Hangover Square

This was great.

 

There's a modern term that's used to describe men who pander and flatter women in the hopes that they'll be rewarded with love, sex, attention. Simp! And this book is about the king of the Simps -- George Harvey Bone. He is in love with the beautiful Netta and hangs around with her and her set, drinking at all hours and avoiding employment of any kind. He confesses his love for her but she continues to use him for his money and, later, for his connections. One of her hangers-on is Peter, a spiv character who is just as keen to take advantage of George as she is.

I honestly found myself despising Netta quite viscerally but also George too, his unwillingness to grown a spine despite being treated like a doormat something that infuriated me. The book reminded of the Tunnel by Sabato but whereas the paranoia of that book's male protagonist could be interpreted as self-inflicted, there is no ambiguity about George's feeling of humiliation and poor treatment. Netta is, quite explicitly, a bitch. She has a past working as an actress and has aspirations to get back into that world but otherwise she is, like the men she consorts with, a self-interested alcoholic. And George is nothing more than a means to an end for her.

And here's where things get complicated because George, also a big drinker, suffers from a unique mental illness. I would describe it as a dissociative personality disorder but it's all a little vague. Essentially, it involves George going into a kind of dream state where an alternative version of himself is in control of his thoughts and actions. When George clicks in and out of these personalities, he remembers very little of what has happened. The whole thing is very effectively done by Hamilton and you get the impression that George is just one person but has two states of being.

The book also takes place just as the 2nd World War is about to begin and I found it fascinating seeing these young people presented in a manner that was very familiar to me. When I think of that period, I think of straight-laced individuals wearing starched clothing and doing their bit for the war effort. But obviously, young people were just the same as they've always been; keen to get drunk, have fun, and avoid work. That the book was published in 1941 at the height of the war is also interesting as Hamilton essentially takes it for granted that fascism will lose.

This was a great book. And very uniquely British.