House Mother Normal

Rating:
Summary: a black comedy set in an old people's home
Review: House Mother Normal tells the story of a night in an old people's home as told by eight of its residents - all with varying degrees of senility - and their perverted carer, the "House Mother" of the title. Each of the nine narratives is synchronised in time and within the text, so that a multi-layered panorama of the evening's events slowly emerges. Johnson was a working-class Londoner who was a disciple of Joyce and Beckett. His novels display a range of experimental devices and tricks and he was in many ways ahead of his time. His books are hard to get hold of, but Picador are about to re-issue "The Unfortunates" his famous "book in a box" (27 loose leaf pamphlets to be read in any order)and Jonathan Coe is writing a biography. He is well worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: A phenomenal technical achievement
Review: This book examines the events of one evening in an old people's home. It consists of nine first person narratives, the first eight belonging to the inmates and the ninth, and last, being that of the nurse or "House Mother". The innovative technique used by Johnson is to make each line in each section correspond to the same moment in time. Each section is prefaced with a list of the various infirmities and deficiencies suffered by that person (including a CQ count, used to assess senile dementia, which is the number of correct questions answered out of 10 such as who is the prime minister, what day is it etc), giving us an idea of how that individual's perceptions of events might be affected. Another typographical device used is that interior monologue is shown in roman type, speech in italics and absence of thought or speech by white space.

The technical device used may sound contrived, but it works marvellously to create a vivid three-dimensional effect. Johnson gives us an insight into the geriatric mind with humour, compassion and empathy. The accounts are by turns, both funny and tragic. A couple of the inmates who are at the extremes of senility are portrayed with great feeling and the use of white space and other typographical techniques augments the writing wonderfully in these sections. The final section, that of the House Mother's, is the only disappointment of the book. Her ostensible "normality" forcing us to reassess the apparent "abnormality" of the inmates' perceptions. However, her revelations seem insignificant compared to the human suffering we have already experienced.

Overall, this is one of those rare examples of a perfect fusion of form and content, and another wonderful piece of work from a great, but neglected writer.

Rating:
Summary: A phenomenal technical achievement
Review: This book examines the events of one evening in an old people's home. It consists of nine first person narratives, the first eight belonging to the inmates and the ninth, and last, being that of the nurse or "House Mother". The innovative technique used by Johnson is to make each line in each section correspond to the same moment in time. Each section is prefaced with a list of the various infirmities and deficiencies suffered by that person (including a CQ count, used to assess senile dementia, which is the number of correct questions answered out of 10 such as who is the prime minister, what day is it etc), giving us an idea of how that individual's perceptions of events might be affected. Another typographical device used is that interior monologue is shown in roman type, speech in italics and absence of thought or speech by white space.

The technical device used may sound contrived, but it works marvellously to create a vivid three-dimensional effect. Johnson gives us an insight into the geriatric mind with humour, compassion and empathy. The accounts are by turns, both funny and tragic. A couple of the inmates who are at the extremes of senility are portrayed with great feeling and the use of white space and other typographical techniques augments the writing wonderfully in these sections. The final section, that of the House Mother's, is the only disappointment of the book. Her ostensible "normality" forcing us to reassess the apparent "abnormality" of the inmates' perceptions. However, her revelations seem insignificant compared to the human suffering we have already experienced.

Overall, this is one of those rare examples of a perfect fusion of form and content, and another wonderful piece of work from a great, but neglected writer.