A Spot of Bother is an alternating-POV story about going quietly mad and loudly sane, and love under all our layers of repression and confusion: There’s newly-retired dad George, politely failing to bury his increasing obsessive thoughts of mortality under a zest for home renovations. Mom Jean, already balancing familial duty and work and volunteering, is just trying to find more time for her passionate affair with a long-time acquaintance. Their outspoken grown-up daughter Katie intends to marry her boyfriend Ray despite her suspicion that he’s wrong for her— because he’s right for her son. And emotionally-distant son Jamie just can’t explain to his boyfriend why he’s not invited to the wedding. Haddon’s style is pretty sparse, but earnest. The characters’ dramas could easily become trite, but their awareness and wryness in the face of their situations instead lends an endearing realness. At times I almost felt a little cheated that the split narratives, by necessity, truncated the fuller version of each story. But even with the glimpses, I got a sense that each Hall lived in a world beyond just the necessary set pieces, full of friends and coworkers and exes—of complex relationships—a specificity that allowed me to be drawn into their struggles in spite of myself. The strongest parts of the novel are actually when the family members directly interact. We get to “see” the same events in their overlapping voices, which surprised me by highlighting the complexities of intention and communication (rather than falling into tedious exercise). If you’ve ever seen one of these comedies, it’s hardly a surprise that all these threads erupt into a madcap ending. I think some readers might find George’s central story kind of crass and shocking and inexplicable at times. I sort of wished Haddon was less enigmatic about it, especially being the subject that was probably the hardest to comprehend or relate to. But real life is not tied up so easily. And so when all the dust settled, I found myself left with some heartwarming end scenes and some open end scenes… but most of all, the overall sense of empathy for the ways people try to make sense out of the chaos.(Reread April 2012: Nothing to add of insight, except to note poor Mark Haddon, doomed to forever have his work as "not as good as his first novel Curious Incident. Well those people are wrong. A Spot of Bothers's comedy of manners is just as accessible, and it shows more maturity regarding character development and less reliance on the so-called cute gimmicks he's been accused of propogating. I'm sure I've saved him from crying into buckets of money now, so this reread has gone to good cause.)
I pretty much hated this book. It was the type of book that you read because you liked the author's other work, but it's so aggressively bad that it makes you reconsider whether or not you actually liked the author's previous work upon closer consideration.So what was so bad about it? Well, for the one the characters simply didn't ring true. They all felt poorly sketched out, just a bunch of people having what Haddon would have you believe are constant epiphanies about their sad little lives. He writes in such a way that you can tell he wants the reader to think it's a stunning revelation that this character is having, when it's just another dull moment in a rather dull story. If I had a dollar for every time Haddon made a one sentence paragraph meant to reveal some larger truth about the character's personalities, I'd be a rich man. He also has a nasty habit of ending each "chapter" (there are well over 100 of them, most 2 pages or less) with some half-assed "cliff-hanger", something better suited to the James Pattersons and R.L. Stines of the world.Haddon doesn't seem to understand his characters, and he doesn't seem to care to, either. He simply throws a jumble of people into awkward situations and has them (over)react like a bunch of unlikeable, selfish jerks and then comment to themselves that, perhaps, they are acting like unlikeable, selfish jerks who are overreacting to what are, in reality, fairly mundane situations. They're sad, selfish little people, yet Haddon seems to think they are endearing.Finally, he ends the book fairly abruptly and with a neat little bow on top that doesn't suit it. Everything works out for everyone involved, yet no one seemed to learn anything or grow as people. They all ended exactly where they began with no growth whatsoever. I've heard people who are familiar with autism claim that Haddon's sketch of the child in 'A Curious Incident of the Dog in the NightTime' was actually woefully inaccurate and quite offensive, and seeing the way he handles his characters' problems in this story, I'm much more inclined to believe that. Just an awful, awful book. Haddon seems to think he's writing a British version of 'The Corrections', but he's painfully mistaken. I'll probably not read anything by Haddon again.
What do You think about A Spot Of Bother (2006)?
"Talking was, in George's opinion, overrated. You could not turn the television on these days without seeing someone discussing their adoption or explaining why they had stabbed their husband. Not that he was averse to talking. Talking was one of life's pleasures. And everyone needed to sound off now and then over a pint of Ruddles about colleagues who did not shower frequently enough, or teenage sons who had returned home drunk in the small hours and thrown up in the dog's basket. But it did not change anything." (4)"The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely. How anyone could work in the same office for ten years or bring up children without putting certain thoughts permanently to the back of their mind was beyond him." (4)"He looked round at the stained-glass lambs and the scale model of the crucified Christ and thought how ridiculous it all was, this desert religion transported wholesale to the English shires. Bank managers and PE teachers listening to stories about zithers and smiting and barley bread as if it were the most natural thing in the world." (44)"What was Jamie going to say? It seemed so obvious what he felt. But when he tried to put it into words it sounded so clumsy and unconvincing and sentimental. If only you could lift a lid on the top of your head and say, 'Look.'" (243)"That was the problem, wasn't it. You left home. But you never did become an adult. Not really. You just fucked up in different and more complicated ways." (274)"And it occurred to him that there were two parts to being a better person. One part was thinking about other people. The other part was not giving a toss about what other people thought." (288)
—Brynn
oh i loved this! haddon induces the same empathy for these characters as he did for the boy in curious incident, which is a much harder task considering that these characters are just flawed self-absorbed adults and not children suffering from mental illness. by flawed self-absorbed adults i of course mean me and you. he has a remarkable talent for dialogue and delivery, which is, to me, the trickiest thing to do well. you dont want to put it down, and you dont want it to end, and you so badly want for all of the characters to sort themselves out and love each other again. (the only thing i didnt like was the vast number of characters, many of them unnecessaryily mentioned in passing on page 21 and then casually referenced again on page 300 as if you are meant to remember them...although i think what he was trying to do there is create a conversational style...). its one of the few books ive finished and thought immediately, i will read this again one day. chock full of undeniable goodness.
—Jessica Baxter
Who doesn't love a story about a retired husband and father slowly but surely losing his mind?Part hypochondriac, Part neuroses, sprinkle in some anxiety and panic attacks, and a vision of something that no man should ever have to witness first hand -- and it's fun for the whole family.Speaking of family, this ones got LOADS of issues! All the better to make you appreciate what you have.Cleverly written, it had me turning pages like a maniac. I was dying to find out what was going to happen next! Although, for a moment there I was ready to shut the book and take a break... There's an awfully gritty part that takes place in the bathroom that had me cringing and tingly behind the knees... Bleck!All in all, another home run for Haddon.. master of the "messed up families".
—Lori
