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How Late It Was, How Late
One Sunday morning in Glasgow, Sammy, an ex-convict and sometime shoplifter, awakens down a lane after a two-day drinking binge. Friday is a blur and Saturday has disappeared altogether from his memory. Unwisely he gets into a physical altercation with some soldiers; when he next revives he’s in a jail cell, badly battered and—he slowly discovers—completely blind. And things don’t get any better: His girlfriend has disappeared. The police are questioning him and playing every kind of cop game with his head. His stab at Disability Compensation catches him in the Kafkaesque coils of the welfare bureaucracy. Sammy’s response to this wave of misfortune? “So okay, ye’vd had this bad time. Ye’ve lost yer sight for a few days and it’s been bad. Ye’ve coped but ye’ve fucking coped.”
Told in the utterly uncensored language of the Scottish lower classes, How Late It Was, How Late is a dark and subtly political parable of struggle and survival, a masterpiece of irony and black humor.
Told in the utterly uncensored language of the Scottish lower classes, How Late It Was, How Late is a dark and subtly political parable of struggle and survival, a masterpiece of irony and black humor.
374 pages, Hardcover
First published March 28, 1994
172 people are currently reading
12909 people want to read
About the author
James Kelman
83 books268 followersKelman says:
My own background is as normal or abnormal as anyone else's. Born and bred in Govan and Drumchapel, inner city tenement to the housing scheme homeland on the outer reaches of the city. Four brothers, my mother a full time parent, my father in the picture framemaking and gilding trade, trying to operate a one man business and I left school at 15 etc. etc. (...) For one reason or another, by the age of 21/22 I decided to write stories. The stories I wanted to write would derive from my own background, my own socio-cultural experience. I wanted to write as one of my own people, I wanted to write and remain a member of my own community.
During the 1970s he published a first collection of short stories. He became involved in Philip Hobsbaum's creative writing group in Glasgow along with Tom Leonard, Alasdair Gray and Liz Lochhead, and his short stories began to appear in magazines. These stories introduced a distinctive style, expressing first person internal monologues in a pared-down prose utilising Glaswegian speech patterns, though avoiding for the most part the quasi-phonetic rendition of Tom Leonard. Kelman's developing style has been influential on the succeeding generation of Scottish novelists, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner and Janice Galloway. In 1998, Kelman received the Stakis Prize for "Scottish Writer of the Year" for his collection of short stories 'The Good Times.'
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/au...
My own background is as normal or abnormal as anyone else's. Born and bred in Govan and Drumchapel, inner city tenement to the housing scheme homeland on the outer reaches of the city. Four brothers, my mother a full time parent, my father in the picture framemaking and gilding trade, trying to operate a one man business and I left school at 15 etc. etc. (...) For one reason or another, by the age of 21/22 I decided to write stories. The stories I wanted to write would derive from my own background, my own socio-cultural experience. I wanted to write as one of my own people, I wanted to write and remain a member of my own community.
During the 1970s he published a first collection of short stories. He became involved in Philip Hobsbaum's creative writing group in Glasgow along with Tom Leonard, Alasdair Gray and Liz Lochhead, and his short stories began to appear in magazines. These stories introduced a distinctive style, expressing first person internal monologues in a pared-down prose utilising Glaswegian speech patterns, though avoiding for the most part the quasi-phonetic rendition of Tom Leonard. Kelman's developing style has been influential on the succeeding generation of Scottish novelists, including Irvine Welsh, Alan Warner and Janice Galloway. In 1998, Kelman received the Stakis Prize for "Scottish Writer of the Year" for his collection of short stories 'The Good Times.'
http://www.contemporarywriters.com/au...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 399 reviews
November 12, 2020
Podría decir que nos las tenemos con el personaje de memorias del subsuelo enfrentado a los muros que angustiaron a Josef K y contado por el maestro que influyó a autores como Irvine Welsh. También puedo expresarlo como el flujo mental onanista de un paranoico que jode su vida a base de no poder contener al imbécil que lleva dentro, aunque sea un imbécil consecuente que no busca cobardes excusas exculpatorias. O, si quieren, lo puedo comparar con un Bob Slocum que se pregunta y se pregunta y se pregunta y se pregunta en qué momento me jodí del todo, Zabalita, pero no desde la burguesía acomodada del personaje de Joseph Heller, sino desde el más barriobajero lumpen escocés de mediados de los 90.
En fin, una auténtica maravilla no apta para paladares delicados (el protagonista y el narrador entablan una entrañable competición sobre quién puede llegar a ser peor malhablado). Una narración en tercera persona que se parece muchísimo a una primera persona y cuyo discurso, muy al estilo de Thomas Bernhard, no presenta ninguna interrupción por capítulo alguno entre la primera y la última palabra de las 328 páginas que componen el libro. Un libro intenso, arriesgado, claustrofóbico, brillante en su narrativa y brillante en la plasmación de ese mundo marginal encarnado por ese personaje perdedor entre los perdedores que es Sammy Samuels.
June 18, 2019
Very few books can make a plateau-styled plot like this one enticing. What occurs when vision is impaired from page one of "How Late it Was, How Late"? Well, the other senses are heightened of course, and this becomes an intrepid trek for the reader himself, as he mirrors exactly the plight of the newly-blinded outrageously-ambivalent protagonist who suffers under the most nefarious of circumstances. The experience is at once disorientating & ultimately fierce. Nauseating even.
With great prose that's hard to forget or imitate, I gather it would be a bitch to translate this into another language, for it would lose all its magic, its unique vernacular of the 90's Scottish "lower classes."
With great prose that's hard to forget or imitate, I gather it would be a bitch to translate this into another language, for it would lose all its magic, its unique vernacular of the 90's Scottish "lower classes."
April 21, 2012
If you have never been to Scotland, then literature would have you believe that it is the bleakest, most soul destroying pit of blackened abject despair. The cities are populated with grey-skinned downtrodden gurners whose only options are alcoholism, drugs or suicide. The rivers Clyde, Forth and Tay are not filled with water, nay, they are filled with the salty tears of Rangers Fans, beaten housewives, victims of police violence and neglected children. Did Hadrian build his wall in 122 AD as a physical barrier to stem the tidal wave of depression, moving down like some sort of unstoppable weather front from the north? Possibly. However I, as an actual bonafide Scottish, am here to tell you that this is not the case. We can be a cheery bunch, honest.
How Late it Was, How Late is doesn't exactly paint a cheerful picture of life in working-class Glasgow and the bleakness is further enhanced by the fact that we only come to know protagonist Sammy, via his stream of consciousness outpourings which are variously angry, confused and stoic. Add into the mix the fact that this book is written in working class Scottish dialect will make it seem grimmer to some, and possibly completely incomprehensible to others. Sammy is not having a good week. In fact Sammy has the very good makings of a country and western ballad on his hands. His girlfriend has left him, the polis have beaten him up causing possible permanent blindness, he's got no giro and his friends think he is a grass. Presumably if he had a dog, then that would have died as well. The book spans just over a week in the life of Sammy as he struggles to adjust to his loss of sight although he is surprisingly sanguine about it which was probably key in getting people to empathise with his plight. I came to this with no preconceptions; seriously I'd never heard of it before but I had a vague inkling it was on the 1001 books to read before you die list, so it was nice to pick it up and after the brief adjustment to grammar and vocab (pause-lite C*nt-heavy), become totally engrossed.
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh was published one year before Kelman's Booker Prize winning effort and so presumably Welsh deserves a little credit for paving the way and preparing people for the full frontal attack of an entire book written in Scottish dialect. Check out my review of Morvern Callar if you wish to learn yerself Scotch before hand.
How Late it Was, How Late is doesn't exactly paint a cheerful picture of life in working-class Glasgow and the bleakness is further enhanced by the fact that we only come to know protagonist Sammy, via his stream of consciousness outpourings which are variously angry, confused and stoic. Add into the mix the fact that this book is written in working class Scottish dialect will make it seem grimmer to some, and possibly completely incomprehensible to others. Sammy is not having a good week. In fact Sammy has the very good makings of a country and western ballad on his hands. His girlfriend has left him, the polis have beaten him up causing possible permanent blindness, he's got no giro and his friends think he is a grass. Presumably if he had a dog, then that would have died as well. The book spans just over a week in the life of Sammy as he struggles to adjust to his loss of sight although he is surprisingly sanguine about it which was probably key in getting people to empathise with his plight. I came to this with no preconceptions; seriously I'd never heard of it before but I had a vague inkling it was on the 1001 books to read before you die list, so it was nice to pick it up and after the brief adjustment to grammar and vocab (pause-lite C*nt-heavy), become totally engrossed.
Trainspotting by Irvine Welsh was published one year before Kelman's Booker Prize winning effort and so presumably Welsh deserves a little credit for paving the way and preparing people for the full frontal attack of an entire book written in Scottish dialect. Check out my review of Morvern Callar if you wish to learn yerself Scotch before hand.
April 30, 2018
This was one of the last handful of Booker winners that I had not read. I must admit to having been deterred by its reputation as a difficult read, and as it turned out, such concerns were groundless.
Yes, the book is mostly written in Glaswegian dialect, but it is never at all hard to follow - the antihero Sammy may be his own worst enemy but the tale of what happens when he wakes up blinded in a police cell is gripping and ultimately life affirming .
I can easily see why this book won the prize and I would like to read more by Kelman.
Yes, the book is mostly written in Glaswegian dialect, but it is never at all hard to follow - the antihero Sammy may be his own worst enemy but the tale of what happens when he wakes up blinded in a police cell is gripping and ultimately life affirming .
I can easily see why this book won the prize and I would like to read more by Kelman.
September 23, 2021
How Late it Was, How Late is about a Glaswegian man who, having gone out and got drunk (and then having received a beating from the police), wakes up in a police cell to discover that he's gone blind. It's written entirely in the Scots dialect and in a stream of consciousness style with no breaks for different chapters. It's mostly first person, as told by the unfortunate Glaswegian, Sammy, but Sammy gets confused and sometimes switches to third person. It could not be praised for its readability.
It's easy to see why this is the most controversial winner of The Booker Prize. The choice of character and the swearing used as punctuation, as is common in Glasgow, would not appeal to the typical literary snob who would rather be reading lengthy fan-fiction about Thomas Cromwell to help them to validate their Oxbridge degree (Disclaimer: I've never read Wolf Hall. I'm sure it's lovely). However, it's one of the most perfect character studies I've ever read and it's clearly influenced many Scottish writers who followed. Irvine Welsh is the most obvious example but his influence is also clear in the book I'm reading right now by Janice Galloway.
It's a gloriously bleak story too. I like bleak stories but they can't be bleak to the point of becoming comical, they mustn't stray into the ridiculous. This one works because it's so possible. It's so likely, that I'm sure I've met many iterations of Sammy The Drunk Glaswegian, stumbling out of pubs and slumped in bus stops. When you're reading the book it makes you wonder how many people you've spoken to live lives like this one. So the horrible situations Sammy finds himself in become that little bit darker. Somehow, Kelman then pulls off the impossible and manages to make it funny.
It's a strange version of the unreliable narrator too. When Sammy pulls you into the immediate present, for example when he's in conversation with someone, you read what he literally says to that person at that time. When the conversation is over, you read what he was actually thinking. Then later on he might change his mind. Or forget something else, or remember a new detail. You're in his head, so he can't deliberately mislead you, but he's so confused and so easily distracted that you can't really consider him a reliable narrator either.
It's an intense and visceral novel and, as awful as Sammy can be I found myself rooting for him. He makes terrible decisions but he's not an intrinsically evil character and is more of an unfortunate underdog. It's hard to not like him. Nevertheless, the book left me a little drained and while it made me want to go and find the rest of Kelman's work, I might have a bit of a rest first.
It's easy to see why this is the most controversial winner of The Booker Prize. The choice of character and the swearing used as punctuation, as is common in Glasgow, would not appeal to the typical literary snob who would rather be reading lengthy fan-fiction about Thomas Cromwell to help them to validate their Oxbridge degree (Disclaimer: I've never read Wolf Hall. I'm sure it's lovely). However, it's one of the most perfect character studies I've ever read and it's clearly influenced many Scottish writers who followed. Irvine Welsh is the most obvious example but his influence is also clear in the book I'm reading right now by Janice Galloway.
It's a gloriously bleak story too. I like bleak stories but they can't be bleak to the point of becoming comical, they mustn't stray into the ridiculous. This one works because it's so possible. It's so likely, that I'm sure I've met many iterations of Sammy The Drunk Glaswegian, stumbling out of pubs and slumped in bus stops. When you're reading the book it makes you wonder how many people you've spoken to live lives like this one. So the horrible situations Sammy finds himself in become that little bit darker. Somehow, Kelman then pulls off the impossible and manages to make it funny.
It's a strange version of the unreliable narrator too. When Sammy pulls you into the immediate present, for example when he's in conversation with someone, you read what he literally says to that person at that time. When the conversation is over, you read what he was actually thinking. Then later on he might change his mind. Or forget something else, or remember a new detail. You're in his head, so he can't deliberately mislead you, but he's so confused and so easily distracted that you can't really consider him a reliable narrator either.
It's an intense and visceral novel and, as awful as Sammy can be I found myself rooting for him. He makes terrible decisions but he's not an intrinsically evil character and is more of an unfortunate underdog. It's hard to not like him. Nevertheless, the book left me a little drained and while it made me want to go and find the rest of Kelman's work, I might have a bit of a rest first.
August 6, 2012
I started out with 4 stars..I loved the language and the stream of consciousness style of writing, it really intrigued me and I enjoyed reading the story. I was whizzing through it so I guess I have to give Kelman credit for that..
..I couldn't wait to find out what actually happened on the Saturday night, what happened to Helen, I swore he must have killed her in a violent episode and he had become so traumatized he had mentally broken down..or something to that affect. I was desperate to know what illegal schemes Sammy was really hooked up into, whether he would regain his eyesight, whether the police would pick him up again, how Charlie was involved, maybe Sammy would get bumped off..my mind frantically creating different endings and I couldn't wait to discover it.
...but the pages kept turning, Sammy was stumbling back and forth to the shops, wandering around his apartment paranoid about his future, drinking cups of tea, smoking, I got down to 50 pages, we meet his son..and I thought brilliant, his boy is going coming into the story ..how is this going to unfold..20 pages..he goes to the pub..10 pages...Im waiting for the story to unfold and it finishes..I almost threw the fucking book across the room. The suspense was great, now all James Kelman needs to do is actually finish the book. Fucking Bampot
..I couldn't wait to find out what actually happened on the Saturday night, what happened to Helen, I swore he must have killed her in a violent episode and he had become so traumatized he had mentally broken down..or something to that affect. I was desperate to know what illegal schemes Sammy was really hooked up into, whether he would regain his eyesight, whether the police would pick him up again, how Charlie was involved, maybe Sammy would get bumped off..my mind frantically creating different endings and I couldn't wait to discover it.
...but the pages kept turning, Sammy was stumbling back and forth to the shops, wandering around his apartment paranoid about his future, drinking cups of tea, smoking, I got down to 50 pages, we meet his son..and I thought brilliant, his boy is going coming into the story ..how is this going to unfold..20 pages..he goes to the pub..10 pages...Im waiting for the story to unfold and it finishes..I almost threw the fucking book across the room. The suspense was great, now all James Kelman needs to do is actually finish the book. Fucking Bampot
October 11, 2018
Pearl Ruled (p53)
It's my mood. I'm sure it's my mood. The dialect is actually really involving as a means to convey the character's emotional reality. The structure of the narrative is beautifully used. The 1994 Booker was well awarded indeed.
But Sammy (PoVman) is working. my. nerve.
I cannay see. is the precise moment where I just...I can't...I can not deal with this shithead one more second. I want to enter the book's reality with a truncheon and a hangover and just wail on this nasty, ignorant, testosterone-poisoned public menace. Maybe one day...
...who am I kidding, I will not live long enough to voluntarily return to the company of this ghastly low-class low-brow shit.
It's my mood. I'm sure it's my mood. The dialect is actually really involving as a means to convey the character's emotional reality. The structure of the narrative is beautifully used. The 1994 Booker was well awarded indeed.
But Sammy (PoVman) is working. my. nerve.
I cannay see. is the precise moment where I just...I can't...I can not deal with this shithead one more second. I want to enter the book's reality with a truncheon and a hangover and just wail on this nasty, ignorant, testosterone-poisoned public menace. Maybe one day...
...who am I kidding, I will not live long enough to voluntarily return to the company of this ghastly low-class low-brow shit.
October 28, 2014
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. I’ll no be; no unless I meet some cunt – I hope I don’t!
February 15, 2023
Pitch-dark, post-midnight.
August 17, 2018
"People try to stop ye, stop ye doing things. They dont allow ye to live. But ye've got to live. If ye cannay live ye're as well dead. What else can ye do? It would be good if somebody telt ye. What way ye were supposed to live. They dont fucking tell ye that but they've got nay answers there man, no to that yin, that fucking question, know what I'm saying, it's just big silences, that's what ye fucking get, big silences. How no to live. That's all they tell ye. Fuck them all... It's you. They dont change but you have to. That's the fucking crack."
June 22, 2014
A difficult read not because the narration is told via stream-of-consciousness of a 38-year old drunkard and ex-convict but because the language is that of a working-class Scottish dialect that I am not familiar with. I have no problem with difficult reads as I have read and liked the works of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett but they are written beautifully unlike this book of Kelman whose supposedly humor totally missed my funny bones.
The one that saved this book from getting 1-star rating for me is its Kafkaesque mood all throughout. My take is that Kelman tried to show to the reader the true life of what is going on in the lives of the working-class Scottish men. For example, when Sammy this book's main protagonist is filing for disability because he thinks that he has turned blind and when he truthfully says the reason, that he was arrested and beaten by the police, he was denied of the disability. When examined by the physician he was also refused to be considered as blind. I mean, we, the working class anywhere in the world are getting unfair treatment be it in the office, in government offices like when we deal with social security, salary tax and even with medical insurance.
Sammy's insensitivity and directionless life is not something that is foreign to me too. I had a cousin before whose child had to stay in my parent's house because he spends all his money on alcohol because he felt that his marriage was on the brink of falling apart. So, to forget about his pain, he turned to drinking. It was no different from Sammy whose wife left him and his kid was distant from him. I just don't know why men like them fall for alcohol instead of fixing what is broken because obviously as in the case of Sammy and even that of my cousin, alcohol does not solve anything. When they wake up, the problem is still there.
I have not read any of the novels that Kelman beat up in 1994 in the Booker race. I have The Folding Star (tbr) though so I guess I need to pick that up soon. I have read 1992's winner The English Patient (4 stars) and I thought that Ondaatje's a lot better than this. I even prefer Kelman's 1992 novel, my first by him, another 1001 book, Kieron Smith, Boy (3 stars).
The one that saved this book from getting 1-star rating for me is its Kafkaesque mood all throughout. My take is that Kelman tried to show to the reader the true life of what is going on in the lives of the working-class Scottish men. For example, when Sammy this book's main protagonist is filing for disability because he thinks that he has turned blind and when he truthfully says the reason, that he was arrested and beaten by the police, he was denied of the disability. When examined by the physician he was also refused to be considered as blind. I mean, we, the working class anywhere in the world are getting unfair treatment be it in the office, in government offices like when we deal with social security, salary tax and even with medical insurance.
Sammy's insensitivity and directionless life is not something that is foreign to me too. I had a cousin before whose child had to stay in my parent's house because he spends all his money on alcohol because he felt that his marriage was on the brink of falling apart. So, to forget about his pain, he turned to drinking. It was no different from Sammy whose wife left him and his kid was distant from him. I just don't know why men like them fall for alcohol instead of fixing what is broken because obviously as in the case of Sammy and even that of my cousin, alcohol does not solve anything. When they wake up, the problem is still there.
I have not read any of the novels that Kelman beat up in 1994 in the Booker race. I have The Folding Star (tbr) though so I guess I need to pick that up soon. I have read 1992's winner The English Patient (4 stars) and I thought that Ondaatje's a lot better than this. I even prefer Kelman's 1992 novel, my first by him, another 1001 book, Kieron Smith, Boy (3 stars).
January 23, 2022
My word for the week bampot which means idiot or fool. This stream of consciousness story of Sammy a Glaswegian, ex con who went out and got bladdered resulting in him getting a beating from the police. regains consciousness and is blind. When you get past the fact that every paragraph has the f word either has a noun, verb or adjective the story is quite interesting. I thought this book would take me ages to read but I finished it in two days.
The social and political context of us against them is clear. Sammy has problems he has suddenly gone blind but rather than blame others he gets on with life. A true stoic with a bleak sense of humor. My uncle was blind so years ago I tried a blindfold for an hour. It is a weird experience even for a brief time and scary. This story is optimistic and true grit with a lesson in stoicism. The actual story has a surprising ending and not what I expected. Overall a 3.5 for me and a good read.
The social and political context of us against them is clear. Sammy has problems he has suddenly gone blind but rather than blame others he gets on with life. A true stoic with a bleak sense of humor. My uncle was blind so years ago I tried a blindfold for an hour. It is a weird experience even for a brief time and scary. This story is optimistic and true grit with a lesson in stoicism. The actual story has a surprising ending and not what I expected. Overall a 3.5 for me and a good read.
January 10, 2011
"Nay point in hoping for the best," says Glasgow, Scotland's bold and blinded Sammy early on in How Late It Was, How Late. It's hard-won advice, and given with the highest of intentions.
Don't be daunted by the accent. Don't be put off because the entire book takes place inside the mind of a solitary drinking man whose eyesight has been beaten right out of his head—while in police custody.
And where is that formerly loyal girlfriend? Has she scampered, finally, or is she buried somewhere just beyond where the remembered light of day shines into poor auld Sammy's benighted realm?
James Kelman won the Booker Prize for this one, and the Brits won't award that to a Scot just for nothing.
Don't be daunted by the accent. Don't be put off because the entire book takes place inside the mind of a solitary drinking man whose eyesight has been beaten right out of his head—while in police custody.
And where is that formerly loyal girlfriend? Has she scampered, finally, or is she buried somewhere just beyond where the remembered light of day shines into poor auld Sammy's benighted realm?
James Kelman won the Booker Prize for this one, and the Brits won't award that to a Scot just for nothing.
July 3, 2021
Sammy, a petty criminal, an ex-convict, and a fucking battler (in his own words), is temperamental and impulsive. After waking up from a night of drunken antics, he picks up a fight with a couple of policemen and ends up in the prison, brutally hammered and totally blind. To make his situation worse, his live-in girlfriend Helen goes suspiciously missing. In the ensuing nightmare, Sammy is left to deal with the cruelty of the police and the apathy of government authorities. Every minute becomes a torment for a hard-up blind guy with no one to rely upon.
How does a person come to terms with sudden vision impairment? Sammy, the undying optimist, allays his fears by calling it a temporary glitch, a hard-hitting lesson put in place to try him. He is ready to go on with life in the meanwhile, armed with dark sunglasses and a white stick crafted out of a broom’s handle. Things are not getting any better for him, but he finds joy in small victories, like the ability to carry out his day-to-day tasks. To quote Sammy – ‘a thing ye thought out and then coped with, and ye pushed ahead; green fields round every corner, sunshine and blue skies, streets lined with apple trees and kids playing in the grass…’.
Old Sammy grows on you. He is the kind of guy whose head is full of all kinds of songs; songs he likes, songs he detests, songs that Helen likes or might like, and all the songs he makes up on the go. The kind of guy who buckles himself up by equating the messiest quagmire to a mental arithmetic problem which can be solved in a few small steps. His insides twist with anxiety and his brain responds with amusing pep talks. The book’s ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative is full of his constant patter, funny and tragic at the same time. But I did need some time to get used to his working-class Scottish dialect which is liberally flavoured with cuss words. It is not an effortless read. Everything in Sammy’s universe seems grim and foreboding and I give him full credit for unwittingly lighting up this dismal ambience (including the damp Glaswegian weather) with his wild ruminations.
The meanderings and musings of Sammy are entertaining where his brain makes vague connections and jumps from one thought to the other, changing the entire conversation. That’s how most people think and it is funny to analyze the workings of the mind– the way we justify our situation, judge ourselves by our best intentions and move on. And like the most of us, Sammy’s thought process revolves around certain patterns which can get repetitive and impede the pace of reading.
At the same time, Sammy is selfish, fickle and irresponsible; the kind of guy who has made no attempts to look for his absent girlfriend. When he comes out of his drunken stupor, he is aware that something is wrong and more importantly that he’s not a good man. He is ready to escape to another country with the little money his teenaged son has saved. How late is it for Sammy to change his ways? Is it too late?
3.5 stars for this Booker winning novel
Three cheers for Sammy (you'll root for him) and half a point for for readability
How does a person come to terms with sudden vision impairment? Sammy, the undying optimist, allays his fears by calling it a temporary glitch, a hard-hitting lesson put in place to try him. He is ready to go on with life in the meanwhile, armed with dark sunglasses and a white stick crafted out of a broom’s handle. Things are not getting any better for him, but he finds joy in small victories, like the ability to carry out his day-to-day tasks. To quote Sammy – ‘a thing ye thought out and then coped with, and ye pushed ahead; green fields round every corner, sunshine and blue skies, streets lined with apple trees and kids playing in the grass…’.
Old Sammy grows on you. He is the kind of guy whose head is full of all kinds of songs; songs he likes, songs he detests, songs that Helen likes or might like, and all the songs he makes up on the go. The kind of guy who buckles himself up by equating the messiest quagmire to a mental arithmetic problem which can be solved in a few small steps. His insides twist with anxiety and his brain responds with amusing pep talks. The book’s ‘stream of consciousness’ narrative is full of his constant patter, funny and tragic at the same time. But I did need some time to get used to his working-class Scottish dialect which is liberally flavoured with cuss words. It is not an effortless read. Everything in Sammy’s universe seems grim and foreboding and I give him full credit for unwittingly lighting up this dismal ambience (including the damp Glaswegian weather) with his wild ruminations.
The meanderings and musings of Sammy are entertaining where his brain makes vague connections and jumps from one thought to the other, changing the entire conversation. That’s how most people think and it is funny to analyze the workings of the mind– the way we justify our situation, judge ourselves by our best intentions and move on. And like the most of us, Sammy’s thought process revolves around certain patterns which can get repetitive and impede the pace of reading.
At the same time, Sammy is selfish, fickle and irresponsible; the kind of guy who has made no attempts to look for his absent girlfriend. When he comes out of his drunken stupor, he is aware that something is wrong and more importantly that he’s not a good man. He is ready to escape to another country with the little money his teenaged son has saved. How late is it for Sammy to change his ways? Is it too late?
3.5 stars for this Booker winning novel
Three cheers for Sammy (you'll root for him) and half a point for for readability
October 24, 2008
I think this is the worst book I've ever read to completion. First of all, it's a stream of conciousness novel written in working-class Scottish dialect. Secondly, there was no ultimate payoff for my having to struggle through the frustrating narrative style. I want those hours of my life back!
September 22, 2008
So a few years ago, after I read a blue streak through God of Small Things, Midnight’s Children, Amsterdam, Remains of the Day, Possession, The Blind Assassin – they are all amazing – I decided that I would read every past Booker Prize winner (apparently I am unhappy unless doing something that can eventually crossed off a list.) And although we’ve had some good times – I mean, wow, I would never have thought The English Patient worth reading – my current stance is, Booker Prize, can we talk? Last Orders, Rites of Passage, Hotel du Lac, for real? I don’t know why I’m so disappointed – this is, after all, an honor that bypassed On Beauty in favor of The Sea – and I sorely hate to break a resolution, but this is starting to take “thankless task” to a new level.
Can you tell that I maybe didn’t love How late it was? It fits neatly into that BP sub-category that I like to call “All British Men Are Alcoholics” (others include “No-one Had Sex before 1945” and “Oops, We Sure Screwed Up Our Colonies”), but I’ve seen stag parties in Prague, so I knew that already. I know I’m supposed to think Kelman’s prose is bursting with angry life, a modern bard’s view of the gritty Glaswegian streets etc, but, well, I didn’t. Sorry.
Can you tell that I maybe didn’t love How late it was? It fits neatly into that BP sub-category that I like to call “All British Men Are Alcoholics” (others include “No-one Had Sex before 1945” and “Oops, We Sure Screwed Up Our Colonies”), but I’ve seen stag parties in Prague, so I knew that already. I know I’m supposed to think Kelman’s prose is bursting with angry life, a modern bard’s view of the gritty Glaswegian streets etc, but, well, I didn’t. Sorry.
December 6, 2008
Allright Booker Prize. We're done. You have proven, time and time again, that either you have terrible tastes or I am a total philistine. How late it was is the newest entry into your proud history of Texan timewasters.
Here's what's cool about the book. Scottish working class guy picks a fight with the cops, gets beatdown, goes blind. The parts where he gets out of jail in his hometown and has to find his way back to his apartment is awesome. The part where he deals with government bureaucracy is awesome.. The rest of the book? tiresome.
and the ending....dear god the ending.... I have read in my life a great number of books... This is, quite literally, the worst ending of a book I have ever read. I kid you not.
I almost want to recommend it to you so you could share my pain.
out of sight.
Here's what's cool about the book. Scottish working class guy picks a fight with the cops, gets beatdown, goes blind. The parts where he gets out of jail in his hometown and has to find his way back to his apartment is awesome. The part where he deals with government bureaucracy is awesome.. The rest of the book? tiresome.
and the ending....dear god the ending.... I have read in my life a great number of books... This is, quite literally, the worst ending of a book I have ever read. I kid you not.
I almost want to recommend it to you so you could share my pain.
out of sight.
October 21, 2018
While I see some genius in this book, I did not particularly enjoy reading it as it felt like a homework assignment.
The stream of consciousness writing style, with a prodigious number of f words, seemed a combination of the Sound and the Fury and Trainspotting. The story is set in Glasgow and is a running commentary on a few days in the life of a young man, Sammy, who is a severe alcoholic and who is homeless some of the time and misses his girlfriend and tries to get her back to some extent. He usually speaks about himself in the third person and he is also really good at getting his ass kicked so is hobbled by injuries. I don’t know if the protagonist is considered an anti-hero but his life is pathetic, so as a reader you certainly feel some empathy, as his life arcs toward an inevitable demise.
This book is very heavy on Glasgow street dialect. I was impressed that the author could put this all jargon down for 400 pages or so without using standard sentences. One plus of the novel is that the reader knows from the first page where the story is headed so there are no plot gimmicks and the story stays true to itself.
I can understand why someone might like the book but it wasn’t for me. This novel won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction some twenty years ago.
The stream of consciousness writing style, with a prodigious number of f words, seemed a combination of the Sound and the Fury and Trainspotting. The story is set in Glasgow and is a running commentary on a few days in the life of a young man, Sammy, who is a severe alcoholic and who is homeless some of the time and misses his girlfriend and tries to get her back to some extent. He usually speaks about himself in the third person and he is also really good at getting his ass kicked so is hobbled by injuries. I don’t know if the protagonist is considered an anti-hero but his life is pathetic, so as a reader you certainly feel some empathy, as his life arcs toward an inevitable demise.
This book is very heavy on Glasgow street dialect. I was impressed that the author could put this all jargon down for 400 pages or so without using standard sentences. One plus of the novel is that the reader knows from the first page where the story is headed so there are no plot gimmicks and the story stays true to itself.
I can understand why someone might like the book but it wasn’t for me. This novel won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction some twenty years ago.
February 28, 2015
There seems to be a lot of reviewers who see Sammy Samuels as an unlikeable inebriate and the impression that suggests to me is the main character of How Late staggering around like some pathetic wineo throughout the whole story. That is just so wrong. I found Sammy entirely likeable, and why not. He is not a whinger by any means, he hardly has a drink during the whole story (okay, he starts out severely hung-over), he accepts full responsibility for his problems, even being beaten so excessively by the sodjers (coppers) he is made blind, he loves his partner Helen, he is not a snitch ... for the life of me what is there to dislike about Sammy? He is f***ing funny! His observations are so perceptive and honest, his inventiveness trying to cope with the situation is so innocent and affecting, I just think Kelman has given Sammy's particular socio-slice of Scotland an almighty empowering hug with this work. How on earth he managed to get inside Sammy's head and life so intimately and show it so brutally real using such a convincing first/third person monologue I can't begin to comprehend. Kelman is a genius of his art.
August 6, 2014
I was pleasantly surprised to find out how readable the novel is given a considerable number of complaints about its purportedly indecipherable language and use of stream of consciousness as a narrative technique. In fact, the use of the language of the Scottish working classes did not at all hinder the gripping buildup of this dark tale of oppression as experienced by the novel's protagonist, Sammy. He is victimized by police brutality and weighed down by the more grueling instances of day to day structural violence that takes on Kafkaesque proportions. This is a striking contrast to similarly plotted 'absurdist' or 'postmodern' fiction (I am thinking of Beckett or Auster) that frames dark and seemingly inexplicable episodes afflicting the protagonist purely within the 'symbolic order' or the 'prison house of language.' While it takes time to piece the bits and pieces together in Kelman's novel, the crux of the matter can clearly be contextualized to social and political conditions. And amidst the gloominess that pervades the entire novel, it still manages to end on an optimistic note: open-ended but hopeful. I highly recommend 'How Late it Was, How Late'.
November 14, 2021
if you like this review, i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com
.??? 90s: somebody does not like this book, not me, i love it. the steady, crazy, profane, beautiful voice of sammy never relents, never pauses, and this is one deliriously fast read. this blind man’s vision of the world from the disenfranchised, drinking, rousting, working class- but vibrant and alive- is a voice to hear. i have read this over and over, trying to get the full effect in strong doses. i have read stream of consciousness before, read modernist works built of unbroken voice, but never enjoyed, never so happily horrified as in this book. the rate of f-bombs alone must be a record of some sort. but then, what should he use to characterize his straits? fuck, just go on, man, go on, for when you are going through hell… keep going...
.??? 90s: somebody does not like this book, not me, i love it. the steady, crazy, profane, beautiful voice of sammy never relents, never pauses, and this is one deliriously fast read. this blind man’s vision of the world from the disenfranchised, drinking, rousting, working class- but vibrant and alive- is a voice to hear. i have read this over and over, trying to get the full effect in strong doses. i have read stream of consciousness before, read modernist works built of unbroken voice, but never enjoyed, never so happily horrified as in this book. the rate of f-bombs alone must be a record of some sort. but then, what should he use to characterize his straits? fuck, just go on, man, go on, for when you are going through hell… keep going...
September 13, 2019
Oh me oh my. I felt as if I’d held my breath the entire time I read this. In the end I can remember letting out a huge sigh of relief that it was over. Not that I was glad it was over, just relieved that maybe, just maybe, Sammy’s problems were over. This character knew just what kind of problems he faced and for the most part, he didn’t stand a chance living in a world that is twisted and bent. There’s this relentless sense that maybe his problems are too huge to run away from. There is a Kafka like interview with social services when he attempts to obtain assistance for the loss of one of his senses with the blackest humour possible - “ maybe it’s a load of fucking shite. All these different ways you have of kidding yerself on.” Sammy is a character who takes the reader along on his series of challenges, obstacles and rotten luck. He grabs you in and makes you feel his feelings. He is flooded with the unfamiliarity of it all - all the new emotions, and so was I. A raw, and relentless tale where every day is another step towards an unknown destination.
March 16, 2009
I started this on a rainy weekend and had a hard time putting it down. I was immersed in Sammy's brain and there weren't any good places to stop! It takes a bit to get into the flow of his dialect but once you do, amazing.
July 5, 2020
How intriguing it is, how intriguing
Glaswegian 90's lower-class dialect
A lack of punctuation; maybe utter disdain, for quotation marks & chapters for there are neither
Is it character or plot drive - honestly I don't know... plot?
fits and starts, pacing that hurtles then crawls. I do appreciate the unpredictable nature
Sooo many freakin' questions
a sudden onset of blindness and the largely everyday functionality and practicality repercussions are painful and enthralling.
this breaks so many rules (typical literary one as well as just those of my liking) and yet... I really, really liked it.
Glaswegian 90's lower-class dialect
A lack of punctuation; maybe utter disdain, for quotation marks & chapters for there are neither
Is it character or plot drive - honestly I don't know... plot?
fits and starts, pacing that hurtles then crawls. I do appreciate the unpredictable nature
Sooo many freakin' questions
a sudden onset of blindness and the largely everyday functionality and practicality repercussions are painful and enthralling.
this breaks so many rules (typical literary one as well as just those of my liking) and yet... I really, really liked it.
January 24, 2009
Kelman is one of the most important prose and narrative stylists of the last 50 years and is maybe the biggest innovator in stream of conscious narrative since Joyce. Highly recommend. Another good one to start with is his short story collection "Busted Scotch."
April 1, 2009
Kelman's best (so far). It's a feckin masterpiece.
April 28, 2021
Non è per la prosa bizzarra e oltraggiosa (che mi intrigava proprio per aver ispirato il buon Welsh). Non è per il personaggio né troppo nero né troppo redento (che comunica bene il turbamento). Non è per il linguaggio scurrile né per il flusso di coscienza (che si amalgamano con risultati alterni). Ma la storia?
February 18, 2021
Utterly pointless. Disconcerting. Infuriating. Disappointing.
The cover image portrays with stunning precision the reading experience you can expect from this novel.
This book went nowhere and was blood-boilingly frustrating. It is about an alcoholic, truculent, indecisive man suffering a blackout and being pursued by the cops. He suddenly goes blind too. The whole story is about him drinking and swearing (which didnay bother me) and making plans to do things and failing to do them. It is narrated in stream of consciousness style in a Scottish working class accent. Everything is ambiguous and nothing at all happens. The stream of consciousness, instead of giving additional insights into this man and his psyche, willfully misleads the reader and blinds him to his actual character, the chain of events and the nature of people surrounding him. His sudden blindness was supposed to heighten the other senses, but this was not conveyed to any particular/successful effect. We get a weird emphasis on his bodily functions, but that was about it. This whole thing might have worked as a short story but it was absolutely pointless as a novel. It was a very frustrating, unpleasant, anxiety-inducing read and discomfort was my most common reaction throughout the novel, especially towards the end. I was going through a period of nervous uncertainty in my life while reading this and this book amplified the feeling. Wrong timing, perhaps. But the Booker tag carries a set of expectations with it and this book did nothing to satisfy any of them.
The writing was actually engaging and made me not want to abandon it midway - that's all the more frustrating because it creates hopes and tramples on them. Intentional ambiguity apart, the prose was good, funny sometimes and some of his insights about Scottish life were spot on. But, the novel leads you to believe that it is building up to something and creates some tension only to fall flat with a thunderous crash in an infuriatingly underwhelming anticlimax. Nothing is explained - what lead to the blackout, what exactly happened to the girlfriend, why exactly did the cops pursue him - nothing. Zilch. Soaked in uncertainty and pointless rage, it reminded me of the movie Uncut Gems which put me in a similarly agitated zone.
Reading this novel has charged me into a state of furious discontent and it's gonna take me a while to cool down.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
P.S: While I hated this novel for its narrative loose ends, it seems to have been a milestone novel in terms of working class representation and usage of expletives. When it won the Booker, it seems to have stirred a major controversy due to its language and subject matter, mainly offending class snobs in the UK. That is admirable.
Some context :
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/bo...
The cover image portrays with stunning precision the reading experience you can expect from this novel.
This book went nowhere and was blood-boilingly frustrating. It is about an alcoholic, truculent, indecisive man suffering a blackout and being pursued by the cops. He suddenly goes blind too. The whole story is about him drinking and swearing (which didnay bother me) and making plans to do things and failing to do them. It is narrated in stream of consciousness style in a Scottish working class accent. Everything is ambiguous and nothing at all happens. The stream of consciousness, instead of giving additional insights into this man and his psyche, willfully misleads the reader and blinds him to his actual character, the chain of events and the nature of people surrounding him. His sudden blindness was supposed to heighten the other senses, but this was not conveyed to any particular/successful effect. We get a weird emphasis on his bodily functions, but that was about it. This whole thing might have worked as a short story but it was absolutely pointless as a novel. It was a very frustrating, unpleasant, anxiety-inducing read and discomfort was my most common reaction throughout the novel, especially towards the end. I was going through a period of nervous uncertainty in my life while reading this and this book amplified the feeling. Wrong timing, perhaps. But the Booker tag carries a set of expectations with it and this book did nothing to satisfy any of them.
The writing was actually engaging and made me not want to abandon it midway - that's all the more frustrating because it creates hopes and tramples on them. Intentional ambiguity apart, the prose was good, funny sometimes and some of his insights about Scottish life were spot on. But, the novel leads you to believe that it is building up to something and creates some tension only to fall flat with a thunderous crash in an infuriatingly underwhelming anticlimax. Nothing is explained - what lead to the blackout, what exactly happened to the girlfriend, why exactly did the cops pursue him - nothing. Zilch. Soaked in uncertainty and pointless rage, it reminded me of the movie Uncut Gems which put me in a similarly agitated zone.
Reading this novel has charged me into a state of furious discontent and it's gonna take me a while to cool down.
Deep breaths. Deep breaths. Deep breaths.
P.S: While I hated this novel for its narrative loose ends, it seems to have been a milestone novel in terms of working class representation and usage of expletives. When it won the Booker, it seems to have stirred a major controversy due to its language and subject matter, mainly offending class snobs in the UK. That is admirable.
Some context :
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/...
https://www.nytimes.com/1994/11/29/bo...
August 7, 2020
ah for fucks sake. ya wake up after a long night ah drink and ya canna see. lass i remembar is sluggin it out with some facking solgers, the coppers. some facking luck. they knocked me about good and now i canna see shite. to top it, some fucks taken me good shoes and left me some smelly trainers that be 5 sizes too wee.
i've seen worse. i'll shut my fuckin moanin. a wee bloke mindin me own time, just needin a pint once in a fuckin while and a bit of tobacca. i've me troubles with tha facking solgers, but twas years back. now i dunno who i canna trust. these fackin docs and agents askin me nonsense, tryin a get me deeper in shite with tha coppers. well its notta gonna werk. i was na bern yasterday.
if ya wanna follow me, thars notta much i canna do bout tha. ya fucks get your giggles at watchin a pour sod stumblin about tryin to get a fix on me situation. i dunno know whar my woman has gotten ta. sure we got inna a disagremant, an ill admit its me own fackin fault. what i donna like is that fackin coppers breathin down me throat and me not evan with a wee way to know tha fucks are comin.
if ya wanna know why the solgers are so dern intrasted in me, tuff fuckin luck. i ainnta saying shite.
ya still here? for facks sake, theres gotta be something mur intrastin that me sorry lafe. well its your facking problem so sod off or fallow me, what the fack da i care.
i've seen worse. i'll shut my fuckin moanin. a wee bloke mindin me own time, just needin a pint once in a fuckin while and a bit of tobacca. i've me troubles with tha facking solgers, but twas years back. now i dunno who i canna trust. these fackin docs and agents askin me nonsense, tryin a get me deeper in shite with tha coppers. well its notta gonna werk. i was na bern yasterday.
if ya wanna follow me, thars notta much i canna do bout tha. ya fucks get your giggles at watchin a pour sod stumblin about tryin to get a fix on me situation. i dunno know whar my woman has gotten ta. sure we got inna a disagremant, an ill admit its me own fackin fault. what i donna like is that fackin coppers breathin down me throat and me not evan with a wee way to know tha fucks are comin.
if ya wanna know why the solgers are so dern intrasted in me, tuff fuckin luck. i ainnta saying shite.
ya still here? for facks sake, theres gotta be something mur intrastin that me sorry lafe. well its your facking problem so sod off or fallow me, what the fack da i care.
May 21, 2020
Conflicted. I should like this book - a Booker prize-winning novel set in my home city of Glasgow and written in the Glaswegian dialect. I really wanted to like this book.
But the curse of Booker struck again (see also Milkman by Anna Burns). It's a tough slog to read, with deliberately disconcerting sentences and paragraphs left unfinished. It starts with an interesting premise but then the plot goes absolutely nowhere. The pace crawls along, pages and pages endlessly repeating, conversations that go in circles and end up nowhere.
The dialect is good to read, the swearing is true to life, but there are little niggles - having lived in Glasgow my whole life, I have never heard anyone refer to police officers as 'soldiers'.
And then there's Sammy, the main character. The trouble with people like Sammy, working class, down on his luck, ex-con, is that artists and authors romanticize them into something they're not. In truth, this sort of character can be found in Glasgow, and generally they are not very nice people. So it's hard to have any empathy.
And by the end, it all seems a bit pointless and not worth the effort - and then I read the quotes on the covers lauding it and remember it won the Booker and I think I really must be missing something.
But the curse of Booker struck again (see also Milkman by Anna Burns). It's a tough slog to read, with deliberately disconcerting sentences and paragraphs left unfinished. It starts with an interesting premise but then the plot goes absolutely nowhere. The pace crawls along, pages and pages endlessly repeating, conversations that go in circles and end up nowhere.
The dialect is good to read, the swearing is true to life, but there are little niggles - having lived in Glasgow my whole life, I have never heard anyone refer to police officers as 'soldiers'.
And then there's Sammy, the main character. The trouble with people like Sammy, working class, down on his luck, ex-con, is that artists and authors romanticize them into something they're not. In truth, this sort of character can be found in Glasgow, and generally they are not very nice people. So it's hard to have any empathy.
And by the end, it all seems a bit pointless and not worth the effort - and then I read the quotes on the covers lauding it and remember it won the Booker and I think I really must be missing something.
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