This is the story of a man going
about his repetitive, daily routines with bitter doubt and sarcasm. “I needed to knock myself down to a
self-hating drone with all the fight chiselled away. I needed this job to work
its black magic on me before I could stomach a morning of hard manual labour.”
(6) Don’t we all?
“I was on my feet, torn between
throwing a chair through the window and smashing my skull open on the wall.”
Plagued by gut-wrenching decisions, the main character (often called either
“Al” or “Alex” – for some reason we don’t know his real name) trudges through
life questioning every ounce of his existence.
“[Simon] saw the light and powered
toward it without a moment’s thought about consequences. Doubts silenced by
dreams. Routine shattered by opportunity. I hated Simon. I hoped he would fail.
I hoped his relationship with that girl I never met would crumble and he’d be
stranded in a shanty town somewhere in Asia, begging for food in a language he
didn’t know. I imagined him getting hacked to death with a machete after he was
caught stealing a handful of rice from a market stall.” (19)
“There’s no goal. There’s no
satisfaction. Some people have an eternity of bliss after death, some have a
four star cruise around the Caribbean after retirement and some have a bottle
of rum after a shift. No one cares. It doesn’t matter. The people who you sit
next to on the bus, the ones that pass you on the street, they don’t care if
you work forty-five hours a week on minimum wage or have yacht filled with porn
stars and champagne. It makes no difference to them. As long as whatever you do
doesn’t leak into their world. You could reduce your carbon footprint to zero
or kick stray dogs to death, they will never know and they’ll never want to.
You could die right in front of them and you’d just be a small blip in a life
of theirs that was filled with moments of personal woe and happiness. Your
collapsing corpse would be merely an anecdote at the next social event or an
affirming showcase of how fragile and short life is. Maybe your dead, limp body
would inspire them to redecorate the bathroom or maybe to take a trip around
Asia with a girl who did yoga and hated the same things as you. They would
never say you lived an honourable life, they would never say you deserved to
die, you’d always just be how they saw you last, for better or worse.” (19)
“The more I thought about everything
I left behind, the more I knew I could never face it again. The 5am starts, the
buses, the endlessness of filling skip after skip, shelf after shelf. And the
people, the God damn people. They want things. They want to know where this is,
where that is, they want to speak to your superior. They shove disabled kids in
your face and shout rape at the top of their lungs. They won’t be happy until
you’re dead so they can burn your corpse in a cardboard box and scatter your
ashes over landfill. But I didn’t have to go anywhere. I could just sit here,
forever.” (35)
The definition of “skive” is the
instance of avoiding work or duty—something we ALL dream of doing, but, for
some reason, don’t. And whether from boldness, exhaustion, or frustration, this
guy says “F-#@ work!” and chucks it all away. Very admirable!
He says what we’re all thinking, and
he speaks the truth. Some of the British slang and little typos were a little hard
to comprehend at times. And, at times, the language can be slightly crude. The
plot slowed down a bit when the guy joined the crazy hobo saying “F-#@ this”
and “F-#@ that” so often that it grew tiring. But, of course, it all beckons
you back as our hero schleps through the London streets with cynical views for a
cold and gruesome world.
Gritty and poignant, this is a tale
so colorfully illustrated with diverse characters and hopeless luck that
reinforces the age-old mantra: “The world was unfair.” (13)
Brilliantly candid and down-to-earth
with a splash of humor! You can’t help but relate to it every step of the way.
My rating: 4 stars
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