#13 A Spot of Bother

So it feels like I've been reading a lot, but looking back on it? Not so much. These next five are in the order I remember reading them.

A Spot of Bother by Mark Haddon. OK, so I started this book with a chip on my shoulder because Mom told me it might be “too British” for me. To which I said, I accept your challenge, madam and I finished the book in an afternoon. sighs But, I'm really really glad I did because I loved this book. LOVED IT.

George Hall is going crazy. And he knows he's going crazy. But, he's British. So he goes crazy without allowing anyone around him to notice. Stiff upper lip? An expression for a reason. George's encroaching breakdown feels very real to me. In a different way than my own, but I recognize the panic and the fear and the denial and the awful recognition that something is wrong. Well done Mr. Haddon.
However, the other three characters are also interesting. Jean, George's wife, is having an affair. His daughter Katie is marrying a man she's not sure she loves while his son Jamie has so compartmentalized his life that he has set days of the week for his boyfriend to spend the night.

So all of these people are miserable, hurting, lonely, obsessed with some mythical idea of something better. And then, during one disastrous week and really just about the worst wedding reception one could imagine, everything is resolved. And yes, it seems rather too pat, but dude. All four realize that sometimes, you have to stop looking for perfection and open your eyes. And you won't find that perfection has been in front of you all along. Instead, you settle, you adapt, you give up your preconceptions and your certainties. And that's life. And it's good.

I see what my mom meant by a British book. But, with a Scots mother, a British father, and a childhood spend reading Richard Crompton's William the Terrible and Agatha Christie? I'm British enough to have thoroughly enjoyed this book. Tally ho, dear chap!