One caveat as I write this, if you haven't read the first book of this trilogy (August) then it won't spoil your enjoyment, but you will get a lot more out of I'll Go to Bed at Noon if you have.
Okay then, second book in the trilogy, and another re-read for me. I enjoyed the first so much I was worried - but I needn't have. This is a very different beast mind you. All the issues that were bubbling below the surface come to the fore now. We have full-blown addiction and it's not pretty - though it is at times truly, horribly, grotesquely funny. It's addiction with all the horrible bits that don't get talked about, and it's addiction in three colours or maybe on a spectrum, with Janus at one end, Colette at the other, and Janus Brian in the middle.
The story doesn't mess, it doesn't pull punches, but on the other hand, it doesn't spend a lot of words analysing, and this is one of the things I love about Woodward's writing. He lays it out there for you, but he lets you make up your own mind. He asks questions, but he gives you very few answers - if any. A lot of the behaviour seems inexplicable - because it is - and Woodward makes no attempt to explain because you can't. There's not necessarily motivation in addiction, there's not necessarily any conscience operating, there's not necessarily any perspective - though he cleverly shows, by using his triangle of drunkards, that there can be. It makes for a tragic story, an unravelling that you keep wanting to stop, though you know it's inevitable. You've invested a lot of time in these characters, in Colette in particular, you don't want them to throw it all away - but to prevent them would be untrue, and Woodward doesn't do that.
So this was a tough book to read, but don't get me wrong it was also fascinating, compelling, witty, and in places absurd (in a good way). It left me wrung out and hungering for more. Fortunately there is more, and it's the one book in the trilogy I've not read. Can't wait, but I'm having a comfort read first to bolster me.
Highly, highly recommended. (less)
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