narrator, petty criminal, dim bulb Everyman--was telling the truth about his mysterious blindness, his girlfriend who disappeared, the political activities of the friends he was mixed up with, or what he'd been up to during his drinking binge while he was supposedly blacked out.

I guess I was just as blind as he was, although I spent a whole lot of time searching for clues among his rambling narrative and hoping the last few pages would produce a revelation in which all would become clear.

By the end, I felt sad that Sammy couldn't seem to salvage his relationship with his son or come to any other resolution about anything. We were both clueless together.

For more details about this reading experience, check out my review at Hotchpot Cafe.

How Late It Was, How Late by James Kelman (Jackie's Review)

How Late It Was, How Late is set in Glasgow and follows Sammy, who wakes up in the gutter after a night of heavy drinking to discover that his shoes have been stolen. He gets into a fight with some plainclothes policemen (“sodjers”) and ends up in a police cell. Badly beaten, he wakes to discover that he is blind and so begins the difficult task of learning to live without his sight whilst also trying to avoid being blamed for a crime he knows nothing about.

I started off hating this book. The stream of consciousness writing style combined with frequent swearing and the Glaswegian dialect meant that I had trouble connecting with it, but I persevered and slowly became used to the writing style. I found that if I read it in large chunks then I could immerse myself in the Glaswegian dialect and the bad language became a natural part of the conversation.

Plus ye couldnay quite predict what they were up to, the sodjers. So he was
gony have to go careful. So fuck the drink there was nay time, nay time, he had
to be compos mentis. Whatever brains he had man he had to use them. Nay
fuck-ups. The things in yer control and the things out yer control. Ye watch the
detail. Nay bolts-from-the-blue. Nayn of these flukey things ye never think
about. Total concentration.

After about 50 pages I was amazed to find that I started to like Sammy - I began to feel sorry for him and even found some of the book funny.

It wasn’t an easy read – the book flipped forwards and backwards in time and sentences were often left without an end. It took me a long time to read this book and there were several points at which I nearly gave up. Very little happens and the middle dragged. I think that if the book had been 200 pages shorter then I’d have appreciated it a lot more.

This book is packed with symbolism and I’m sure it could benefit from multiple re-reads. I’m glad I glimpsed Sammy’s life, but I’m not sure I’d want to read about him again.

Recommended to fans of literary fiction who enjoy reading about the darker areas of society.

3.5/5 stars

Originally reviewed here.

Laura's Review - How Late it Was, how Late

This Booker Prize-winning novel is unusual, to say the least. Sammy is a small-time shoplifter who gets busted one morning after a weekend drinking binge, most of which he doesn't remember. And somehow he's completely lost his sight. The story is told entirely in a lower-class Scottish dialect, and it takes a while to get into the language and the cadence:

There wasnay much he could do, there wasnay really much he could do at all. No the now anyway. Nayn of it was down to him. It would be soon enough but no the fucking now. So fuck it, get on with yer life. Sammy had turned back onto his side, he wished he could fall asleep. But the trouble with sleep is ya cannay just fucking. (p. 29)

Got that? How about 374 pages of it, with no chapter breaks? When I started reading, I thought I would really dislike this book because of the dialect and the almost continuous use of the f-word. But after a while, I realized that Sammy sounded just like Scottish comedian Billy Connolly, and he had kind of grown on me. Sammy first finds himself first in jail, and when he is let go and returns home, discovers his girlfriend has left him. Because of his new disability, everything about daily living is a challenge. But there's humor in his story, too, most notably in the ridiculous bureaucracy he encounters when attempting to register for disability benefits. Sammy's life has been a hard one, lived mostly on the streets and in pubs, and it becomes clear that he is his own worst enemy, remaining just a step away from complete self-destruction.

I'm not sure I would recommend this book, but in an odd way it wasn't bad.



My original review can be found here.