A dream-like love story

The blurb for Jonathan Coe's The House of Sleep didn't really sell the book. It was instead a positive discussion on a podcast that brought it to my attention.

Much of the action takes place in the student accommodation where Sarah, Robert, Terry and Gregory meet. They lose contact after graduation, but a decade later a number of coincidences cause their paths to cross again. At its heart it is a love story.

Sleep, dreams and reality run through the narrative, in fact the book is divided into six sections that follow the sleep cycle. Odd numbered chapters deal with incidents in the 80s, even numbered ones the 90s. This constant shift in time from one chapter to the next initially gives the narrative a dream-like character, which is extended through ending each section with an unfinished sentence and beginning the following section in mid-sentence. It's not as confusing as it sounds.

Coe's work is often described as humorous. This example of his writing provokes most often a wry smile or chuckle, although I did laugh out loud on reading the incident of the fictional film-maker's after-dinner speech and its footnotes. There's another episode that appears to presage horror, also sad moments. Indeed one of the three appendices brought a tear to my eye.

Above all, Coe's skill is to be able to take a reader back in time. It's difficult to pinpoint how he captures the zeitgeist of the Thatcher years in The House of Sleep. Of course, he mentions the occasional cultural reference such as Dallas and Knots Landing, but it's more than this. There's a sort of alchemy to it which he refined for the 70s setting in his 2001 book, The Rotters' Club.