Старт в живота

by Alan Sillitoe

An outrageously funny novel of adventure, sex, corruption, and crime from one of the greatest British authors of the twentieth century.

Michael Cullen is proud to be a bastard. His first memories are of the war, when his mother welcomed every soldier in Britain into her house, and young Michael hid beneath her bed to let the rocking of the springs lull him to sleep. By the time he's eighteen, he's got a pregnant girlfriend, and is staring down a long life of working-class respectability that simply makes him sick. So Michael says goodbye to his girlfriend and his home in Nottingham, and hits the road for London, where he will make his fortune--or die trying.

From the nightclubs of Soho to the depths of London's underworld, Michael can't help but get into trouble. But whether he's chauffeuring a vicious gangster or smuggling gold bullion across the channel, he never stops having a wonderful time. Indeed, Michael is something else entirely: a happy bastard with nothing to lose.

A rollicking picaresque novel by the legendary author of such classics of kitchen sink realism as The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner and Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, A Start in Life is one of the funniest British novels of the twentieth century.

A Start in Life is the 1st book in the Michael Cullen Novels, but you may enjoy reading the series in any order.

"A Start in Life is, for my money, the best novel that Sillitoe has yet written." --New Statesman

"The kind of hilarious nonsense that keeps you riveted to deck-chair or arm-chair, depending on the season." --The Daily Telegraph

Praise for Alan Sillitoe
"The master of British verbal architecture." --Rolling Stone

Alan Sillitoe (1928-2010) was a British novelist, poet, essayist, and playwright, known for his honest, humorous, and acerbic accounts of working-class life. Sillitoe served four years in the Royal Air Force and lived for six years in France and Spain, before returning to England. His first novel, Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, was published in 1958 and was followed by a collection of short stories, The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner, which won the Hawthornden Prize for Literature. With over fifty volumes to his name, Sillitoe was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1997.

Genres: Fiction, British Literature, Modern Classics, Novels

413 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1970

About the author

Alan Sillitoe was an English writer, one of the "Angry Young Men" of the 1950s (although he, in common with most of the other writers to whom the label was applied, had never welcomed it).
For more see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Sil...

Reviews

[Gill · Rating 3 out of 5]

'A Start in Life' by Alan Sillitoe

3.5 stars/ 7 out of 10

I have read several of Alan Sillitoe's earlier works (my favourite of which was 'The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner'), so I was interested to read this republished novel.

In Part One, the narrator tells the story of his childhood and young adult life. I enjoyed the fact that this part was set in and around Nottingham, an area that I know. As the book progresses we learn more from the narrator of his travels and adventures, as he tries to make his fortune. I found little that was endearing about the narrator, but continued to be interested in reading about him.

Sillitoe introduces a large cast of players in this novel, each with their own tale and history to tell. A veritable Canterbury Tales of many insalubrious characters! Many of these adventures are told with some humour eg the section which centred on a working class poet from Leeds.

I found the book quite enjoyable, but a bit overlong. I think that Sillitoe was a better writer of short stories, where he needed to curb the length of his exposition. Many of the events in this novel would have made excellent picaresque short stories.

Thank you to Open Road Integrated Media and to NetGalley for an ARC.

[Mandy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is not Alan Sillitoe at his best, unfortunately. The conciseness of some of his greater novels, such as Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, are missing here and he rambles far too much. This is the first volume in a picaresque trilogy about Michael Cullen, a chancer, liar, womaniser, semi-criminal. Not a bad man but one who is tempted by opportunities that come his way and he never stops to consider the wisdom of his behaviour. When the novel concentrates on Michael himself I’m reminded what a good writer Sillitoe can be. But in this novel he introduces too many extraneous characters, many of whom feel impelled to narrate their life-stories in tedious pages-long screeds, and too many of these extraneous characters are too bizarre to be plausible. I understand that Sillitoe wasn’t a fan of editors, and it shows here. Too long and too uncontrolled, but if you stick with it there is as much to be enjoyed here as to be deplored.

[Marija · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Cullen is a scoundrel and knows it. As he tells his story, he doesn't attempt to protect his self-image by portraying himself as a wholesome victim of circumstance. He simply does whatever he needs to do when he needs to do it, and is not shy at admitting defeat to us his readers. Yet despite his various failings, like a cat with nine lives, Michael somehow manages to right himself in the end.

This is very much a young man’s story, with a heavy focus on women and finding ways to make an easy buck. His various encounters and reencounters with women are frankly audacious, yet they serve as perfect examples of Michael Cullen’s ability to lie and charm his way into and out of any situation. In this respect, Michael Cullen’s character does make for an interesting subject for study.

As with other traditional picaresque novels, A Start in Life doesn’t have much of a plot and is presented as a meandering series of events that are somehow miraculously tied together. Coincidence also plays an important role here, helping to tie the various stories and characters Michael meets into a more meaningful and convincing whole. Yet, the novel itself is not as thematically strong as Sillitoe’s later Michael Cullen novels, especially the posthumously published Moggerhanger.

Readers new to Alan Sillitoe might prefer his earlier, more famous works, namely Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. However for readers who have sampled this first novel in the Michael Cullen series and were not as impressed by this work, I would suggest trying Moggerhanger. It’s the work of a mature author with a maturer narrator. While this story too meanders, it offers much more interesting themes and ideas for thought and discussion, ultimately taking the picaresque novel into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Copy provided by NetGalley

[Mystica · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author is brilliant. He takes a character that is generally very easy to dislike. But he makes the narration so good that you really need to know what is going to happen next.



Our Michael is a bastard. In every sense of the word. He has a mum who seems to entertain every soldier around in Nottingham. Michael then proceeds to get his girlfriend pregnant and then decamp to London to see whether the pavements are really paved in gold to make his fortune there.



Going from London across the channel, from dealing with rough and dangerous characters Michael seems to have a good time. He enjoys it all.



The narrator is a nasty piece of work, who does not shy away from the fact that he is. This was part of the attraction!



Sent to me by Netgalley for an unbiased review, courtesy of Open Road Integrated Media, I am only sorry that it took me so long to get to this quirky book!

[John Samuel · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book. Michael Cullen is the perfect antidote to Gordon Comstock (Keep the Aspidistra Flying). They would have hated each other.

[miss.mesmerized mesmerized · Rating 4 out of 5]

Michael Cullen has to grow up without a father. Already as a young boy he decides to have a better life. Since he always liked reading and as he can show good manners, he is not one to work in a factory and soon he gets his chances in a real estate office. But when he betrays his boss and his girlfriend gets pregnant, he flees his Nottingham working-class background and sets out for London and a better future. On his way, he meets Bill with whom he will be linked over the next years when Michael has times of ups and downs, gets better jobs and worse ones. Since he has nothing to lose, he is not too concerned about other people or his own fate. He is still young, just about to start in life.

Sillitoe’s novel is not a typical coming-of-age novel since Michael is too old for that, but nevertheless I’d classify it as one. The young man not knowing exactly where belongs too – especially since he never got to know his father – only sure of the fact that there must be a better life waiting for him. Blessed with intelligence and charm, he can make use of what he was given and manages to escape the most critical situations. At the same time, it’s a novel of escaping or leaving behind the working-class. Michael is not proud of his background, he despises the working-class and never fits in when he has to do jobs like them. One could feel sympathy for him, for his ambition and the hard work he is ready to do – but Michael Cullen is just a bastard, too reckless and egoistic to be loved by the reader and that he falls into the traps he set up himself, leaves you with a bit of schadenfreude.

[Della Scott]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/11657654

[Eileen Hall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another wonderful Sillitoe story!
Great read!
Very highly recommended.
I was given a digital copy of this book by the publisher Open Road via Netgalley in return for an honest unbiased review.

[Sascha · Rating 4 out of 5]

We will call this: Alan Silitoe revisited.

Back in June, I reviewed Snowstop by Alan Silitoe. (See my review here.) It was pretty much a murder mystery, with what seemed to be commentary on class struggle in England.

A Start in Life, written 23 years earlier, is a different and more engaging novel although, again, I struggled with the opening passages.

see more here: https://saschadarlington.wordpress.co...

[Kelv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Could have done without the graphic sex accounts. Kind of went against the character.

[Adi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a book I would read again anytime soon. The main character was quite annoying, and I strongly disliked his immaturity. The rest of the characters were also mostly weird and uninteresting.

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

First of the Michael Cullen novels. Black humour, of an era. Sillitoe's usual louche character making poor choices but he was mellowing in his old age - it ends happily.

There were a few anachronisms it seemed to me. Published in 1970 but the characters seemed to belong more to the 1950s.

It took me about a third of the novel to start enjoying it. It's quite long, well over 400 pages. If you're a fan of the Angry Young Men, and their perceptions of England back then, it's worth a read. I doubt I'll read the rest of the series. It struck me as a bit dated.

[Stanislav Stoev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why isn't this book more popular?!?

[George · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to read at 20, the main character has quite bizarre ambition in what he does for work, but it's a good book to read at a time when you're moving or you're life is changing, when you go into the world and get [A Start In Life]

[Diogenes · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dated, jaded memoir/adventure of a selfish, conniving man from his childhood, much too long and seemingly poorly edited and not nearly as funny as touted. Not comparable to Sillitoe's other, excellent novels.

[Pop Bop · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rueful, Thoughtful, Antic, Confessional, and High-spirited Sillitoe

I like my angry young men more on the playful and ironic end of the scale, which is why I prefer J.P. Donleavy, (who just barely qualifies as angry), to John Osborne. But for sheer impact and clarity I'll never quite get Sillitoe's "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner" out of my mind. So, the Michael Cullen books, and especially this first volume, have an honored place somewhere at the point at which all of these influences converge.

Angry? Sure. Kitchen sink? Suds up to your elbows. Ironic, bemused and sometimes downright funny in a Donleavy sort of way? You bet. This is a milder, more rueful, more thoughtful and confessional and forgiving Sillitoe, and so it strikes all of the right chords. Cullen is just smart enough, just dumb enough, just simple enough, and just complex enough to capture his time, his society, and his circumstances.

Is this tale, first published in 1970, dated? Oh my. The sometimes childish and sometimes macho hero, and his women, speak to us from an almost prehistoric time, (although it occurs to me that I'm only three years younger than Cullen would be and so must have come up at the same time he did. Oh, yes, I sort of remember that now.) But, even as here or there you cringe a bit, (as we all do when contemplating youthful indiscretions), there is still a great deal of truth and power in the Cullen story.

But angry young men and the like aside, this book is so well crafted and so direct, honest, devious and puckish, that it will entertain the reader. Sillitoe's craft is subtle; imagine how hard it was to create a voice as convincing and confiding and direct as Cullen's. It's good to see that this book is back and readily available.

(Please note that I received a free ecopy of this book without a review requirement, or any influence regarding review content should I choose to post a review. Apart from that I have no connection at all to either the author or the publisher of this book.)