Lurking deep within the claustrophobic, meticulously alphabetic shelving of libraries the world over, are the answers to universal secrets. Divine gifts like Amazon.com, Borders, Barnes and Noble, not to mention the Mom and Pop labors of love just parked around the corner, provide us with the most startling wealths of knowledge, entertainment, or just sidenotes of fulfilling satisfaction. Most people go their whole lives reading the creative writings of others, yet never finding that one piece of literary art that changes their lives. Don't let this happen to you.Johnathon Ame's "Wake Up, Sir!" tells the story of a modern-day loser. Meet AlanBlair, a neurotic with a sexual affinity for noses; a Jewish germophobe writer who has only managed to put together one novel seven years before we meet him. Alan speaks at length, Cliff Klavin-style, about a myriad of topics, many of which he knows nothing about. A raging alcoholic, he begrudgingly lives with his aunt and uncle in Montclair, NJ because he was recently kicked out of his New York City apartment. He doesn't have a girlfriend, he doesn't have a job, he has no self-respect. Yes, Alan is a first-class idiot who thinks he is very smart. But the only smart thing he'd probably ever done in his entire life was use his hefty reward money from a timely lawsuit to procure the services of his detached, yet heavily useful valet, the preposterously named Jeeves.Alan and Jeeves decide on a hasty exit from Montclair right before his "guardians" decide to ship him off to rehab. Indecisive about where to go for a few chapters, Alan and Jeeves set up temporary shop at a Motel in Saratoga Springs. Breaking a promise made to his aunt about not drinking, Alan goes out to the local bar one night, gets wasted and ends up getting pummelled by a giant. Black and blue for the rest of the story, he gets accepted to a prestigious artists colony in upstate New York and off they go to begin their adventures with the eclectic personalities of the Rose Colony.Smartly written and witty, Ames manages to display just about every mistake, desire, fetish and thought celebrated and forgotten by us "normal" humans through his variety of characters at the colony. The heroic, yet flawed leader Mangrove, the quirky and ludicrously gorgeous Ava, the sexually depraved Tinkle, and the mammoth visionary Hibben, show us a tour-de-force in character creation and development. Backed by the drunken and hysterical stupidity of our main character, no expense was spared in the telling of many well-thought out stories about the frailty of the human condition. And Jeeves, amazing Jeeves, purposefully inspired from the English comic writings, "Thank You, Jeeves" and "Step Lively, Jeeves!", he is Johnny-on-the-spot at all times. With respect to Wodehouse, Ames really manages to make Jeeves his own creation.Calling this piece a life-changing experience might be a stretch, but this is what writing is all about. It's what reading is all about. It's fun, it's courageous, it's symbolic, it's got everything you need for a nice, funny, summer read - and beyond. This is the type of novel that isn't trying to change the world like the "Da Vinci Code." Ames isn't out to exploit our weaknesses and tell us how wrong we are to have them, i.e., "Under The Volcano." What he did was create an appealing screw-up that you cannot help but root for, torture the guy until even a priest could identify with him, and wrap up the story with a slam-bang ending that makes you laugh and cry at the same time. That's pretty much what we all want. And if getting what you want doesn't change your life, how very preferred you must already be.
I saw Jonathan Ames do a reading about a year ago at the KGB Bar and left with the urge to find his short story collection and gobble it up. He's witty and sex-obsessesed in a nervous sort of way, yet somehow manages to come off as more F. Scott Fitzgerald than Woody Allen. His essay, "American Gothic," about interviewing Goths at a music festival was particularly wonderful, and I used it in one of my classes this past semester. To make a long story short, I recently began watching reruns of the British show, Jeeves & Wooster, based on the books of PG Wodehouse and starring Hugh Laurie (House MD) as the blundering Wooster. Seeing Hugh speaking in his real accent is worth the watch. At any rate, watching the show reminded me that I'd been meaning to buy Wake Up, Sir! to continue my Ames education.The premise of the novel is that Alan Blair, a lovable alcoholic writer, is trying without much luck to finish his novel, The Walker, about his former roommate - whom he misses terribly. To fill the void, and to assist in keeping him on the straight and narrow, Blair hires a valet with some money he won in a legal settlement. Jeeves does his best to keep Blair out of trouble, but with limited success. The novel is, oddly, sort of a road-novel at first - as Blair decides to go to Sharon Springs, Hasidic haven in the Catskills for some rest and relaxation. Despite his best efforts, things fall into disaster in less than 24 hours. Fortunately, he has meanwhile landed a spot at an artist's colony in Saratoga Springs where he can return to work on his novel. He arrives with two black eyes and a broken nose as a result of his Sharon Springs fiasco. However his fellow artists-in-residence are equally odd, so he fits right in. As a matter of fact, for a good while he's not sure if he's accidentally stumbled into an insane asylum, rather than an artist's colony.The book is hysterically funny, full of Jeeves's wry observations and Blair's genuine good-will that is all but doomed to failure. He observes early on, "How terrible to be an alcoholic. You just want to quietly soothe and maybe poison yourself, but you end up poisoning all those around you as well, like trying to commit suicide with a gas oven and unwittingly murdering your neighbors." Much of the novel has this sort of sensitivity to it and it keeps you hooked on the madcap adventures of Jeeves and Blair. In particular, I liked the sections where Blair is actually working on his book, and talking about his process, probably because I'm also deep in the middle of a writing project at the moment. Unfortunately the madness goes overboard as the novel nears its end. Jeeves is less and less present as the other artists become more involved in the story and Blair meets a woman with a beautiful, large nose. Finally the novel ends with a flight from the colony and no word on whether or not the novel will ever be finished or if Blair's demons will be exorcised someday.For all that, I could not put the book down, even as the final chapters began to disappoint. And, in further testament to my faith in Mr. Ames, I have already gone out and bought The Extra Man - Ames's book about a former NYC roommate that he misses terribly, who walks dogs for elderly high society ladies - which yes, coincidentally seems to be the same plot as the book Blair is trying to write in Wake Up, Sir. I'm hoping it is every bit as funny and holds up entirely as well. I guess there's only one way to find out.
What do You think about Wake Up, Sir! (2005)?
'Wake Up, Sir' by Jonathan is a very funny, at times hilarious tale about a frustrated writer and his very special valet. It is written in a stream of consciousness slapstick, with Alan Blair the extremely neurotic protagonist and Jeeves, the appropriately named butler, as straight man. Alan tackles grand issues such as homosexuality, sex, race, crabs (yes, those kind), love and nose fetishes among others and offers unique and bizarre insights on everything as he has a small voyage of discovery. To me, the book was reminiscent of 'Confederacy of Dunces', though I considered it much funnier. A very strange and funny book from a talented writer.
—Don
Clever story with many shout outs to fellow writers and thinkers. For a story where very little happens, a lot does happen. Ames takes a chance to reflect on this to an extent when his character Jeeves shares an interesting thought about memories and how time passes. What is in reality only a few days can seem like a year conversely a year spent with people or in places can seem like a few short weeks. It is the movie version of things. Highlights that we remember and come back to versus total recall of events and happenings. I did rather enjoy this book and am curious how Ames' other books are as well. White wine is a point that pops up a lot in both this and his TV show Bored to Death. For not liking white wine, the constant noting and drinking of it did put me in the mood for a glass of wine while reading.
—Karl
A very funny book, featuring a struggling writer/alcoholic who retreats to an artists' colony with his hired valet, has a sexual predilection for a woman's nose, and has all other sorts of misadventures. The truth about it is that you still want to keep reading, since the chapters are very quick and the action moves along apace. The character is a lovable rogue, one who feels like someone that you know...there is a level of neurotic behavior but the character is not narcissistic or pretentious. He actually has tenderness and cares for people, so it isn't the story of a destructive person that you have no sympathy for (at least that was my reaction).For me the best comedic material came from the interaction between the valet and the protagonist, and the valet's obsequious, but stern reactions to the main character's musing (I forget the guy's name; I read it a few months ago).I picked this up because I found the HBO show "Bored to Death" quite funny. I believe it has been cancelled, but Ames' humorous talent is evident in the novel form here as well.
—Nathan
