Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe (English) Paperback Book

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The Nile on eBay FREE SHIPPING UK WIDE Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe At 22 years of age, Arthur Seaton is a hard-drinking lathe operator in a bicycle factory. Before long, however, his devil may care life-style gets him into some serious trouble, and Arthur's life takes a turn that not even he could have imagined. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description A rousing and uproarious novel of the life, loves, and misadventures of a working-class rogue, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning marked the arrival of one of the most cherished authors in the twenty-first century. At twenty-two years of age, Arthur Seaton is a hard-drinking lathe operator in a bicycle factory. Sharp, rowdy, and attractive, he is a lover of life in the raw, and his enormous vitality comes pouring through, at a family party, at the county fair, and in several pubs he haunts on Saturday nights, where more often than not he leaves with a woman on his arm. Before long, however, his devil may care life-style gets him into some serious trouble, and Arthur's life takes a turn that not even he could have imagined. Review "Brilliant. . . . [Sillitoe] has assured himself a place in the history of the English novel."—The New Yorker "That rarest of all finds: a genuine no-punches-pulled, unromanticised working class novel. Mr. Sillitoe is a born writer, who knows his milieu and describes it with vivid, loving precision."—Daily Telegraph "Sillitoe's account of the rebellious young factory-fodder hero Arthur Seaton was timely when first published. . . . It is timeless now."—The Guardian "One of the best English writers of the day." —The New York Times Book Review "There are few writers around who can rival Sillitoe when it comes to the complicated business of noticing things." —Literary Review "A master storyteller." —The Observer "Miles nearer the real thing than D.H. Lawrence's mystic, brooding working-men ever came."—Sunday Express "Outspoken and vivid."—Sunday Times, London Review Quote "Brilliant. . . . [Sillitoe] has assured himself a place in the history of the English novel."-The New Yorker Excerpt from Book CHAPTER ONE THE ROWDY gang of singers who sat at the scattered tables saw Arthur walk: unsteadily to the head of the stairs, and though they must all have known that he was dead drunk, and seen the danger he would soon be in, no one attempted to talk to him and lead him back to his seat. With eleven pints of beer and seven small gins playing hide-and-seek inside his stomach, he fell from the top-most stair to the bottom. It was Benefit Night for the White Horse Club, and the pub had burst its contribution box and spread a riot through its rooms and between its four walls. Floors shook and windows rattled, and leaves of aspidistras wilted in the fumes of beer and smoke. Notts County had beaten the visiting team, and the members of the White Horse supporters club were quartered upstairs to receive a flow of victory. Arthur was not a member of the club, but Brenda was, and so he was drinking the share of her absent husband-as far as it would go-and when the club went bust and the shrewd publican put on the towels for those that couldn''t pay, he laid eight half-crowns on the table, intending to fork out for his own. For it was Saturday night, the best and bingiest glad-time of the week, one of the fifty-two holidays in the slow-turning Big Wheel of the year, a violent preamble to a prostrate Sabbath. Piled-up passions were exploded on Saturday night, and the effect of a week''s monotonous graft in the factory was swilled out of your system in a burst of goodwill. You followed the motto of "be drunk and be happy," kept your crafty arms around female waists, and felt the beer going beneficially down into the elastic capacity of your guts. Brenda and two other women sitting at Arthur''s table saw him push back his chair and stand up with a clatter, his grey eyes filmed over so that he looked like a tall, thin Druid about to begin a maniacal dance. Instead, he muttered something that they were too tight or far away to understand, and walked unsteadily to the top stair. Many people looked at him as he held on to the rail. He turned his head in a slow stare around the packed room, as if he did not know which foot to move first in order to start his body on the descent, or even know why he wanted to go down the stairs at that particular moment. He felt electric light bulbs shining and burning into the back of his head, and sensed in the opening and closing flash of a second that his mind and body were entirely separate entities inconsiderately intent on going their different ways. For some reason, the loud, cracked voice singing in the room behind seemed like a signal that he should begin descending at once, so he put one foot forward, watched it turn towards the next step in a hazy fashion, and felt the weight of his body bending towards it until pressure from above became so great that he started rolling down the stairs. A high-octane fuel of seven gins and eleven pints had set him into motion like a machine, and had found its way into him because of a man''s boast. A big, loud-mouthed bastard who said he had been a sailor-so Arthur later summed him up--was throwing his weight about and holding dominion over several tables, telling his listeners of all the places he had been to in the world, each anecdote pointing to the fact that he was a champion boozer and the palliest bloke in the pub. He was forty and in his prime, with a gut not too much gone to fat, wearing a brown waist-coated suit and a shirt with matching stripes whose cuffs came down to the hairs of self-assurance on the back of his beefy hand. "Drink?" Brenda''s friend exclaimed. "I''ll bet you can''t drink like young Arthur Seaton there"-nodding to Arthur''s end of the table. "He''s on''y twenty-one and ''e can tek it in like a fish. I don''t know where ''e puts it all. It just goes in and in and you wonder when ''is guts are goin'' ter go bust all over the room, but ''e duzn''t even get fatter!" Loudmouth grunted and tried to ignore her eulogy, but at the end of a fiery and vivid description of a brothel in Alexandria he called over to Arthur: "I hear you drink a lot, matey?" Arthur didn''t like being called "matey." It put his back up straight away. "Middlin''," he answered modestly. "Why?" "What''s the most you''ve ever drunk, then?" Loudmouth wanted to know. "We used to have boozing matches on shore- leave," he added with a wide, knowing smile to the aroused group of spectators. He reminded Arthur of a sergeant-major who once put him on a charge. "I don''t know," Arthur told him. "I can''t count, you see." "Well," Loudmouth rejoined, "let''s see how much you can drink now. Loser pays the bill." Arthur did not hesitate. Free booze was free booze. Anyway, he begrudged big talkers their unearned glory, and hoped to show him up and take him down to his right size. Loudmouth''s tactics were skilful and sound, he had to admit that. Having won the toss-up for choice, he led off on gins, and after the seventh gin he switched to beer, pints. Arthur enjoyed the gins, and relished the beer. It seemed an even contest for a long time, as if they would sit there swilling it back for ever, until Loudmouth suddenly went green halfway through the tenth pint and had to rush outside. He must have paid the bill downstairs, because he didn''t come back. Arthur, as if nothing had happened, went back to his beer. He was laughing to himself as he rolled down the stairs, at the dull bumping going on behind his head and along his spine, as if it were happening miles away, like a vibration on another part of the earth''s surface, and he an earthquake-machine on which it was faintly recorded. This rolling motion was so restful and soporific, in fact, that when he stopped travelling-having arrived at the bottom of the stairs-he kept his eyes closed and went to sleep. It was a pleasant and faraway feeling, and he wanted to stay in exactly the same position for the rest of his life. Someone was poking him in the ribs: he recognized it not as the vicious poke of someone who had beaten him in a fight, or the gentle and playful poke of a woman whom he had taken to bed, but the tentative poke of a man who did not know whether he was poking the ribs of someone who might suddenly spring up and give him a bigger poke back. It seemed to Arthur that the man was endeavouring to tell him something as well, so he tried very hard, but unsuccessfully, to make an answer, though he did not yet know what the man was saying. Even had he been able to make his lips move the man would not have understood him, because Arthur''s face was pulled down into his stomach, so that for all the world he looked like a fully-dressed and giant foetus curled up at the bottom of the stairs on a plush-red carpet, hiding in the shadow of two aspidistras that curved out over him like arms of jungle foliage. The man''s pokes became more persistent, and Arthur dimly realised that the fingers must belong either to one of the waiters or to the publican himself. It was a waiter, towel in one hand and tray in the other, white jacket open from overwork, a face normally blank but now expressing some character because he had begun to worry about this tall, iron-faced, crop-haired youth lying senseless at his feet. "He''s had a drop too much, poor bloke," said an elderly man, stepping over Arthur''s body and humming a hymn tune as he went up the stairs, thinking how jolly yet sinful it would be if he possessed the weakness yet strength of character to get so drunk and roll down the stairs in such a knocked-out state. "Come on, Jack," the waiter pleaded with Arthur. "We don''t want the pleece to come in and find you like that or we shall get summonsed. We had trubble wi'' a man last week who had a fit and had to be taken to ''t General Hospital in an amb''lance. We don''t want any more trubble, or the pub''ll get a bad name." As Arthur rolled over to consolidate and deepen his sleep a glaring overhead light caught his eyes and he opened them to see the waiter''s white coat and pink face. "Christ!" he mumbled. "He won''t help you," the waiter said dispassionately. "Come on, get up and go out for some fresh air, then you''ll feel better." Arthur felt happy yet unco-operative when the waiter tried to get him to his feet: like being in hospital and having a nurse do everything for you with great exertion, and all the time warning you that you mustn''t try to help yourself in any way or else it would result in you being kept in bed for another week. Like after he had been knocked down by a lorry riding to Derby two years ago. But the waiter had a different point of view, and after pulling him into a sitting position cried, his heavy breath whistling against the aspidistra leaves: "All right. That''s enough. You aren''t lifeless. Come on, get up yoursen now." When another man''s legs opened and closed over Arthurthe retreating shoe knocked his shoulder-he shouted in a belligerent and fully-awake voice: "Hey, mate, watch what yer doin'', can''t yer? Yo'' an'' yer bloody grett clod-''oppers." He turned to the waiter: "Some people love comin'' out on a Saturday night in their pit-boots." The man turned from halfway up the stairs: "You shouldn''t go to sleep in everybody''s way. Can''t tek the drink, that''s what''s the matter wi'' yo'' young ''uns." "That''s what yo'' think," Arthur retaliated, pulling himself up by the stair-rail and holding firmly on to it. "You''ll have to go out, you know," the waiter said sadly, as if he had donned a black cap to pronounce sentence. "We can''t serve you any more ale in that condition." "There''s nowt wrong wi'' me," Arthur exclaimed, recognis Details ISBN 0307389650 Author Alan Sillitoe Short Title SATURDAY NIGHT & SUNDAY MORNIN Language English ISBN-10 0307389650 ISBN-13 9780307389657 Media Book Format Paperback Year 2010 DEWEY 823.914 Birth 1928 Imprint Vintage Books Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 2010-03-02 NZ Release Date 2010-03-02 US Release Date 2010-03-02 UK Release Date 2010-03-02 Place of Publication New York Pages 256 Publisher Random House USA Inc Series Vintage International Publication Date 2010-03-02 Audience General Country of Origin US Product Class Description General & Literary Fiction We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! 30 DAY RETURN POLICY No questions asked, 30 day returns! FREE DELIVERY No matter where you are in the UK, delivery is free. 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