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13delathauwere's review
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
cody240fc's review
4.0
A novel of contradictions. George is a sympathetic figure who also happens to be a schizo with murderous tendencies. The story is beautifully written but the characters are so villainous that you sometimes feel like you’ve had enough. The ending is fantastic but you wonder if Hamilton would have done better to end it twenty pages earlier. You love “Hangover Square” but you’re not sure you would recommend it to friends.
Screw it. It’s great. Read it.
Screw it. It’s great. Read it.
kingabee's review
4.0
This is a book about endless cycles of drinking binges and hangovers. It also is a book about an unhinged man convinced by some very convoluted logic that he needs to murder a woman - in that it reminded me of Tunnel by Ernesto Sabato (which is a great book and you should read it).
'Hangover Square' opens with a thrilling (even if medically dubious) description of a schizophrenic episode. It's just one of the many that will get much worse as the novel progresses. To achieve a great dissociative effect Hamilton had to resort to constant repetitions when describing those episodes and while annoying at first, eventually they become a hypnotising drumbeat.
The hero and the book's main sufferer is George 'Bone', hopelessly obsessed with a failed actress Netta and on a self-destructive path. The whole book takes places on the eve of World War II and could easily be interpreted as a metaphor of the rise of fascism with Bone possibly representing the United Kingdom, forced to enter the war – that’s an interpretation my Book Club came up with, granted we were on our own drinking binge in one of the Earl’s Court pubs, so we could’ve been talking nonsense at that point. Nonetheless the atmosphere of impending catastrophe is definitely discernible in the book.
And this is all great and was discussed in many other reviews, so I’d like to focus on something else. I propose a feminist reading of ‘Hangover Square’ (whenever I do that in my reviews, it always draws in the best kind of men in the comment section who come and call me ‘dear’, ‘honey’ or any other patronising pet name and proceed to tell me I didn’t ‘get it’.)
Most readers (including yours truly) tend to sympathise with Bone, because deep down inside, he is a ‘nice guy’, while Netta is an evil femme fatale. Additionally, it’s a motif that repeats itself in many of Hamilton’s books and is heavily autobiographical, so obviously it’s presented in a way to make us feel sorry for Bone.
And yet, it is clear Bone pretty much stalks the girl. At first she is somewhat nice to him, but she quickly makes it clear she is not interested. He proceeds to show up at her house, he calls her every day, even though at that point she barely speaks to him or even acknowledges his presence. Yet he is unable to take a hint and he is persistent. He is not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Netta’s only fault is to take money he willingly offers her but she’s hardly leading him on. She is just a broke alcoholic that maybe takes a little bit of an advantage of the guy who is relentlessly pursuing her. She never seeks him out to set him up. Yes, she cancelled on him and lied about where she was going, but on the other hand he is a murderous psycho who is fantasising about killing her, so in real life I’d much rather run into Netta than Bone. Bone is angry because Netta doesn’t want him because he is not rich and doesn’t have connections, which is supposed to make us believe that Netta is a shallow girl. But then why is Bone in love with Netta? It’s clearly not her personality, which he finds despicable, it’s just her looks. Bone doesn’t love Netta. He just wants to possess her, bend her to his will. When Netta is desperate to get the attention of a rich theatrical impresario we find it repulsive. When Bone is desperate to get Netta’s attention, we find it just sad. Very clever, Hamilton. ‘Netta’s thoughts resembled those of a fish’. And what were Bone's thoughts like, eh?
The whole point of the narrative is to convince us that if only there was no Netta, Bone could move to Maidenhead and live a wholesome life. But just as Eddie Carstairs is not the reason Netta will never live the life of a glamourous actress, Netta is not the reason for the way Bone’s life is turning out. They are both fucked because they are raging alcoholics who are never sober long enough to make any changes to improve their lives. Anyway, bottom line is: Netta uses men as much as she is used by them, so let’s cut her some slack, eh?
'Hangover Square' opens with a thrilling (even if medically dubious) description of a schizophrenic episode. It's just one of the many that will get much worse as the novel progresses. To achieve a great dissociative effect Hamilton had to resort to constant repetitions when describing those episodes and while annoying at first, eventually they become a hypnotising drumbeat.
The hero and the book's main sufferer is George 'Bone', hopelessly obsessed with a failed actress Netta and on a self-destructive path. The whole book takes places on the eve of World War II and could easily be interpreted as a metaphor of the rise of fascism with Bone possibly representing the United Kingdom, forced to enter the war – that’s an interpretation my Book Club came up with, granted we were on our own drinking binge in one of the Earl’s Court pubs, so we could’ve been talking nonsense at that point. Nonetheless the atmosphere of impending catastrophe is definitely discernible in the book.
And this is all great and was discussed in many other reviews, so I’d like to focus on something else. I propose a feminist reading of ‘Hangover Square’ (whenever I do that in my reviews, it always draws in the best kind of men in the comment section who come and call me ‘dear’, ‘honey’ or any other patronising pet name and proceed to tell me I didn’t ‘get it’.)
Most readers (including yours truly) tend to sympathise with Bone, because deep down inside, he is a ‘nice guy’, while Netta is an evil femme fatale. Additionally, it’s a motif that repeats itself in many of Hamilton’s books and is heavily autobiographical, so obviously it’s presented in a way to make us feel sorry for Bone.
And yet, it is clear Bone pretty much stalks the girl. At first she is somewhat nice to him, but she quickly makes it clear she is not interested. He proceeds to show up at her house, he calls her every day, even though at that point she barely speaks to him or even acknowledges his presence. Yet he is unable to take a hint and he is persistent. He is not taking ‘no’ for an answer. Netta’s only fault is to take money he willingly offers her but she’s hardly leading him on. She is just a broke alcoholic that maybe takes a little bit of an advantage of the guy who is relentlessly pursuing her. She never seeks him out to set him up. Yes, she cancelled on him and lied about where she was going, but on the other hand he is a murderous psycho who is fantasising about killing her, so in real life I’d much rather run into Netta than Bone. Bone is angry because Netta doesn’t want him because he is not rich and doesn’t have connections, which is supposed to make us believe that Netta is a shallow girl. But then why is Bone in love with Netta? It’s clearly not her personality, which he finds despicable, it’s just her looks. Bone doesn’t love Netta. He just wants to possess her, bend her to his will. When Netta is desperate to get the attention of a rich theatrical impresario we find it repulsive. When Bone is desperate to get Netta’s attention, we find it just sad. Very clever, Hamilton. ‘Netta’s thoughts resembled those of a fish’. And what were Bone's thoughts like, eh?
The whole point of the narrative is to convince us that if only there was no Netta, Bone could move to Maidenhead and live a wholesome life. But just as Eddie Carstairs is not the reason Netta will never live the life of a glamourous actress, Netta is not the reason for the way Bone’s life is turning out. They are both fucked because they are raging alcoholics who are never sober long enough to make any changes to improve their lives. Anyway, bottom line is: Netta uses men as much as she is used by them, so let’s cut her some slack, eh?
nnikif's review
3.0
Хорошая проза, внимательные и точные наблюдения, но все до единого персонажи чудовищно скучные и несимпатичные, так что, несмотря на всю правду жизни и художественную силу, книга после чтения оставляет чувство зря потраченных усилий.
Для живущих в Лондоне и знающих Лондон ценность книги, наверное, выше.
Для живущих в Лондоне и знающих Лондон ценность книги, наверное, выше.
daja57's review
5.0
Hangover Square is written by the man who also wrote the play Gaslight, itself responsible for the term 'gaslighting'. J B Priestley described the author as "an unhappy man who needed whisky as a car needs petrol".
The protagonist of Hangover Square, George Bone, suffers from some sort of Jekyll and Hyde personality (the author introduces the book with the dictionary definition of schizophrenia). Normally George is a rather ineffectual drunkard, hopelessly in love with an actress called Netta who uses his infatuation to humiliate him, to 'borrow' money from him, and to use his connections to try and get close to an important theatrical agent. But George will sometimes (without warning or any obvious trigger) 'click' into a sort of fugue state in which he hates Netta and schemes to murder her.
The story is set in the months leading up to the start of the Second World War, principally in pubs and rented rooms in Earls Court, with a couple of forays into Brighton. Most of the characters are drunks with no visible means of support; one is an ex-fascist who has spent time in prison for killing someone with his motorcar while drunk-driving. The protagonist lives in a 'hotel' (more of a rooming house) on the rapidly-diminishing proceeds of a win on the football pools. There is an atmosphere of genteel poverty and general seediness, a sort of middle-class version of the life depicted in the early chapters of The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell.
The bulk of the narration is from the point of view of George, although there are chapters in which the story is told from the perspective of other characters, including an anonymous 'young man'. George's narration is virtually 'stream of consciousness' and reminded me (especially given how much he vacillates) of Hunger by Knut Hamsun. It is particularly interesting for its description of the fugue state in which the murderous personality exists, and the for transition between the two. He uses a small number of descriptions of this, and recycles them.
The protagonist of Hangover Square, George Bone, suffers from some sort of Jekyll and Hyde personality (the author introduces the book with the dictionary definition of schizophrenia). Normally George is a rather ineffectual drunkard, hopelessly in love with an actress called Netta who uses his infatuation to humiliate him, to 'borrow' money from him, and to use his connections to try and get close to an important theatrical agent. But George will sometimes (without warning or any obvious trigger) 'click' into a sort of fugue state in which he hates Netta and schemes to murder her.
The story is set in the months leading up to the start of the Second World War, principally in pubs and rented rooms in Earls Court, with a couple of forays into Brighton. Most of the characters are drunks with no visible means of support; one is an ex-fascist who has spent time in prison for killing someone with his motorcar while drunk-driving. The protagonist lives in a 'hotel' (more of a rooming house) on the rapidly-diminishing proceeds of a win on the football pools. There is an atmosphere of genteel poverty and general seediness, a sort of middle-class version of the life depicted in the early chapters of The Road to Wigan Pier by George Orwell.
The bulk of the narration is from the point of view of George, although there are chapters in which the story is told from the perspective of other characters, including an anonymous 'young man'. George's narration is virtually 'stream of consciousness' and reminded me (especially given how much he vacillates) of Hunger by Knut Hamsun. It is particularly interesting for its description of the fugue state in which the murderous personality exists, and the for transition between the two. He uses a small number of descriptions of this, and recycles them.
steg's review
dark
funny
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.5
nerdatronic's review
Like being immersed in a haze of a grimy London in the 1930s with a bunch of douchebags. You can't help but root for the ineffectual protagonist whose pathetic unrequited obsession rings a little too true for anyone who's been in love with the wrong person. Funny and tragic simultaneously, the last sentence is probably the most heartbreaking and hilarious of the entire book.
ellaamelia's review
4.0
A look into dark prewar London following an obsessive, lonely, troubled man dissatisfied with his life. It’s hard to put into words all the emotions and questions raised by Hamilton throughout whilst also presenting a seemingly clear cut plot. Long story short, I really enjoyed delving into a gritty, booze-ridden London full of characters that will stay with me.
paulcowdell's review
5.0
Relentless, unbearable - the sort of book you want not to be reading, to be somewhere else, but that is so grim and compelling in its hideousness that you have to keep on. You'll feel horrible for reading it, and I mean that as a compliment to the book.
johnclough's review
3.0
This did get better towards the end but was not particularly inspiring for most of the way.