Grim yet compelling
This novel caused something of a stir when it won the booker prize in 1994 with one of the judges, Rabbi Julia Neuberger saying “Frankly, it’s crap.” It is not. How Late it Was, How Late is a wonderfully written and finely crafted piece of work.
The novel is a stream of conscious narrative about a small time crook called Sammy, who wakes up after being arrested and assaulted by police officers to find that he is blind. We follow Sammy as he struggles to deal with his new condition and put his life back together. The reader is locked inside the central character’s head and other people fade in and out as Sammy perceives them, some of them becoming more concrete than others. This would make an excellent radio play, with only the words of Sammy to guide us and occasional aural clues to his current situation.
While lacking the more fantastical elements, there are similarities with the work of Irving Welsh in that the narration and speech are delivered in Scottish dialect. This may put some readers off at first, but quickly becomes easy to understand and central to the creation of both the character of Sammy, and the atmosphere of the Glaswegian setting. Welsh and Kelman also share the stream of consciousness style.
Admittedly, How Late it Was, How Late is a bit of a shaggy dog’s tale. Nothing really much happens over the three hundred odd pages and the ending is inconclusive. Readers waiting to find some dramatic revelation about Sammy or the events behind his blindness will be disappointed. The pleasure here is in the recounting of the story in Sammy’s compelling voice. It is testament to Kelman’s skill that although often dealing with mundane aspects of life, and having few breaks in the text, the story rarely seems to lag
Sammy is a man to be found up and down the British Isles. He is worn out by the world, and struggling just to stay sane by relying on his personal brand of pessimistic philosophy. This is a common picture of disadvantaged life, of people who make their way through petty crime and from benefit cheque to benefit cheque, while relying on the prop of alcohol. Sammy is resolved to the idea that he cannot win and that he must savour his small victories when he can. As such then this novel is a picture of poverty in the late eighties and early nineties and perhaps belongs as much in the tradition of writing such as Robert Tressell’s The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists as anything written by Irving Welsh.
How Late it Was, How Late is clever and perceptive, well worth reading.
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