With Terry Worth, film an obsession. How he survives on so little sleep is a mystery. A cinephile of the first order, he becomes fixated on tracking down a print of the lost movie that is "Latrine Duty". But all this is in 1983/4 which are the odd numbered chapters of Jonathon Coe's "The House of Sleep". the even numbers are twelve years later in 1996. By then Terry has lost his obsession and working as a reporter only to suddenly remember his earlier quest and needs to find that one photo or still that provoked this search in the first place.
But the book is not all about Terry. There is also Sarah, who suffers from narcolepsy. (I did learn quite about about sleep disorders and the various stages of sleep). Then there is Robert whose unrequited love for Sarah affects his whole life. Poor deluded Robert, I found it hard to reconcile that a person could devote their whole life to someone unobtainable.
At the centre of this story is Ashdown, a rambling mansion next to a cliff, that in the 80's is a dormitory for a University, and where our characters first meet, and then in the 90's as a centre for sleep disorders run by the strange Doctor Dudden. I quite liked the changes in time although it did get a little complicated at times although cleverly plotted. Just to say that there is one chapter two thirds through when Sarah ( now a teacher) goes to see Rebecca (the single parent of a pupil Sarah thought was in distress). They find a mutual history (hinted at much earlier) and their conversation is written with devastating brilliance.
This is a book to savor. Marvellous is eighty nine and her memories are told with poetic beauty. But these are mainly limited to the beginning and end of the book. It is young Francis Drake, just returned from WW2 who ends up at the creek near the Falmouth estuary (only hints gave me the place) where the old lady resides. He was late returning from the war, and only having to deliver a letter gets him to London and onto Cornwall.
Marvellous lives in a caravan near a boathouse where Francis is made at home. The two pages when he first visits her caravan are just wonderful. There is a lot of description of the landscape but it never intrudes on the story. There is a lot about feelings and the past. But despite the limited plot, it is all so skillfully told. What we learn about Marvellous and Francis is enough to make an intelligent and satisfying read. "She awoke, not to death, but to the sound of shingle scraping upon the hull, and the anchored stillness of the land".
I'm not sure how I stuck with this award winning book as young Thomas McNulty narrates his story. he swops poverty in Ireland in the 1850's for time in the US army, fighting in both wars with the indigenous Indians and the Civil War. Yes, there is a lot of violence, too much for me. But there is friendship and heroism.
Written in a rough first person, I preferred the times after the army with John Cole as they present a hilarious theatrical demonstration in St Louis in their old Major's entertainment. Then much later I was glad I reached Chapter 19, twelve exceptionally emotional pages. Only to be followed, when back in the army, by a crazy and chaotic tale of revenge orchestrated by the grief stricken man in charge when everyone else had no idea what they were in for, where they were going or what they were meant to do. As we unfortunately do.
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