Beethoven , beer and barfing down the sink. Review on I'll Go to Bed at Noon - Gerard Woodward

'In the real dark night of the soul' wrote Scott Fitzgerald , ' it is always three o' clock in the morning, day after day.'

This quote is easily invoked by Gerard Woodward's 'I'll Go To Bed At Noon', which tells the story of a family (based on his own) that is both ravaged and oddly , sustained by alcohol. Barley wine , tomato sherry , boot-polish on a stove , they all combine to produce the desperate drowsiness , the paranoid alertness that can both define and obliterate the existence of an alcoholic.

While this Booker-nominated novel is a sequel to 'August' by the same author , it is an engaging and outstanding work in its own right. A history of the cirrhotic liver and the addled brain, depicted via a journey that staggers and hiccups its way through pubs , the insides of commodes and sit-down suppers gone terribly wrong.

It doesn't really matter whether I give away the story or not. One doesn't need Hercules Poirot to point out that the innocuous and docile-looking bottle of cider , imbibed regularly over decades , may be just as deadly as the intermittent dollop of arsenic in an invalid's chicken broth.

The novel's title could be derived from the fool's speech at the end of King Lear that signifies dying young. But even if you don't spend hours poring over Shakespeare , there are multiple meanings to be derived from the theme of this marvellous , hilariously tragic book.

The Jones live in the dreary suburbs of London.Drifting in the lower echelons of the British Middle Class , they punctuate their endless cups of tea with guiltily downed glasses of more potent brews. Set in the 1970s , the narrative unfolds through the somewhat ambivalent point of view of Colette , the mother of a drunken, musically gifted but clearly unhinged son , Janus. Chopin , Mozart , Bach....where the hell does the next pint come from? Janus steadily chips away at the family ,starting with the bathroom pipes which he flogs for a fiver or two.

His inebriated rampage lasts for more than a decade but his family somehow put up with him , bolstered by Colettes's guilt at her own breakdown (explored in detail in 'August') She feels guilty enough to resort to malice when she empties a jar of blackberry jam into her sister-in-law's bag. That should teach her , she thinks , to try and instruct her to be a better housekeeper and mother.

In the meanwhile, Colette's brother Janus Brian (whom her son is named after) resorts to alcohol after his wife dies. His garden , lush with vegetables yields crops of fermented oblivion once he's through his chemical experiments with the produce. Oppressed by memories and corporeal filth , he begs Colette to check whether his 'wet farts' have yielded beautiful goldfish or not.

But , no. This novel is not about degradation. Nor redemption. It is far more complex than that. This is not a self-indulgent treatise on shame , guilt , remorse....those condiments added to a cocktail too many.This novel is not a dirge and nor is it a celebration. Strangely enough, its moral and thematic ambiguity give it its power.

 Alcoholism does not erase the complexity of getting by and nor does it enhance it. It exists as an entity by itself with its ghostly seductions and improbable commands. The subtlety and easy coarseness of this novel felt like a bear hug with cactus stings. This is not one of those searing self-conscious introspective probings of alcoholism and nor is it a farcical tribute to vomit and rohypnol nights. You may have to be somewhat neurotic to truly appreciate this novel , off-kilter enough to understand the desperation required to distill champagne from bean sprouts. And if not, then lucky you!