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kingabee's review against another edition
3.0
‘Bed’ is about Mal, a man who weighs a hundred stone and hasn’t got up from his bed for the past twenty years. Yet, the book is not about being fat. Just look at the author’s photo – what would HE know about being fat?
If you are looking for some sort of self-help motivational book then I wholeheartedly recommend ‘Run, Fat Bitch, Run’ by Ruth Fields. Read ‘Bed' if you want a piece of good contemporary literature about people who are just not very good at life. I know I could now say ‘but who really is?’, but that would just be a clever bon mot, because really, most people I know seem to handle this whole living business a little better.
The characters of ‘Bed’, mostly Mal’s family, are weighed down, literally and metaphorically by his heavy presence. He has become their centre of gravity and they are not able to set themselves free.
Mal himself is less of a character and more of an inanimate object casting shadow on the lives of everyone who comes close to him, he is the elephant in the room, so to speak, impossible to ignore but not to be discussed or questioned.
Of all the family members, it’s the mother who is most devoted to him. He is the apple of her eye. It’s like in this Anne Sexton’s poem (surely the world must be ending if I am quoting poems in my reviews):
“The unusual needs to be commented upon . .
The Thalidomide babies
with flippers at their shoulders,
wearing their mechanical arms
like derricks.
The club-footed boy
wearing his shoe like a flat iron.
The idiot child,
a stuffed doll who can only masturbate.
The hunchback carrying his hump
like a bag of onions . . .
Oh how we treasure
their scenic value.
When a child stays needy until he is fifty —
oh mother-eye, oh mother-eye, crush me in —
the parent is as strong as a telephone pole”
Mal has always been special to his mother, wayward as a child, difficult as an adult, he gives her purpose. Handling him has become the essence of her life. And why does he decide to never get up after he’s turned twenty-five? I suppose to escape the fate of his peers, who ‘get older and start drinking. They meet someone and get pregnant. They work and work and work. Buy a house and sit in it in silence listening to the baby cry. Have another to keep it company. Waking up early, going to work, packing lunch, coming home, watching the television, paying the bills, thinking they’re happy, having another baby just in case. No thanks.”
Quite right, “if this is life, then why get out of bed?” Only this isn’t life. Life is all that happens in between. Life is what you make of it. It is hard to be happy and it requires greater sensibility. It is easier to give in to nihilism and decadency but this is not a noble way out. Mal might be convinced that him giving up on life will give someone else (that is, his mother) a purpose in life and therefore he is a hero, but he goes about it all wrong. Lou, Mal’s girlfriend has the same need to give meaning to the lives of her loved ones but she is doing it in a constructive way. She brings people up, rather than dragging them down with her.
‘Bed’, despite its grotesque, tabloid hook, is a quiet, understated novel and I believe it was ghost-written. I happen to have met David Whitehouse and he is ironic, blunt, very fond of obscene gestures and generally quite obnoxious. There is no way in hell he would ever write anything borderline mushy like this:
“I saw it on her face that day, a look like her heart would float upward through her throat, topple from her mouth, clip her front teeth on the way out and drift into the sky.”
If this sounds like your cup of tea, give this book a go; it’s a very strong debut. My only minor complaint is that the first person narrator, Mal’s nameless younger brother, becomes omniscient at random. It doesn’t happen very often but often enough for me to notice.
If you are looking for some sort of self-help motivational book then I wholeheartedly recommend ‘Run, Fat Bitch, Run’ by Ruth Fields. Read ‘Bed' if you want a piece of good contemporary literature about people who are just not very good at life. I know I could now say ‘but who really is?’, but that would just be a clever bon mot, because really, most people I know seem to handle this whole living business a little better.
The characters of ‘Bed’, mostly Mal’s family, are weighed down, literally and metaphorically by his heavy presence. He has become their centre of gravity and they are not able to set themselves free.
Mal himself is less of a character and more of an inanimate object casting shadow on the lives of everyone who comes close to him, he is the elephant in the room, so to speak, impossible to ignore but not to be discussed or questioned.
Of all the family members, it’s the mother who is most devoted to him. He is the apple of her eye. It’s like in this Anne Sexton’s poem (surely the world must be ending if I am quoting poems in my reviews):
“The unusual needs to be commented upon . .
The Thalidomide babies
with flippers at their shoulders,
wearing their mechanical arms
like derricks.
The club-footed boy
wearing his shoe like a flat iron.
The idiot child,
a stuffed doll who can only masturbate.
The hunchback carrying his hump
like a bag of onions . . .
Oh how we treasure
their scenic value.
When a child stays needy until he is fifty —
oh mother-eye, oh mother-eye, crush me in —
the parent is as strong as a telephone pole”
Mal has always been special to his mother, wayward as a child, difficult as an adult, he gives her purpose. Handling him has become the essence of her life. And why does he decide to never get up after he’s turned twenty-five? I suppose to escape the fate of his peers, who ‘get older and start drinking. They meet someone and get pregnant. They work and work and work. Buy a house and sit in it in silence listening to the baby cry. Have another to keep it company. Waking up early, going to work, packing lunch, coming home, watching the television, paying the bills, thinking they’re happy, having another baby just in case. No thanks.”
Quite right, “if this is life, then why get out of bed?” Only this isn’t life. Life is all that happens in between. Life is what you make of it. It is hard to be happy and it requires greater sensibility. It is easier to give in to nihilism and decadency but this is not a noble way out. Mal might be convinced that him giving up on life will give someone else (that is, his mother) a purpose in life and therefore he is a hero, but he goes about it all wrong. Lou, Mal’s girlfriend has the same need to give meaning to the lives of her loved ones but she is doing it in a constructive way. She brings people up, rather than dragging them down with her.
‘Bed’, despite its grotesque, tabloid hook, is a quiet, understated novel and I believe it was ghost-written. I happen to have met David Whitehouse and he is ironic, blunt, very fond of obscene gestures and generally quite obnoxious. There is no way in hell he would ever write anything borderline mushy like this:
“I saw it on her face that day, a look like her heart would float upward through her throat, topple from her mouth, clip her front teeth on the way out and drift into the sky.”
If this sounds like your cup of tea, give this book a go; it’s a very strong debut. My only minor complaint is that the first person narrator, Mal’s nameless younger brother, becomes omniscient at random. It doesn’t happen very often but often enough for me to notice.
emjay24's review against another edition
3.0
This (fiction) book has the fattest man in the world. He can't leave his bed, or house, and his skin has grown into the mattress. BUT, this book is not the story of the fattest man. It's the story of his brother. As weird and gross as I find this stuck to the bed guy, i understand him way more than i understand this brother, and the mom, and the dad. they're the ones who gave up their lives for this guy. This book is interesting and uneasy.
beentsy's review against another edition
4.0
I really enjoyed this. The horrific descriptions of Mal's transformation, the way families interact, and sometimes just really don't.
And love. In all its beautiful and ugly manifestations.
And love. In all its beautiful and ugly manifestations.
hmonkeyreads's review against another edition
2.0
Depressing story about sad, ugly people.
I think the only character I liked was Mal's Dad.
I think the only character I liked was Mal's Dad.
mollyblikestoread's review against another edition
4.0
"David Whitehouse has taken what might be a gimmicky hook in a lesser writer's hands- a romance triangulating around a bedridden media spectacle, the world's most obese man- and turned it, through lapidary prose, into a soulful mediation on a fraternal love as singular as it is universal." -Teddy Wayne
abetterway2feel's review against another edition
2.0
This is quite a strange book and some of the imagery is terrific.
only something with the tenacity of a biscuit crumb could meander through the folds of tummy.
the way one might pluck the coarse hair from pig's back
However, despite liking a look of Davide Whitehouse's use of language, I felt the story didn't really go anywhere
Spoiler
only something with the tenacity of a biscuit crumb could meander through the folds of tummy.
the way one might pluck the coarse hair from pig's back
However, despite liking a look of Davide Whitehouse's use of language, I felt the story didn't really go anywhere
Spoiler
, despite a crescendo and the end tying up all the loose ends in a fantastical way where everyone (except Mal) lives happily ever after. The fact that there was a profound meaning behind it all, for me spoiled things.carstensena's review against another edition
4.0
Once I started this, I couldn't put it down. The feel of it reminded me of The Particular Sadness of Lemon Cake. Nostalgia, sadness, a family stuck in sad patterns, unable to reach for what they really want. Bizarre premise, but it works.
Was hoping this one might be a recommendation for teens, but I can't imagine the teen who would want to read it.
Was hoping this one might be a recommendation for teens, but I can't imagine the teen who would want to read it.
lisaeirene's review against another edition
3.0
Mal Ede is an odd kid that grows into an even weirder adult but it looks like he's finally "getting it together". He has a girlfriend, Lou, and they live together. Then he turns 25 and something happens. He goes to bed and never gets out again. He grows into England's fattest man. So fat that his parents have to take out walls in their house and put together multiple beds in order for him to fit.
The story is told by his younger brother, whom from childhood has been in love with Lou and pining away for her. This story is really, really odd and sometimes gross, sometimes really charming and enduring. It's sad how codependent and enabling Mal's family becomes but really the story is more about the younger brother learning how to live and emerge from Mal's shadow. It was a good book and a fast read.
The story is told by his younger brother, whom from childhood has been in love with Lou and pining away for her. This story is really, really odd and sometimes gross, sometimes really charming and enduring. It's sad how codependent and enabling Mal's family becomes but really the story is more about the younger brother learning how to live and emerge from Mal's shadow. It was a good book and a fast read.
bettyvd's review against another edition
4.0
Heel goed geschreven verhaal rond waargebeurde situatie(s). Originele beelden. Enkel de plot was iets te geconstrueerd. Toch een aanrader