Finished Tu 9/12/17
This book was recommended to me by Becky, a member of the contemporary book club. She said it is was prime example of 'an unreliable narrator', and she was certainly correct!
I got the the book in hardback for a few dollars from Amazon. Money well spent.
Fantastic opening scene-
A young woman wakes up in bed with an older married man. She thinks that she had gotten wasted and had gone home with a married man. When she notices her reflection in the bathroom mirror, she sees that she's twenty or more years older than she thought, and when she speaks with the man, he tells her that he is her husband. Later she learns from a psychologist that she can't trust her husband.
Due to an accident (not true) she retains memory only for one day. When she goes to sleep, her memories are wiped clean. She writes a diary to record what she needs to remember. Her doctor calls her each morning to remind her where to find the journal. She is not to tell her husband.
Christine Lucas
Ben Lucas, her husband
Adam, Chris's adult son. He was killed when he was stationed in Afghanistan (not true).
Dr. Nash, Chris's therapist. Ben is not aware that Chris is under his care.
Claire, Chris's friend
Mike, Chris's lover. This is the man that caused her memory loss. He attacked her when she wanted to break up and go back to her husband and son many years before.
The Twist-
Mike, posing as Ben, takes her out of the hospital. He tells her that he is Ben, her husband, and Claire no longer is in their lives and Adam has been killed while in the army. Chris begins to recover her memory when Mike brings her back to the hotel room of the first attack.
From Amazon.com Review-
"Every day Christine wakes up not knowing where she is. Her memories disappear every time she falls asleep. Her husband, Ben, is a stranger to her, and he's obligated to explain their life together on a daily basis--all the result of a mysterious accident that made Christine an amnesiac. With the encouragement of her doctor, Christine starts a journal to help jog her memory every day. One morning, she opens it and sees that she's written three unexpected and terrifying words: "Don't trust Ben." Suddenly everything her husband has told her falls under suspicion. What kind of accident caused her condition? Who can she trust? Why is Ben lying to her? And, for the reader: Can Christine’s story be trusted? At the heart of S. J. Watson's Before I Go To Sleep is the petrifying question: How can anyone function when they can't even trust themselves? Suspenseful from start to finish, the strength of Watson's writing allows Before I Go to Sleep to transcend the basic premise and present profound questions about memory and identity. One of the best debut literary thrillers in recent years, Before I Go to Sleep deserves to be one of the major blockbusters of the summer."
"S. J. Watson lives in London and worked in the National Health Service for a number of years. In 2009 Watson was accepted into the first Faber Academy Writing a Novel course, a rigorous and selective program that covers all aspects of the novel-writing process. Before I Go to Sleep is the result."
This morning I learned that the book is a movie and streamable on Netflix. I'm going to watch it this morning, We 9/13/17.
Although I really liked the novel, here's why I liked the movie more-
It works better that Adam is a child. I felt that the 'Afghanistan angle' didn't work.
The 'compressed time' in the film works much better. In the book Chris is 47, but in the movie she's only 40. Chris's level of isolation is more believable if it doesn't last as long.
It works better that Chris is not a published author as she is in the novel. If she was a more public figure, her level of isolation would be more difficult to maintain.
The 'reveal' in the hotel room is really powerful in the film- a terrific and brutal fight scene.
The Winnie The Pooh lines between Chris and Adam provide excellent closure and gives hope that Chris might make a fuller recovery. This isn't even in the book.
Rowan Joffe directs the film, but he did a terrific job as screenwriter. He really took the novel and made major improvements.
Minor criticism of the movie-
Why did they feel it necessary to change the spelling of Dr. Michael Nash's name? In the film it's spelled, 'Nasch'. Why go with the unusual spelling? How does this improve anything?
No comments:
Post a Comment