How late it was, How late

‘How late it was, how late’ written by James Kelman was the booker prize winner for the year 1994. This was a very controversial booker prize winner where Simon Jenkins, a member of the committee going out and saying “ Kelman had done nothing more than to transcribe the rambling thoughts of a blind Glaswegian drunk”, another member calling it “literary vandalism”, one of the person on committee threatened to quit the committee if this book won and many other cases of dissent being shown against this book. It winning the award was not as rapturous either; columnist counted the number of times “fucks” and “cunts” were there in the book. But the motivation for me reading this book was that someone said “British won’t give a booker to a Scot just for nothing”.

At the heart of the novel is the unvanquished passion for equality and justice for the lowest of the lowest. The book is about Sammy Samuels an unlikely hero, cantankerous, unrepentant ex-con(“all in all he had done eleven years. They rolled off the tongue”) and a permanent job seeker. The reader need not like Sammy but it is impossible to not to be able to identify with him. A lot of things in Sammy’s life go awfully wrong, starting with the disastrous rife with his live in girlfriend Helen which lead to her disappearing followed by the beating he takes which result him having presumably permanent problems in lungs, spinal cord and eyes. Even after all this he is back in jail in a bed bunk which is uncomfortable to him to the highest degree. But Sammy’s response to all these problems is of courage, dignity and fierce optimism. As the tile goes ‘How late it was, How late’ the question is whether there is still time for Sammy to do anything that will help his fortunes or is now too late.

'These things are sent to try ye,' Sammy shrugs. 'Life; life is sent to try ye.' But still and all, to take realistic stock: 'There was things out his control. There was things in his control but there were other things out, they were out his control, he had put them out his control.'

'These wee victories,' Sammy says, heading for the pub, 'ye've got to celebrate them, otherwise ye ferget ye've won them.'

“How late it was, how late” had a very uncomplicated plot, with the simplest of actions being explained in minute detail. This may be due to the fact that maybe the author James Kelman wanted the reader to share the affliction of Sammy’s sudden blindness. After the onset of his blindness, which maybe permanent, all the new characters are described by their attitude and demeanor rather than their physical characteristics. Similar is the case with locations described in the book, they are identified by the mere belief that Sammy is where he is supposed to be. But most important of all are Sammy’s decisions. Even though Sammy’s thoughts on the present situation are very clear to the reader his final decision seem to happen on the fly, where though he aims to do one thing he could very well had taken the other option. Like, for instance a simple act of buying lunch is an ordeal for Sammy partially due to his blindness and sense of direction. It is as if the writer is trying to make the reader feel blind.

This is also true for the end of the novel .When the novel ends in a very similar fashion in which it started the reader is left to contemplate whether it would work out for him or not.

Kelman while maintaining the account of difficulties faced due to blindness keeps talking about things of much more importance such as reality, existence and whatnot.

“Waiting rooms. Ye go into this room where ye wait. Hoping’s the same. One of these days the cunts’ll build entire fucking buildings just for that. Official hoping rooms, where ye just go in and hope for whatever the fuck ye feel like hoping for. One on every corner. Course they had them already – boozers. Ye go in to hope and they sell ye a drink to help pass the time. Ye see these cunts sitting there. What’re they there for? They’re hoping. They’re hoping for something. The telly’s rotten. So they go out hoping for something better. I’m just away out for a pint, hen, be back in an hour. You hoping the football’ll come on soon? Aye. I hope ye’ll no be too long”

There are a lot of unanswered question strewn across the whole novel, Why and when did the police give him a horrific beating that he has come to find himself blind? Why is the medic at the clinic so intent of justifying that Sammy’s sight loss is temporary rather than permanent? Why did Helen disappear and how is that she is not working where she is supposed to? What happened during the binge drinking? Why do police keep telling Sammy that he is in deep political trouble?

The blindness in itself is also strange. It is never plausibly explained throughout the course of the book. This made it clear even though the book is based in a social down to earth Glaswegian setting, is far from a realistic work of fiction as it could be.The central theme though interesting does become somewhat tiring, as the story is concerned with only one character played out inside Sammy's head, it becomes a tad bit repetitive. Further more memory and repetition become and inseparable part of Sammy's effort to deal with his blindness. What further enrages the reader is Sammy's erratic switch from resilience to despair and his being totally unaware about this problem of his.