The House of Sleep

Tweet

"The House of Sleep" by Jonathan Coe is one of the best books I have read all my life. The story in brief is something like this: In Ashdown, a university hall of residence, Sarah is about to break up with Gregory, fed up with being treated like his research subject rather than his lover. He is fascinated by her narcolepsy, a sleep disorder which occasionally results in dreams so vivid that she is convinced they are real. Among the other residents, Robert, hopelessly in love with Sarah, looks on in mute despair as she becomes drawn into a relationship with a woman, while Terry is immersed in his obsession with cinema and his spectacular, fourteen-hour, Technicolor dreams. Twelve years later Terry, now chronically insomniac, hears that Ashdown has become a sleep disorder clinic. He books himself in, and through a number of strange coincidences, finds himself reacquainted with his old house mates. With more than a touch of comedy, the intricately plotted narrative loops backward and forward through twelve years, spilling a multitude of clues at every turn, and neatly resolving every one of them. Some of it's reviews are : "Among The House of Sleep's greatest pleasures are the brilliant, touching resolutions of the smallest tendrils of plot, carefully rooted, watered and brought to final bloom by Coe's patient ingenuity. And Coe is just as surefooted with the larger issues, leaving in the novel's wake a dozen thoroughly exploded political and intellectual fashions." - Carey Harrison, San Francisco Chronicle. "Intricately plotted and ingeniously constructed, The House of Sleep is a deft satire of a variety of targets, from monomaniacal researchers to obsessive movie buffs." - Merle Rubin, Wall Street Journal. "(A)n intricately brainy affair, often disconcerting, sometimes moving, frequently funny and occasionally indecipherable." - Richard Eder, The Los Angeles Times. Get yourself a copy and start reading right away !!!!!