Pravidla péče o dřevěné podlahy

by Will Wiles

Sebevědomý skladatel Oskar, autor světově proslulých Variací na jízdní řády tramvají, je tak trochu pedant a puntičkář. Přesto nalezne odvahu poprosit svého bohémského kamaráda (a mj. také neúspěšného spisovatele), aby se mu nějakou dobu staral v jeho po všech stránkách dokonalém domově o kočky. V bytě uklizeném tak, že by zde šlo jíst z podlahy, mu zanechává manuál a na každém kroku nalepené papírky s instrukcemi, jak s čím zacházet a co dělat. Když spisovatel na druhý den ráno nachází na podlaze malou skvrnu, rozhodne se (jak už bývá jeho zvykem) samozřejmě udělat to nejhorší, co v dané situaci může – sám skvrnu zkusí odstranit. A pak už nic na světě není takové jako předtím… Debutový román Angličana Wille Wilese nominovaný v roce 2012 na National Book Award v kategorii „Objev roku“ v sobě mísí typický britský černý humor s gradovaným napětím, za které by se nemusel stydět lecjaký thriller.

Genres: Fiction, Humor, Contemporary, Book Club, Novels, Literary Fiction, Audiobook

312 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Also writes as W.P. Wiles

Reviews

[Petra X · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is the house that the finiky, persnickety Oskar built
These are the two cats that Oskar loves obsessively
This is the wooden floor that Oskar is OCD about
This is the confetti of the endless, detailed, anally-retentive, neat-freak notes that Oskar has left simply everywhere.

But Oskar is not there. He is in the US getting divorced.

A friend, not a close friend, is looking after this model apartment because it's a free place to stay whilst he tries to recharge his creative energies.

He's not a neat freak, couldn't care less about the cats, thinks a floor is just a floor, a piano just a piece of furniture for banging out tunes on and all these notes are kind of making him neurotic that he isn't looking after things just as Oskar wants and that Oskar might notice his lack of attention to detail.

"Lack of attention" is a euphemism. He fucks absolutely everything up and his attempts at cover-ups are as useless as they are hilarious.

Kind of not the house that Jack built, but the house that Jack took apart, plank by plank.

The book is so funny - you'd have to be stone cold dead in your grave not to to get the banana peel effect.

You know, you see it there, you watch someone walking along the road not paying any attention, you know they are going to step on it and slip and you are almost pissing yourself laughing at what's going to happen. And there you go - she slips and you are duly rewarded by a nice show of ass over tit and oh dear, shouldn't laugh, must go and help the poor lady, but it was funny as hell.

The book is just like that.

Entirely rewritten August 2013

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

A clever dark comedy about an average Englishman, flat-sitting for one of is friends, in an unnamed Eastern European country. It's a perfect flat, with a perfect wooden floor, you can guess what is going to happen. right? A fun dark comedic read that is very well crafted tale. 7 out of 12, Three Star read :)

2013 read

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bizarre and periodically funny novel about how things can go spectacularly wrong from small beginnings. Set in a nameless city in Eastern Europe. Oskar is an obssessively clean, tidy and neat composer who is going over to LA to get divorced from his wife. he asks an old university friend (who he hasn't seen for some years) to look after his flat. It is a bright, shiny minimalist flat. There is an expensive piano, expensive books, a shiny kitchen, an expensive leather sofa and most of all a massively expensive wooden floor which is Oskar's pride and joy. The aforesaid friend is something of a slob who is a little accident prone. Oskar leaves lots of notes everywhere about how to look after the flat and the floor. There are also two cats and voluminous instructions on how to care for them. Oskar's notes are odd and almost psychic (like the one under the piano lid saying don't play with the piano). There is a great deal of red wine and descriptions of hangovers. The inevitable happens and the friend, who is also the narrator, puts a glass on the floor and leaves a small stain. Then life just spirals out of control in a graceful and gradually spiralling way. Lots more wine stains, broken glass, blood, blue dye (you'll have to read the book for that), adventures with the rubbish chute, a reappearing animal corpse, a pack of wild dogs and general death and mayhem.
It is easy to read, fairly slight and amusing at times. The blurb in the book says it's about alienation and entropy, and at a stretch I suppose that's true. The ending is a bit dull and the build up to it is rather predictable; you can see it coming. I originally heard this on the radio as a book at bedtime reading. I remember it being funnier then; possibly it is better as an audio with some juicious editing because at times the joke is dragged out a bit. 3.5 stars.

[Cynthia · Rating 4 out of 5]

JEEVES!

This book is hilarious! Some of Wiles’s humor dips into the slapstick but more in the sense of P.G. Wodehouse rather than the Three Stooges. “Care of Wooden Floors” is subtle, plot driven, and cleverly worded. There was one gag however, that was anything but funny. It was obvious and cruel and used merely for shock value. It doesn’t ruin the entire book but threatens to do so. Maybe I’m being too American.

The protagonist writes government pamphlets explaining such things as when and where his fellow British citizens are to throw out their garbage or where they can find and utilize local services, etc. He dreams of becoming a ‘real’ writer so he jumps at his old college friend’s invitation to apartment sit. Just think a quiet place to write for at least a week…maybe more. His friend Oskar is a composer and a neat nik. Our narrator is anything but. Chaos ensues. The apartment is immaculate and the place is strewn with helpful notes concerning its upkeep. Oscar meets Felix. Kaboom. It also doesn’t help that Oskar’s place is located in an unspecified Eastern European city that still has one foot in Communism. Our hero doesn’t understand the language, has only a glancing competency in maintaining order, and as one disaster after another unfolds his patience wears thin and he has no helpful pamphlets to help him, just cryptic notes. He dances as fast as he can but will it be fast enough? How much could go wrong in one week? You’ll be amazed to learn the answer to that as you turn page after page.

Oddly the Narrator’s name is never given though we know Oskar’s name, the name of Oskar’s wife, and even the narrator’s ex-girlfriend is named. Wiles book is written in the first person from the main character’s point of view. I have to believe this is significant. The city Oskar lives in is also not named. This marks the storyteller as an Everyman and the setting as somewhat amorphous Every place though it’s broadly specified as Eastern Europe. In any case this guy sure could have used a manservant such as Jeeves! The cleaner in “Care of Wooden Floors” is anything but Jeeveslike but almost as funny in an unwitting way.

[Melissa · Rating 1 out of 5]

What started out as a charming farce quickly deteriorated into the book equivalent of being trapped in a closed room with a teeth grinder. The drunken, unnamed main character was too dis-likable. He never took any responsibility for his actions and as one disaster after another piled up, the book lost the ability to believed. The ending was such a cop-out as well. This would have made a rather funny short story but as a novel it just doesn't work.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was laughing out loud during the last quarter of this book; it was a fun read, and there was the bonus of it being well written too. The stylish writing saved the mid third from being mired by a bit of boggy floundering; the debauched night on the town may have been mostly irrelevant but it provided funny descriptions of a hangover. ("I may have groaned. My body was made from wads of soggy material inexpertly lashed together with stringy sinews. The wads composed of the worst stuff possible – bad milk, wine turned to vinegar, chewed gum, earwax, the black crud that accrues on the bottom of computer mice. The connecting sinews all strained and ached. It was a bad scene.")
I loved his observations, ("On the landing...was a woman, hair tied back in the ubiquitous headscarf, her age an irrelevant point somewhere between forty-five and seventy. A life of poor diet and hard work had turned her into a huge callus, and her nose was pushed up in a way that inescapably reminded me of the squashed face of a bat.") and his interior monologue . His care of his friend's flat with the gorgeous wooden floors is marred by the cumulative effects of foreseeable and preventable incidents, yet his continued rationalisation of his actions is helplessly human, and although not quite endearing they are oddly understandable. The cats in the flat understood him too: "It was slightly galling that the cat tired of the game before I did. ... The fifteenth or sixteenth time I threw the cork, my playmate simply did not move. It studied the projectile with geological indifference and turned away, tail aloft like a raised middle finger."

[Shannon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Will Wiles' debut novel finds our unnamed narrator arriving in an unnamed Eastern European city to house-sit for his friend Oskar, a talented composer and serious neat freak whom the narrator befriended - or was befriended by - during their days at university in England. Oskar has left for Los Angeles and divorce proceedings started by his American wife, Laura. His flat is ultra-modern, minimalist, aesthetically cold, and expensively renovated; in particular, Oskar is obsessed with the floors. He had floors of French oak laid, at great cost, and "they must be treated like the finest piece of furniture in the flat, apart from the piano, of course." - says Oskar in one of the many notes he's left for his friend in the flat.

The narrator spends eight days house-sitting the flat and Oskar's two cats, Shossy and Stravvy. He has little interest in the city, taking a day to sightsee and finding the most memorable sight to be the bullet holes in the exterior wall of the museum. He doesn't speak the language and he knows no one. A copywriter of informational pamphlets for councils - on things like recycling - he came with the idea that the enforced solitude would help him sit down and write creatively, perhaps even start a novel.

But he doesn't have that kind of focus. Instead, as we learn through his reminiscences of knowing Oskar at uni and afterwards, piecing their odd friendship together, the narrator is quite the opposite of Oskar in every way. He's "messy and chaotic and disorganised and to be frank rather lazy," as Oskar tells him in his honest way [p.78], he's not successful, he lacks ambition and he's a serious procratinator, he's single and quite unhappy with where he's at in life. And he likes to drink wine. It takes no time at all for our friend the narrator to leave a small wine stain on Oskar's precious floor. From there, you know it's going to get worse before it gets better, but in this farcical black comedy of a novel, you'll find yourself ruefully laughing even while the tension winds tighter.

This is a deceptively simple novel, understated in premise, literary in execution, and quite hilarious in a "comedy of errors" sort of way. The farcical humour is underlined by a darker, more sinister tone or atmosphere: here we are in this unnamed city, representative of many such cities in many such Eastern European, ex-USSR nations, with a chaotic street plan and monstrously ugly concrete buildings mingling with beautiful old churches. Underground bars and strip joints, a ruined industrial quarter, polluted rivers and a population of old people tightly buttoned into patched coats. His trip to the museum is telling:

Few of the explanatory timelines mustered the strength to get past 1975. In a nod to the interactive, touch-screen age, many of the glass cases needed the dust wiped off them to reveal the treasures within.

One hall was devoted to depictions of traditional peasant life through the ages in different parts of the country. This led to an enfilade explaining the national story through serfdom, monarchy, industrial revolution, republic, fascist republic, people's republic and democratic republic. All these phases were packed into the twentieth century. The proceeding epochs were simply a grim routine of invaders, pogroms and home-grown rulers with soubriquets such as 'the gouger'.

The particularly potent version of hell that the Nazis and Soviets inflicted on Eastern Europe was handled in a curiously modest fashion, with little bombast or horror. And the final three panels of the exhibition were visibly recent insertions, pale patches on the wall betraying the outlines of their predecessors. Presumably the originals had extolled the glorious strides made by the people's republic towards the socialist nirvana envisaged by its leader, the father of the nation. Instead, they extolled the collapse of the Soviet east. Walls fell. Assemblies were stormed. Street names changed. The advertisers arrived.

The history was the newest thing in the building. [p.43]

It's this poignant echo of tragedy and the signs of dilapidation everywhere that add a hefty dose of sadness - an almost nostalgic sadness - to the story, to the people the narrator meets, adding a layer of depth that's both understated and vivid. As the narrator slowly makes a mess of the simple task he's been given, and the cleaner and concierge, a "batfaced" old woman called Ada, continually confronts him with suspicion, rage and disapproval, you can almost see Oskar's oasis of a flat - with every modern convenience, spotless and sleek and shining - as a metaphor for the potential of a country, buggered and discarded and trampled by a succession of "house sitters" (i.e. rulers and leaders) who have visions and ideals that do little to take into account the people, their individual right to some measure of happiness and economic stability, or the land itself. The narrator, in such a flimsy comparison as the one I'm describing, is somewhat colonial, not even bothering to learn a single word of the native language. But it's not a clear metaphor, or allegory, which is why it works; otherwise, it'd be a weak cliche, a story that was trying too hard to be meaningful. Instead, Wiles has created a situation and two familiar, recognisable, vivid characters, and let the scenario play out.

The narrator's internal dialogue, his thought-process, make what is a simple story highly entertaining. That, and Oskar's notes. The two are antitheses of each other. And when the narrator learns that a friend of Oskar's called Michael usually cat-sits for Oskar, while Ada keeps the flat clean, he starts to wonder: Why did Oskar ask me to do this? Why would a man obsessed with keeping things clean, neat and in their correct places, ask a person known to be messy, disorganised and, frankly, a bit irresponsible, to look after his cats and his precious floors? Take the little utility room:

As Oskar's notes made clear, nearly all contingencies had been accounted for. I had no doubt that if, for instance, the power went out, I would find candles and matches. The air was pregnant with admirable qualities such as diligence, self-discipline, organisation, planning - in short, the sort of qualities I lacked. I did not have a career to speak of, just a succession of freelance assignments. I was single. I had neglected to buy a flat or save anything. And here I was, in the realm of all the tedious self-satisfed animals that came out on top in the fables - assiduous ants, industrious squirrels, tenacious tortoises. [pp.173-4]

From the very beginning there is a sense of impending disaster. And it's not that the narrator is completely useless, or even unintelligent. He would probably do quite well if he didn't drink, but even drunk there are worse situations he manages to avoid. We understand him only through Oskar's understanding of him, and his own understanding of the world. His personality comes across in how he interacts with people and the world around him, the decisions he makes, and his flyaway imagination. Many of his thoughts and sensory experiences (such as when he's lying in Oskar's bed, possibly still asleep, with the increasing impression that the bed is expanding, he has shrunk and the ceiling is an invisible horizon) are actually quite familiar, and thought-provoking, even the small details. In particular I loved this insight into rudimentary graffiti:

I set my glass down on the blotter on the desk and drew my finger across the top of the piano. It trailed a path in the traces of dust. Next, I attempted to write my name amid the particles, but there were too few to make it out clearly, and I wiped it away. It's a strange instinct, to want to sign one's name in misty windows, wet concrete, snow. It is like animals marking their territory, particularly in the case of men inscribing snow. But I do not think it is a possessive, exclusive act: 'This is mine, keep out.' When we were a young species, the world must have seemed so unlimited and trackless, and to leave traces of oneself must have been to reach out, wanting to connect with others, strangers who would always remain strangers. To make one's mark then was an expression of how deeply we longed to see the signs of others. [pp.64-5]

It's true, too. It reminded me - not of cave drawings, which it could have done, but of the beginnings of the alphabet, and how certain groups of people, like slaves who weren't allowed to learn to read and write, developed their own code which they would leave as markings on rocks for fellow slaves to find (read The Alphabet by David Sacks, about the history of every letter in the alphabet, which includes this story - I can't remember the details now, sorry!). On a practical level, it's very true: gangs leave their scrawl-like words (I'm never sure what they really are, especially since they're unreadable to the uninitiated) for other gangs to read, or for their own gang members. On a psychology, anthropological level, they're also trying to dispel the loneliness that, I imagine, partly drives a person to join a gang in the first place.

Care of Wooden Floors might take you a while to get into, especially as not much happens for about the first quarter or third. Instead, it's deftly setting the scene, establishing the characters, and exploring a psyche - of Oskar, our narrator, and also the city itself. I still want to know which city, which country, this is, because I always want to know details like that (same goes for the protagonist's name!), but when you strip away the city's name, and the country's, you see it as part of a bigger picture: the eastern bloc, the great swathe of land that was raped by the Nazis and then shat on by the Soviets. It is not an appealing picture: the descriptions in this book do not make you want to visit, wherever it may be. But it does make you sympathise, and the contrast between the dilapidated, somewhat ugly city and Oskar's perfect flat are stark, even jarring. Since the basic premise could have been set just as easily in England or some other English-speaking, western country, you have to see the city as another kind of character, and appreciate that there is a purpose to the narrator being in this land. As Oskar says about his homeland:

'You are funny, the English. You are always in a worry for ... What? You say "going to the dogs." This fear, yet you have been happy sitting on this island and Armadas and Nazis cannot reach you. My country is a shifting shape on the map, and empires and armies walk across it, it disappears and moves, just a patch of colour, a story. Still I know, and my people know, that my country will always be there. But you English think the world has collapsed if they get rid of the old red telephone boxes.' [p.42]

There is a lesson for the protagonist in all this, though whether it will change anything for him is hard to say. And possibly beside the point. His comical antics, escalating in desperation, are all the more sympathetic and humorous precisely because they are realistic, and we can imagine it all too clearly. While most of us would probably be able to avoid ruining Oskar's floor in eight days, it would happen sooner or later. Not to mention the fact that, it's unpleasant living in a place that is so tense and anxious, expectant of disaster. I know the feeling because it's how I feel when I visit my in-laws. It's not a home, it's a magazine spread on design.

I sometimes found the detail-heavy narrative a little sluggish, but overall Will Wiles' debut novel is a work of great insight, a farce of understated proportions, a black comedy and a novel to truly delight in.


Visit my blog to win a copy! (closes 2nd September 2012)

[Will Ansbacher · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hilariously quirky. Will Wiles is a master not just of language – his prose flows as silkily as it is crafty - but also of delivery; humour that’s sometimes understated, sometimes outrageously over-the-top. He’s got the timing of a stand-up comic telling a shaggy dog story, except this one is very, very good: it had me alternately groaning and laughing.

The plot concerns a nameless narrator, hapless and disorganized friend of the obsessively neat and controlled Oskar. While house-sitting Oskar’s apartment in some dreary unnamed Eastern European city, a little wine is spilled on Oskar’s precious wooden floors. It’s nothing really: after a panicked clean-up the stain can barely be seen. Except it can: “to me, it stood out like the European Wine Lake.” Things go inexorably downhill from there: nothing is really his fault, and yet, he’s hardly blameless. So it goes.

A monumental drinking episode with a local friend of Oskar’s leads to an almost-surreal hangover description and the discovery of a further unfortunate floor malfunction, again through no direct fault of his yet it could easily have been avoided. It’s followed by an even more disastrous clean-up. And let’s not even mention the deaths of the cleaning lady and one of Oskar’s cats, neither of which is truly his fault, except that he is hugely implicated and has to deal with both bodies!

Meanwhile, at every turn, there are helpful home-care notes that suggest Oskar was aware things would actually turn out this way. Infuriating to realize that Oskar is so presumptive! “The Care of Wooden Floors” is in fact a how-to manual in Oskar’s library, which a note advises the narrator to read - though with Oskar’s dry observation that if needed, the advice will probably be too late to be of any use. As a last resort (the book says), a floorboard can be taken up and flipped over. The advice is followed anyway, leading to the ending, which like a punch-line is at once perfect and inevitable yet outrageously bathetic. It turned out (by way of yet another note left under the floor) that Oskar had already flipped the boards because of a wine stain his wife Laura had made, and the ensuing row about whether anyone would be obsessive enough to repair a floor that way precipitated their divorce ... not that THAT was the ending either!

Are there flaws? Oh yes, lots; you could argue that no wooden floor was ever secured with tiny nails “like surgical pins”, nor could a board ever be levered up with a little palette knife, but that would be kvetching: the shaggy dog narrative simply requires it!

[Derby Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

A English "author" of flyers, and community service announcements, agrees to housesit an old college friend's apartment. Oskar is a brilliant composer, and a perfectionist, and his apartment reflects his passion for order and expensive, minimalist beauty, and has left a series of notes for his friend, minutely instructing him on the care of his flat. The trouble begins with a red wine stain on the gleaming wooden floors, and escalates in surprising and ultimately disturbing ways. While Oskar is incredibly irritating with his fussy little notes left all over the house, even under the floor, found when the hapless narrator prizes up the boards to try to hide the damage he's done, the narrator is incredibly careless, downing quantities of red wine, getting pukingly, black-out incurring drunk, and leaves a trail of destruction in his wake, starting with that small wine stain and ultimately leading to the death of the buildings caretaker. Star Trek wrap-up, Oskar calls, knows all, had actually designed this as a test of whether anyone other than he could live in his flat, according to his rules, or whether he had created a paradise that only he could inhabit, as his wife charged. To use the narrator for this test seems to be not a fair test, or even a test at all, but never mind that now. All is forgiven, Oskar will pay for all the damage, sell the flat and move to LA to live with his wife, Laura, instead of divorcing her as originally planned. Narrator hops on a plane for home, feeling marvelously free. Wiles is a very funny writer, and I enjoyed the book up until the death of the housekeeper/caretaker during a scuffle with the protagonist. Not his fault, but he makes no attempt to resuscitate, or summon help (he is in a strange Eastern European city, doesn't speak the language, etc, etc, but still, she's dead!) and his major concern is that he not be connected with her death. Any tears he sheds seem to be of self-pity, not grief. This thread is left as it is, the narrator escapes presumably before the body is found in her apartment, where he has dragged it, he never tells Oskar, and doesn't appear to give it another thought. While Oskar appears to have learned something from the experiment, to his good and the good of his marriage, has the narrator? I guess this is my ultimate dissatisfaction with the book. I think if you are going to kill someone for the purposes of your story, you need to deal with the seriousness of it, this might have been a great time for the narrator to break out of his red-wine soaked self-absorption and taken some responsibility….

[Diabolika · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un libro molto divertente, che mi ha catapultata nel mondo della paranoia più esilarante. Cosa ci vorrà per badare all’appartamento di un amico ed ai suoi gatti? Peccato che Oskar, il proprietario dell’appartamento, sia un manico dell’ordine, della pulizia, dell’arredamento minimalista e costosissimo; mentre l’amico è un inglese svogliato, sbadato e superficiale. Una combinazione che non può che essere foriera di disastri.

La paranoia di Oskar, che arriva a lasciare dei biglietti di istruzioni nei posti più impensabili, è controbilanciata da quella del protagonista, che si immagina sempre delle soluzioni al limite dell’assurdo per ogni disastro che combina (o che gli capita). Immersa in una sensazione di catastrofe imminente, ho patito nel prevedere l’ennesima sciagura, sapendo che il protagonista non sarebbe stato in grado di gestirla. Ma le situazioni sono quasi sempre così esilaranti che non ho potuto che piangere dal ridere per le sventure del malcapitato. Sono arrivata persino a pensare che l’appartamento vivesse di vita propria e avesse l’unico scopo di annichilire il protagonista!

Lo stile scorrevole mi trascinava alla pagina successiva, morsa dalla curiosità di scoprire cosa sarebbe successo alle fine di quella interminabile serie di disavventure. Geniale il colpo di scena finale.

Solo 4 stelle perché alcune volte lo stile viene interrotto da parti un po’ troppo didascaliche. Inoltre, in alcuni momenti, il protagonista rasenta troppo da vicino un Fantozzi o un Mr Bean alle prime armi.

Comunque, un miscuglio ben riuscito di noir e commedia che sa sviscerare le fisime umane con ironia e sarcasmo.

[Marc Nash · Rating 4 out of 5]

Video review https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpS84...

[Sophie Gonzales · Rating 2 out of 5]

Urgh. Okay, I'll admit – I haven't finished this book. It's written very well and in a pretty unique way, but I just couldn't get into it. Basically, the whole story is about a person who goes to look after his friend Oskar's flat, which is in a foreign Eastern European country, and Oskar is excessively particular about every detail of its upkeep. But things start to go horribly wrong; starting from the moment when this friend manages to leave an unsightly mark on the wooden floor, which Oskar is bound to notice.

Wiles himself is an architecture and design journalist, so it's easy to see where he got the inspiration for this book – it is very design oriented. And because of that, a lot of the plot revolves around the objects and spaces around this flat. It's a clever idea, but it didn't interest me; mainly because the story moves along so slowly. I prefer books that have a bit more plot, and move faster alongthan this one does.

I'd say that if you're interested in interior design and/or have a lot more patience than I do, then Care of Wooden Floors might be for you.

[. . . _ _ _ . . . · Rating 2 out of 5]

Περιέργως μου έρχεται κριτική καλύτερα στα αγγλικά, αν και το διάβασα στα ελληνικά

An one liner joke that went too far.

[Lobstergirl · Rating 3 out of 5]

The unnamed narrator of this debut novel is housesitting a friend’s apartment in some third-tier eastern European city. The friend, an orchestra conductor named Oskar, is fastidious in all aspects of his existence including the cleanliness of the apartment and proper placement of everything in it. The housesitter begins to make innocent mistakes, at first small and then larger and larger, which damage the apartment, its furnishings, and then one of Oskar’s cats, and Oskar’s cleaning lady. At the end, a twist.

The author, “an architecture and design journalist,” captures both physical and metaphysical details of streets and buildings and very well: “The pallid stone guardians of the national monument stared out across the masses they had saved from an –ism on behalf of some other –ism.” A “looming stack of stained concrete boxes, badly streaked by the falling rain….screamed ‘A gift from the Soviet people’.” The city that serves as the setting is appealingly appalling: “’The bustle of the market is a charming counterpoint to the grandeur of its surroundings,’ Lonely Planet informed me. However, it seemed that the enthusiasm of the commerce conducted at the market was a charming counterpoint to the utter worthlessness of the goods on offer.”

Much of the writing is similarly enjoyable, but like many a novice novelist Wiles overuses similes, and some are banal. A thought is shaken “away like I was clearing an Etch-a-Sketch.” This wad of simile-mixing needs to be entered in a bad simile contest:

Like the Islamic carpets that contain a deliberate flaw, the avenue was disrupted by the Divine. An Eastern Church erupted from a square bisected by the boulevard, a heavy castellated cube covered in antiseptically white plaster that seemed pulled in tight to every angle and leading edge, a starched bed sheet tucked impossibly tight by some psychotic matron, surmounted by a fungal mass of time-green copper domes. Generous, almost Catholic, gilt glinted through the rain miasma, and even in the grim light the whitewash shone in a way that suggested it was producing its own energy, throwing off a kind of Cherenkov radiation into the cooling tank of the city. It was possibly ancient, but so perfectly maintained that it might as well have been built yesterday, a fresh cube of tofu swimming in the city’s murky tetsu broth.

Near the end of the book this had slipped by the copy editor: “For some minutes I had been sat on the sofa…”

[Tony · Rating 5 out of 5]

Debut novelist Wiles has managed to pull off a neat trick -- a thriller in which the antagonist is a wooden floor. The protagnoist is a nameless freelance writer living a drab London life, cranking out pamphlets about recycling for local councils. When his old college dormmate Oskar asks him to flatsit for him in an unnamed Eastern European city, he leaps at the opportunity to do some proper, distraction-free writing. Oskar is a fastidious fussbudget, so it comes as little surprise when the writer arrives to find a pristinely modern apartment with precise furnishings, clinical stainless-steel kitchen, and a museum-quality hardwood floor. What does come a surprise are the many handwritten instructions that he uncovers throughout the apartment, including inside books and CDs!

What ensues is an existential struggle of man vs. himself, order vs. disorder, and narrator vs. wooden floor. This sounds rather high-minded and abstract, but it's all done with a sharp and dark wit, as well as some wonderful language. Other ingredients include two cats, a stash of porn, a stern housecleaner, a wild night on the town with one of Oskar's friends, and several catalytic bottles of red wine. To enjoy the proceedings, the reader has to accept the narrator as a bit of a flawed shlub, not a bad person, but an everyman who has made (and continues to make) decisions that aren't the best. Similarly, one has to accept Oskar as a full human being (he appears in a few flashback scenes), rather than the robotic prig he might seem to be. Like a lot of blackly comic stories, there is a certain degree of farce to some of the moments, but I loved it all -- including the twist ending. This would make a great film in the hands of a director with the right sensibilities.

[Mag · Rating 3 out of 5]

You may treat this book as a comedy you go and watch in the movie theater to relax and laugh. It’s light but it’s not all fluff, and as in all good comedies there are things there to learn about human nature. It’s about a young guy who is asked to house sit, or more accurately flat sit (the guy is English) for a friend who lives in some unnamed East European country. The friend has extremely high cleanliness and order standards bordering perfection in fact, and our narrator is finding it rather difficult to abide by them. All sorts of funny situations ensue, many exacerbated by the fact that the narrator does not speak the language of the people of the country he has found himself in. It seems that he fails spectacularly at the task.
The book is funny and you laugh, but there are some scenes that are really overwrought and consequently too much of a farce for me. They go on for pages on end to the point that I found myself cringing and skipping big chunks of them.
It’s not what I usually read- I just realized I don’t even have a shelf titled humour or comedy- but it’s the first book of 2013 and it’s not bad to enter the new year with a smile after all.

[Maya Panika · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’ve rarely felt such antipathy to a protagonist! Intermittently funny at the start, as the tale wore on, certainly once the deaths began, I became increasingly sad and impatient with this fool of a character, this hapless, cowardly idiot. I warmed to him a little when he had the grace to shed tears after the first death – though were they tears of regret? Or just tears of anger and frustration. My over riding emotion throughout was ‘Call Oskar! Why doesn’t this idiot just get on the phone to his friend and explain what has happened?’ His ineptitude and cowardice maddened me from start to finish and I almost understood Oskar’s part in the (frankly strange) ending in the context of this ridiculous personality.

I’m a little bemused by the paeans of praise heaped on this book – all over the cover of my review copy – because this is a nice enough novel for bedtime, but nothing special, not particularly funny and not even original –the ‘Worst Week Of My Life’ scenario has been done very many times before, and better (and Ben Miller was far, far funnier).

The ending redeems the thing somewhat, it was at least unexpected and made for a far darker twist than I was anticipating, and for that, I’ve upped my rating from 2 to 3 stars, but no more, because for the most part, I found this to be a perfectly readable novel, but, in my opinion, really nothing much above the ordinary.

[KP · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hmm. I wanted to like this. But I skimmed far too much of it.

The sense of place is well done; Wiles depicts an unnamed Eastern European city very well, including all the discomforts and alienation and uncomfortable sense of smugness that tends to happen to Westerners when alone in a city that feels slightly familiar yet so foreign.

Unfortunately, the protagonist doesn't go out all that much. He's making silly decisions whilst apartment-sitting for a perfectionist friend, like allowing cats onto a leather sofa and getting drunk and forgetting to put the cats outside at night. Spilling wine on his friends' precious wooden floors.

Wiles throws everything he can at his protagonist, trying to up the stakes and make us care. I just never really cared what happened to our narrator, and as things became more farcical I grew more frustrated. Perhaps the intent was dark comedy, but instead I kept wondering how the protagonist had sailed through life with such a lack of common sense. The 'climax' was predictable; indeed I called it as soon as the first 'hidden' note was found. Overall I was disappointed.

[Merilee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really a 4.5. I loved this book and laughed out loud through a great part of it. "But for the floors, and the sofa, and the porn, and the dead, and the missing, the flat was restored to order." Not to mention the cats and the "awkward" cleaner/concierge who lives downstairs. There is a bit of a surprise ending, of which I will say no more. I haven't decided yet if it's great literature, but it is very well-written.

Recommended especially for Maria, Barbara, and Cynthia ( and possibly Sheryll;-)

[Gaetano Laureanti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Per chi (come me) vive in una casa con un pavimento in parquet, un pianoforte, mobili moderni, tanti dischi e… un temperamatite a manovella, leggere l’inizio di questo libro mette un po’ i brividi.

Ho quasi odiato Oskar, che all’università viaggiava sovrastato da una minacciosa nube di buongusto.

Certo, andando avanti nella storia, direi che anche il protagonista narrante un po’ se le cerca, eh!

E proprio su questa antinomia tra i due personaggi, distanti nello spazio, così diversi, con poco o nulla in comune, si fonda la riuscita sequenza di situazioni surreali in bilico tra paranoia e claustrofobia, con qualche bicchiere… di troppo.

Personalmente ho trovato le lettura molto divertente, con gli avvenimenti che si avvicendano in un crescendo parossistico di incidenti domestici e conseguenti grotteschi tentativi di rimediare che fanno tanto pensare ad un incubo, persino ad un parquet “vivo” ed aggressivo:

Su di me si è proiettata l’ombra della paranoia, il pensiero di un pavimento arrabbiato, vendicativo, assetato di sangue.

Lo stile dell’autore, al suo esordio con questo romanzo, è semplice ed avvincente, coinvolgendo nelle avventure anche emotivamente, ma con la risata a crepapelle sempre in agguato!

Anche il finale è ben costruito, e non era certo facile cavarsela… a buon mercato con una catastrofe sempre in corso!

Non sono riuscito ad identificare la città dell’Est Europa dove si svolge la storia: i pochi elementi sembrano calibrati proprio per impedirlo.

Consigliato (forse) a chi non ama il troppo ordine.
Sconsigliato (di certo) a chi ama troppo i gatti.

[ΠανωςΚ · Rating 1 out of 5]

Αυτό είναι ένα βιβλίο που στο εξώφυλλο υπόσχεται ότι είναι αστείο. Ε, δεν μου φάνηκε αστείο. Ούτε ενδιαφέρον. Ούτε καν ανεκτό.

[~☆~Autumn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I felt very strange when I finished this book. It seemed to me with a friend like Oskar the narrator did not need any enemies. Is Oskar a narcissist? Since I have been reading about them this idea crossed my mind. Its supposed to be very funny but I never laughed. It got crazier and crazier and seemed surrealistic to me. I am very glad its over.

The writing is amazing so if you are the type who focuses on that you may like it. I prefer a plot driven book so I don't care so much about the writing.

[H. Daley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Half way through this would
would have got 2 stars but the pace did eventually pick up. The description of an eastern European city was probably the strongest part of this somewhat irritating book.

[Robert · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’d like to read about a sick, demented individual spiraling out of control faster than a Chevy Silverado headed for a concrete barrier, then you should read this novel. Or maybe you’re the perfectionist control freak who likes to play puppet master and then watch the puppets burn. That’s taken care of in this novel as well.

Either way, this book slips from normal to all-the-way crazy over a period of eight days. Eight long, grueling days filled with shopping and spilled wine and broken glass and nefarious cats and missing pussies and dead ones, too. If you’re not careful, a lot can go wrong housesitting for an old college friend, and CARE OF WOODEN FLOORS takes full advantage of the ensuing madness.

The descriptions were deliciously detailed, and if not for the surprisingly good writing and near poetic prose, I would call it excessive description. But if you write well, you can get away with damn near anything. And Will Wiles has certainly paid his dues.

If you’ve ever felt like you’re stuck under the thumb of one overbearing individual, you might want to pick up this book. Or if you like to watch the world burn one sick individual at a time, you’ll certainly find some enjoyment here.

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

This one had been languishing on my TBR pile for quite a while, so decided to tackle it now. Turned out a great listen, but early on I wasn't so sure.

For the first hour or so of the story, I wondered where it was headed - was anything really going to "happen"? And then, a seemingly minor incident becomes the first of a series of exponentially larger ones. Towards the end, I was hoping the main character would finally set fire to the place and walk out (which he doesn't if you start feeling that way, too). Although the ending worked for the storyline, I wasn't thrilled with it.

Audio narration seemed over-the-top at first, where I found Namess Guy bordering on b*tchy. However, as events unfolded and I got used to him as a character, he became funnier and more likeable.

Recommended for readers who like things quirky and surreal, with sarcastic humor. (raising hand)

A final note, some reviews highlight "animal cruelty" which I found extreme. There is an animal death offscreen as the result of an accident, no torture or malicious activity.

[Ruthie · Rating 3 out of 5]

As I read this book my opinion changed so many times it was distracting. The premise - housesitting for a compulsive neat freak, intrigued me. I am one who is never comfortable staying in other people's homes as I am always fearful of doing damage. In this book the main character is asked, by an old college friend, to house and cat sit his meticulously renovated apt. while he is away. What ensues is somewhat predictable, often annoyingly so, a bit funny, and then; ridiculous. The plot of the novel began to aggravate me quite a bit, and then, just as I was ready to send it back to the library, the author would throw in some especially deep, insightful, thought provoking passages, and I was drawn back into the pages.
I wish the author had shown some restraint with the apt. sitting fiascos and focused more on his perceptive writing, but in this case I will take the bad with the very good.

[Zuzu Burford · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a pretentious piece of codswallop. Having a dictionary handy would be an advantage. Talk about try too hard descriptions being too clever by half. I wanted to enjoy this book only to find the style was akin to a young teenager trying to impress the tutor with look how clever I am. This is unfortunate because the concept was so different, and interesting. The use of obscure words and silly made up metaphors doesnt impress, in fact quite the opposite.

[Annette Olsen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not a book for everyone. It is primarily a character study with much of the action taking place in the mind of the narrator. If you like fast paced, plot driven books this one probably won't be your thing. That being said, I found it to be clever, witty and at times down right funny. It was also thought provoking. Who knew a wooden floor could mean so much.

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was intrigued by this dark tale and kept reading but also kept thinking... white wine you idiot! Drink white wine!

[Alarie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Both my husband and I found this the funniest novel we’ve ever read: absolutely hilarious, but balanced by moments of worry, fear, disgust, compassion, and concern. This is not emotionless skit humor. We get involved in the narrator’s plight. Wiles uses a superbly layered approach: esoteric humor, sophomoric humor, slapstick, and dark humor in large amounts. He adds all these layers to the odd couple humor we always love: the awkward interaction between a total slob with no sense of style and a compulsive, successful, neat freak.

In this novel, the mismatched friends don’t live together, but the unfocused slob, the unnamed narrator, goes to Eastern Europe to care for the two cats and flat of his neatnik, composer friend. Oskar leaves behind a pristine, white, white, white flat with a sterile kitchen, leather furniture, and expensive, unsealed, pale wooden floors. The book begins with the quietly amusing analysis of how far the two men are apart on everything about work and lifestyle. Oskar also leaves behind notes in drawers, in books, on the piano, and places you’d never expect to find notes, all giving the cat sitter instructions. What could possibly go wrong? Everything is an understatement. Things you’d never expect happen as the book descends into one man’s week in hell (for him) and a wild read for lucky us.