Saturday Night and Sunday Morning

Seaton #1

by Alan Sillitoe

A rousing and uproarious novel of the life, loves, and misadventures of a working-class rogue, Saturday Night/Sunday Morning marked the arrival of one of the most cherished authors in the twenty-first century.
 
At twenty-two years of age, Arthur Seaton is a hard-drinking lathe operator in a bicycle factory. Sharp, rowdy, and attractive, he is a lover of life in the raw, and his enormous vitality comes pouring through, at a family party, at the county fair, and in several pubs he haunts on Saturday nights, where more often than not he leaves with a woman on his arm. Before long, however, his devil may care life-style gets him into some serious trouble, and Arthur's life takes a turn that not even he could have imagined.

Genres: Fiction, Classics, British Literature, Novels, 20th Century, Literature, Modern Classics

256 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1958

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

[Vit Babenco · Rating 4 out of 5]

Saturday nights were glorified in so many songs and movies… Slaving from day to day for five days… And then the Saturday night is all yours…

For it was Saturday night, the best and bingiest glad-time of the week, one of the fifty-two holidays in the slow-turning Big Wheel of the year, a violent preamble to a prostrate Sabbath. Piled-up passions were exploded on Saturday night, and the effect of a week’s monotonous graft in the factory was swilled out of your system in a burst of goodwill. You followed the motto of ‘be drunk and be happy’, kept your crafty arms around female waists, and felt the beer going beneficially down into the elastic capacity of your guts.

Everybody wants to live easily and magnificently but the possibilities of every man are quite different… So everyone gets pleasures one can afford and pays for them subsequently…

The rowdy gang of singers who sat at the scattered tables saw Arthur walk unsteadily to the head of the stairs, and though they must all have known that he was dead drunk, and seen the danger he would soon be in, no one attempted to talk to him and lead him back to his seat. With eleven pints of beer and seven small gins playing hide-and-seek inside his stomach, he fell from the top-most stair to the bottom.

A simple man needs simple delights and in this case, a catch-as-catch-can principle works best… Live today like there’s no tomorrow and pay afterwards… 
When the time to pay off arrives one may find oneself with empty pockets.

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

LA RABBIA GIOVANE


Albert Finney è nato il 9 maggio del 1936. Aveva poco più di 30 anni all’epoca del film.

Il sabato sera esplodevano le passioni accumulate, e uno scoppio di vitalità ripuliva l'organismo degli effetti di una settimana passata a sgobbare in fabbrica. La parola d'ordine era "Sbronzati e sii felice".

Alan Sillitoe aveva appena virato la boa dei 30 (anni), che assestò un uno-due micidiale alla cultura inglese, vecchia e borghese: prima questo romanzo, 1958, e poi una raccolta di racconti intitolata “La solitudine del maratoneta”, 1959, entrambi portati magistralmente sullo schermo, il primo da Karel Reisz nel 1960 (e fu il primo ruolo importante per Albert Finney, interprete perfetto), il secondo da Tony Richardson nel 1962.
Una micidiale abbinata di colpi come i tanti pugni che distribuisce Arthur Seaton, protagonista di questo romanzo, espressione di una working class ribelle e vitale, e le pietre che scaglia contro il cielo colpevole di una vita grigia alla quale Arthur, scopatore senza regole e ubriaco senza limiti, non vuole rassegnarsi: catena di montaggio in fabbrica, sbronze serali al pub, e scopate rubate in vista di matrimonio e paternità, squallore a volontà.


Correre dietro a donne e ragazze era parte del sabato sera. E della domenica mattina. Ma Arthur si dava da fare anche negli altri giorni della settimana.

Il suo protagonista Sillitoe lo descrive così:
Beve. Mente. Tradisce. Picchia. Si mette nei guai e prova a uscirne.
Arthur ha un rapporto quasi ‘coniugale’ con la sua macchina in fabbrica: paradossalmente è in questo rapporto, nelle lunghe ore di lavoro a cottimo davanti al tornio (fabbrica di biciclette) che trova la lucidità per riflettere sulla condizione umana, la sua e quella dei suoi simili.
Sillitoe in anticipo su tutti (credo) racconta e spiega il potere devastante dei moderni mezzi di comunicazione di massa, a cominciare dalla televisione che trasforma l’operaio da lavoratore in consumatore.


La televisione entra con prepotenza nella vita della classe operaia.

I Beatles dovevano ancora debuttare, John Lennon era ben lungi dall’aver ancora composto la sua celebre canzone.



Sillitoe divenne subito il cantore degli Angry Young Men, dal cui movimento generò il British Free Cinema. Gioventù, amore e rabbia, come la fantasiosa traduzione italiana del film tratto dal suo racconto The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner-La solitudine del maratoneta.


Si gira il film.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YsmQh...

As soon as you're born they make you feel small
By giving you no time instead of it all
Till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all
A working class hero is something to be

They hurt you at home and they hit you at school
They hate you if you're clever and they despise a fool
Till you're so fucking crazy you can't follow their rules
A working class hero is something to be

When they've tortured and scared you for twenty-odd years
Then they expect you to pick a career
When you can't really function you're so full of fear
A working class hero is something to be

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV
And you think you're so clever and classless and free
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see
A working class hero is something to be

There's room at the top they're telling you still
But first you must learn how to smile as you kill
If you want to be like the folks on the hill
A working class hero is something to be
JOHN LENNON

Le cover che preferisco:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wPT3H...
Marianne Faithfull

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f6v6E...
Screaming Trees

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VsCK...
Green Day

[Paul Bryant · Rating 4 out of 5]

This famous novel has always been hanging round, I’ve been seeing it in the corner of my eye all my life. The world was telling me I HAD to read it because I come from Nottingham and this is the big Nottingham novel, and I grew up working class, I knew people like these characters, and I would have been one of these characters if I hadn’t discovered how to pass exams early on. So I more or less resented this novel – it was too obvious, I didn’t want to read it.

Finally, I read it – see how short it is, I thought - I will snap up this morsel like a small slice of ciabatta with gorgonzola, chomp chomp and it will be gone, and get on to something more substantial.

That was wrong. This is a big novel in disguise, and every page is thick and dripping with bacon grease or sodden with a spilled pint of stout. It was – well, really quite brilliant. I admit it! The last and greatest of my sequence of British novels of the 50s & 60s I should have read already.

I see why there was a thing called the Angry Young Men in the 1950s in Britain. You had

Jim Dixon in Lucky Jim, 1953 – working class, now educated and at sea in his first academic job – more irritated and frustrated than angry

Jimmy Porter in Look Back in Anger, 1956 – working class but now university educated and frustrated and going nowhere fast – he’s really very very angry

Joe Lampton in Room at the Top, 1957 – working class and going somewhere, pretty angry if anyone blocks his way

Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, 1958 – working class, uneducated, never going to be anything else, grimly happy with his lot but harboring fantasies of blowing up the Council House with dynamite

Billy Fisher in Billy Liar, 1959 – also more frustrated than angry, working class dreamer and self-saboteur

Alfie in Alfie, 1963 – totally working class and uneducated but no longer angry or frustrated – it’s now the sixties, that may have something to do with it

Alan Sillitoe has an unflinching tape-recorder mind for Nottingham dialogue

"I never tek much trouble to mek people out. That’s summat else as don’t pay."

"You’re a sharp ‘un. You don’t miss much." "It don’t pay to miss owt."

But he interlaces the grating voices with chilling depths

Nothing had been said, but both had felt it, and had betrayed it to each other in their too hard drive for gaiety. There was a bitterness in their passion, tender words without roots, and sarcasms that threw affection down like a glove that both were in too much of a hurry to take up.

Sometimes you may think his desire for energetic sentences gets too much

She kept a chock-a-block arsenal of blackmailing scandal ready to level with foresight and backsight at those that crossed her path in the wrong direction, sniping with tracer and dum-dum from sandbags of ancient gossip.

But still, this is the real deal. If you just want to skip to the big message of this novel, it’s that if you’re working class it’s this :

And trouble for me it’ll be, fighting every day until I die…Fighting with mothers and wives, landlords and gaffers, coppers, army, government… There’s bound to be trouble in store for me every day of my life… born drunk, and married blind, misbegotten into a strange and crazy world, dragged up through the dole and into the war with a gas-mask on your clock, and the sirens rattling into you every night while you rot with scabies in an air-raid shelter. Slung into khaki at eighteen, and when they let you out, you sweat again in a factory, grabbing for an extra pint, doing women at the weekend and getting to know whose husbands are on the night shift, working with rotten guts and an aching spine… well, it’s a good life and a good world, all said and done, if you don’t weaken

I have to agree with everyone else, this is almost a must-read. 4.25 stars.

[Guille · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Aquel mismo día, un año antes, había venido aquí con Brenda y se había caído por las escaleras como si fuera una bola de nieve tras beberse siete ginebras y once pintas. Vaya noche fantástica. Tenía el recuerdo guardado en lo más hondo de su corazón.”

“Sábado por la noche, Domingo por la mañana”, un título magnífico para una magnífica novela que es un retrato magnífico de Arthur Seaton, un joven inmaduro de clase obrera en la Inglaterra de los años 50. Un individuo dominado por una rabia ingobernable que dilapida bebiendo y acostándose con mujeres y peleándose con sus maridos. Un cabrón que quiere joder al mundo porque el mundo pretende hacer lo mismo con él, pero que no ambiciona en modo alguno transformarlo en otra cosa.

“Ya sé qué caras tendré en mente cada vez que dispare mi reluciente rifle. Sí. ¡Las de los cabrones que me pusieron el arma en las manos! … tat-tat-tat-tat-tat-tat. Y también veré otras caras: la del cabrón comemocos que se lleva mis impuestos, la del cerdo bizco que nos cobra el alquiler, la del hijoputa cabezón que me saca de quicio cuando me pide que vaya a reuniones del sindicato o que firme un papel contra lo que está sucediendo en Kenia. ¡Como si me importase una mierda Kenia!”

Un mundo del que no espera ni persigue progreso social alguno, y en el que su única pretensión es salir adelante de la mejor forma posible y sin remilgo alguno acerca del camino a tomar,

< i>“Eres un listillo, Arthur. Nunca has sabido la diferencia entre lo que está bien y lo que está mal.—Bueno —dijo él—, sí que la sé. Ese es el problema, si te digo la verdad, porque saber la diferencia no sirve para nada.”

Arthur Seaton disfruta de un buen sueldo que se gasta en bonitos trajes con los que acudir los sábados al “cálido mundo de los pubs y las chicas ruidosas de vida alegre”, preferentemente casadas, y que ello le sirva de combustible para su mente en los largos días de trabajo frente al torno o en sus solitarias jornadas de pesca. Se mantiene fiel a un curioso código ético que le mueve a ayudar a un desconocido borracho tirado en la calle, y así evitar su detención por la policía, aunque ello no le impida echar un vistazo a su cartera. No hay atisbos de solidaridad obrera, aunque es muy consciente de su situación de clase

“Tipos con trajes y bombines nos dirán: «Estos chicos tienen sus televisores, dinero suficiente para vivir, pisos de protección oficial, y los fines de semana les damos cerveza y les dejamos jugar una partidita de billar… Algunos hasta tienen coches. Los tenemos bien contentos a todos. ¿Cuál es el problema entonces?”

y mantiene una leve esperanza de insurrección, aunque solo sea por la perspectiva de la pelea.

“Un día ladrarán y nosotros no iremos tras ellos al redil como borregos. Un día encenderán sus luces y darán palmadas diciendo: «Venga, chicos. Poneos en fila y coged vuestro dinero. No vamos a dejaros morir de hambre». Pero quizá algunos de nosotros decidamos morirnos de hambre, y ahí empezará el problema.”

A medida que avanza la novela, y tras algún que otro desagradable incidente, esta rebeldía de sábado por la noche va a ir reconduciéndose en la conformidad de domingo por la mañana. Su fobia a las etiquetas, al compromiso, a la responsabilidad, van atemperándose con las necesidades que supuestamente caracterizan la madurez: el amor, la familia, la estabilidad. Y entonces llegamos al chico-conoce-chica, una buena chica en la que vislumbra a aquella que cuidará bien de sus hijos, le tendrá la casa reluciente y con la que mantendrá, eso cree, su espíritu díscolo e independiente que le impedirá convertirse en su padre, trabajador orgulloso de poder disfrutar de una televisión que le aleje por algunas horas de todos sus problemas, un aparato maravilloso capaz también de ayudar a su hermana a olvidar los palos que le propina su marido.

Me gustó mucho la letra, algo menos la música, quizás por la frialdad del narrador, un tipo modesto que huye de cualquier protagonismo y que se limita a relatar en un tono neutral y sin una voz más alta que otra lo que va ocurriendo, a hacernos partícipes de los reveladores diálogos y a permitirnos entrar de vez en cuando en la mente de Arthur Seaton, personaje que en las manos de un James Kelman seguramente me hubiera impactado aún más.

[Peter · Rating 5 out of 5]

Classic angry working man’s literature set in 1950s Nottingham. The main protagonist works at a lathe in a large bicycle factory (the famous Raleigh bikes used to be made in Nottingham) and the minor characters in the story are also factory workers. They live in fairly squalid circumstances and don’t feel that society and country value them. To compensate for the mind-numbing boredom of his work and his disillusionment with the world, Arthur turns to womanising, drinking, and brawling. Damning account of conditions post-WW2 for the English working classes.

[Javier Ventura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una novela de corte realista y social, muy “british” y muy de clase obrera, con sus pintas en los pubs, sus trabajos monótonos en las fábricas, su vida austera en los suburbios, y sus reivindicaciones sindicales, y sus connotaciones políticas, sociales y laborales.
En cierta forma, y aunque un siglo las separan, me ha recordado su lectura a las novelas clásicas rusas del XIX, cambiando a campesinos por obreros, pero relatando igualmente la rebeldía del individuo ante el sistema, la angustia vital de sus protagonistas, enfrentados a las normas sociales, y percibiendo un vacío en en horizonte que sólo pueden compensar con los placeres inmediatos de la bebida y el sexo de los sábados por la noche. Todo narrado con un lenguaje sencillo y coloquial, para reflejar con autenticidad la situación de sus personajes.
En esta novela de gran título, acompañaremos en sus andanzas a Arthur Seaton, un individuo mezquino, frívolo, mujeriego y muy machista (absténgase las feministas recalcitrantes de acercarse por esta novela). Arthur no tiene ambiciones. El mundo está en su contra. Su monótona vida discurre entre la fábrica y el pub. Una vida entre pintas los sábados por la noche, y retornos a la fábrica el lunes a primera hora. Quizá el domingo por la mañana le ofrezca un sentido a su vida que parece no querer encontrar.
Con todo, considero la novela tan pobre argumentalmente como vacía está la vida de Arthur, y mentiría si no dijera que resulta tan fácil de leer como aburrida y repetitiva. Efectivamente, como la vida de Arthur Seaton.

[Great-O-Khan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Der Fabrikarbeiter Arthur Seaton betrinkt sich Samstagnacht, landet im weichen Bett einer verheirateten Frau, deren Mann beim Pferderennen ist, und versucht sich Sonntagmorgen zu regenerieren. Montag geht es wieder in die Fabrik. "Samstagnacht und Sonntagmorgen" ist der passende Titel des ersten Romans von Alan Sillitoe. Es ist ein autobiographischer Roman aus dem Jahr 1958. Man kann den Titel auch übertragend für die dunkle und die helle Seite des Protagonisten lesen.

Beschrieben wird das Leben englischer Arbeiter nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Das Leben findet zwischen Fabrik und Kneipen statt. Der Lohn am Ende der Woche wird vertrunken oder für Frauen ausgegeben, oft in Kombination. Im Lebensmittelladen wird angeschrieben, selbst von denen, die sich einen Fernseher leisten können. Die Menschen sind hart und ruppig so wie ihr Leben. Dazwischen blitzt aber auch immer wieder Menschlichkeit auf.

Die deutsche Taschenbuchausgabe ist von 1976. Da war die Schrift kleiner und der Zeilenabstand geringer als bei den meisten aktuellen Büchern. So entsprechen die 285 Seiten von damals in etwa 400 Seiten von heute. Und obwohl auf der Handlungsebene nicht so viel passiert, war es für mich kein bisschen langweilig. Ganz im Gegenteil. Ich bekam sehr schnell ein Bild von der beschriebenen Welt. Der Ölgestank der Fabrik oder die von Alkohol und Schweiss durchsetzte Kneipenluft sind beim Lesen spürbar. Sillitoe verwendet eine realistische Alltagssprache.

Obwohl das Leben trostlos wirkt und viele der Menschen unangenehme Charaktere sind, habe ich das Buch mit großer Begeisterung gelesen. Die Entwicklung von Arthur vom "angry young man" im ersten Teil "Samstagnacht" zum etwas ruhigeren jungen Mann und festen Freund von Doreen im zweiten Teil "Sonntagmorgen" ist glaubhaft und spannend zu lesen. Zurecht einer der großen Klassiker der Arbeiterliteratur.

[Toby · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Don't let the bastards get you down" - Arthur Seaton

“For it was Saturday night, the best and bingiest glad-time of the week, one of the fifty-two holidays in the slow-turning Big Wheel of the year, a violent preamble to a prostrate Sabbath. Piled up passions were exploded on Saturday night, and the effect of a week's monotonous graft in the factory was swilled out of your system in a burst of goodwill. You followed the motto of 'be drunk and be happy,' kept your crafty arms around female waists, and felt the beer going beneficially down into the elastic capacity of your guts.”

And so begins Alan Sillitoe's "Angry Young Man" debut novel about Arthur, a young factory worker in the north of England. It's a warts and all, kitchen sink drama type of novel; unflinching in its depiction of a time and place that at once is quite alien to yet completely the same as working class England in the 21st century.

Arthur drinks, Arthur smokes, Arthur fights, Arthur fucks, Arthur rails against society, without Arthur there could be no Alfie or Trainspotting, not to mention the fact that novels such as this are priceless in terms of their value as documents recording social history.

It's hard to like Arthur, but that's how he would want it. His tale is one you've probably read before - young man living in the moment gradually realising it's time to grow up, but sixty years ago this was a new way of teling the story. Not as easy a read as you would expect from 192 pages it nevertheless paints a fascinating picture and leave you appreciating every brush stroke.

Alan Sillitoe died in 2010, for an excellent article on his influence on literature and his legacy see this article from The Economist.

[Karen· · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reckless, brash Arthur Seaton could see off any of today's binge-drinking chancers, it takes seven gins and eleven pints to floor him, but he still gets up for more. At twenty two he's the king of his little world, refusing to let anyone impose their laws on him. 'Don't let the bastards get you down' is his motto, and the 'bastards' are anyone who tries to stop him doing exactly what he wants. At some stage or other his life begins to spin out of control, he is on a helter-skelter that will deliver him swiftly into the arms of retribution, but this almost seems to be no more than a blip, a minimal shift in his ambitions, his attitude remains: combative, recalcitrant, incorrigible. The Angry Young Man. The question remains: why does he bristle with this over-weening sense of his right to take, take, take? He is conceived as a figure representative of those who have been short-changed for so long, come to take what's their due. The world owes him.

[Charlie Baylis · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a novel about my hometown, Nottingham, it contains the immortal lines:

"I'm me and nobody else; and whatever people think I am or say I am, that's what I'm not, because they don't know a bloody thing about me."

The novel is about the frustration and lack of opportunities of growing up in a working class town in the 50s. it's beautifully written and very well observed.

[Ana · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Because I think Saturday Night and Sunday Morning is disgusting. I think Arthur Seaton is disgusting. And I think the most disgusting thing of all is that Alan Sillitoe doesn´t show that he´s disgusted by his young man"

Esta é uma frase de Miranda no The Collector de John Fowles (livro que esteve na origem da presente leitura) e que é bem representativa das emoções que Saturday Night & Sunday Morning provocou nesta "leitora" ficcional. Depois de agora também o ter lido, consigo entender perfeitamente a indignação de Miranda. De facto não é fácil gostar de Arthur Seaton, o personagem principal desta história. Para mim foi mesmo impossível qualquer simpatia ou mesmo empatia com Arthur. No entanto gostei muito deste livro de Alan Sillitoe.

O autor conta-nos a história deste anti-herói, Arthur Seaton, um rapaz de 21 anos, trabalhador de uma fábrica de bicicletas, em Nottingham, Inglaterra. Arthur trabalha no duro durante toda a semana, agarrado a uma máquina em tarefas repetitivas. Durante essas longas horas o seu pensamento rebelde viaja. A única coisa que ele anseia é pelo fim de semana, altura em que irá vestir as suas melhores roupas, se irá embebedar (o mais possível) e procurar a cama de mulheres casadas. E é isto que ele mais gosta. Do perigo e da emoção de ir "contra o sistema", embora esteja completamente engrenado no próprio sistema que repudia.

Como anti-herói que se preze, os valores deste personagem são bem questionáveis. Miranda na frase acima diz que não percebe como o autor não demonstra estar enojado com o seu personagem... De facto Sillitoe não faz julgamentos de valor. Ele escreve sobre uma realidade que conhece muito bem, sem adornos ou embelezamentos, de forma muito crua e directa.

Gostei muito da forma como o autor escreve esta história. Aliás, a própria Miranda do The Collector de John Fowles também disse que:
" I know they´re very clever, it must be wonderful to be able to write like Alan Sillitoe. Real, unphoney. Saying what you mean."

Concluindo, achei o livro muito bom, e não sendo uma leitura que se possa apelidar de agradável, foi muito recompensadora, pelo que vos aconselho esta leitura. Fez-me por vezes lembrar a série televisiva Shameless, apesar das enormes diferenças.

## CLIQUE PARA POST COMPLETO NO BLOG LINKED BOOKS ##

[Jake Goretzki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting, and I can see why it was so subversive and necessary (extra-marital shagging, boozing, deeply unpatriotic about the war and about National Service, etc) - but really not what I expected. I thought it was going to be a 'kitchen sink' socialist piece about hardship and hope, in the spirit of Love on the Dole. It isn't: it's almost proto-Thatcherite or proto-punk, even. Arthur ain't no socialist: he hates paying taxes, hates unions (as well as employers), wants to blow stuff up and loves shopping. He's a supreme individualist and sounds rather like Johnny Rotten talking in 1977. Great setting and great on social mores - and nice to see all that dialect.

[Paul Ataua · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sillitoe really captures the working class in the fifties so well. He really evokes the period and the people of that time. I felt as if I was taken back there, and although I couldn’t like or even emphasize with Arthur, I felt a part of him was in all of us around that time.

[piperitapitta · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una pinta di birra tiepida

Forse alla fine mi è piaciuta di più l'idea del romanzo che non il romanzo in sé.
Trovo molto bella la similitudine che Sillitoe sceglie per rappresentare la vita di Arthur, giovane inglese poco più che ventenne della Nottingham del secondo dopoguerra, la cui vita si divide tra il lavoro in fabbrica, più di un paio di birre al pub e qualche relazione sentimentale più o meno impegnativa; il sabato sera, quello che Arthur aspetta ogni settimana per divertirsi, diventa per Sillitoe il simbolo della giovinezza, degli ardori e dei colpi di testa, l'età in cui tutto è concesso, in cui tutto rifulge di quella luce dorata che solo a chi ha tutta la vita davanti a sé sembra spettare di diritto, l'età in cui anche gli errori sembrano destinati a rivelare un inarrestabile successo.
Finché un giorno, nella vita di Arthur ma anche in quella di quasi tutti gli uomini, arriva la domenica mattina, l'età della maturità, il momento in cui "mettere la testa a posto" e accorgersi all'improvviso di essere divenuti adulti o forse, semplicemente, di essere pronti a diventarlo, per convinzione e convenienza; il momento in cui l'ubriacatura, il divertimento a tutti i costi o il semplice sballo del sabato sera non bastano più a se stessi.
Non mi è piaciuto invece lo stile narrativo, complice anche la solita traduzione alquanto datata, uno stile piuttosto piatto e poco coinvolgente e non mi è piaciuta, soprattutto, la scarsa introspezione dedicata ai protagonisti del romanzo; ho letto da qualche parte che Sillitoe sembra scrivere "in presa diretta", con uno stile quasi cinematografico, il che è probabilmente vero, anche se a me ha dato l'idea piuttosto di una carrellata veloce su personaggi e luoghi della storia, senza che niente fosse concesso ad una maggiore conoscenza degli stessi o ad una invasione un po' più ravvicinata dell'occhio del lettore: per restare in ambito cinematografico non mi sarebbe dispiaciuto qualche primo piano o l'utilizzo della soggettiva.
Qua e là - ad esempio quando Arthur si reca della zia in cerca di un certo consiglio - mi è sembrato di riconoscere un sapore già conosciuto attraverso l'Inghilterra dei film di Ken Loach, o l'Irlanda dei romanzi di Frank McCourt e O'Carroll, anche se la Nottingham che Sillitoe descrive non è ancora devastata dalla disoccupazione e dalla povertà ma è, al contrario, in pieno boom economico; questa però è una storia che non commuove, che non avvicina, ma che comunica freddezza, che avvolge lentamente come la nebbia in certe umide giornate d'inverno e che finisce per trasmettere un'indolenza a causa della quale si finisce per non parteggiare per nessuno; una storia in cui temi come la guerra appena finita, il lavoro in fabbrica, gli amori clandestini ed i rapporti umani fanno solo da sfondo, quasi come si trattasse di una comparsa senza copione.
L'ultimo capitolo, quello che a detta di molti c'entra poco con tutto il resto, che segna un cambio di registro emotivo e di stile nel romanzo, forse è l'unico che mi sia piaciuto veramente.

[John Anthony · Rating 4 out of 5]

First published in 1958 my edition is the 50th anniversary one. It is set in the years immediately following the second world war, in a working class community which has now largely disappeared. Its central character is Arthur, a 20 year old Lothario who works and plays hard. There's lots to dislike about him: he is a cheat, with a cuckoo's preference for the marital nests of others. But he is a real professional who seduces the reader along with the rest. He should get caught of course?...

I enjoyed the glimpses back at a vanished world – when the smoke really did get in your eyes! We've still got cheats of course but they seem different now.

[Paco Serrano · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Al minuto de poner un pie fuera de la verja de la fábrica ya no pensabas más en el trabajo, pero lo más gracioso es que tampoco pensabas en el trabajo cuando estabas de pie junto a tu máquina".

Un joven obrero inglés en sus veintes, que aún debe presentar cada año servicio militar (hablamos de la época de posguerra), que habita en un pueblo un tanto fúnebre, fuera del trabajo alienante de la fábrica lleva una vida de rebeldía plena buscando peleas en los pubs y tratando de enganchar a mujeres, casadas preferentemente. Gran libro de realismo.

[Dave · Rating 5 out of 5]

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning (1958) was Sillitoe’s first and most acclaimed novel. It was made into a major motion picture in 1960 starring Albert Finney. Set in Britain in the 1950’s in the post-WW2 Cold War era with the threat of nuclear annihilation hanging in the area, it is the story of one of Britain’s “angry young men,” Arthur Seaton, who works in a bicycle factory, gets drunk all weekend, and has a hobby of seducing married women. As it opens, Arthur is drunker than drunk as he has been challenged to a drinking contest, loser pays the bar tab, and he is tumbling down flights of stairs and regurgitating everywhere and on everyone, but at least he has won the contest. We are told: “A high-octane fuel of seven gins and eleven pints had set him into motion like a machine, and found its way into him because of a man’s boast.” He finds his way to Brenda’s home with her kids asleep and her husband, Jack, who Arthur works with at the bicycle factory, out for the evening. He makes himself at home there, waking up in the morning to have breakfast with Brenda and her kids before skedaddling off.

Arthur, ladies’ man as he appears to be, has a nowhere job for a nowhere man and still lives at home with his folks at 22. He doesn’t feel as if he has much of a future, other than clocking in at the factory and getting drunk and forgetting the factory, “whether inside it sweating and straining your muscles by a machine, or whether swilling ale in a pub or loving Brenda in her big soft bed at the weekend. The factory did not matter. The factory could go on working until it blew itself up.”

Arthur is bit of a jerk who gets drunk every night when called up for two weeks reserve duty, cutting his way out of the camp late at night, and ending up getting tied to the bunk when his commanding officer has had enough. He nearly gets Brenda in trouble with her believing a hot bath could end the unwanted pregnancy and, while she is dealing with that, has a time with her sister Winnie, whose husband is off on army duty. When Winnie’s Bill gets back, though, he and his buddy stalk Arthur till the right opportunity comes to teach him a lesson.

Arthur is thus an anti-hero everyman, who when asked why he doesn’t get wise and settle down with a nice girl, says he doesn’t feel up to it yet. But that’s the key here because Arthur represents the guy who is disconnected and who, with atomic bombs possibly falling all the time, wonders how long life will last anyway. “He felt a lack of security. No place existed in all the world that could be called safe.” Eventually, we get a dose of Arthur’s philosophy which is that, “To win is to survive; to survive with some life left in you meant to win.” And he had to survive “before Government destroyed him, or the good things turned sour on him.”

We learn that: “Everyone in the world was caught, somehow, one way or another, and those that weren’t were always on the way to it. As soon as you were born you were captured by fresh air that you screamed against the minute you came out. Then you were roped in by a factory, had a machine slung around your neck, and then you were hooked up by the arse with a wife.” This is then the essence of the whole novel distilled into Arthur’s philosophy. You were trapped. The world is out to get you and is filled with trouble and you make the best of it on the weekends while during the week you work with rotten guts and a broken spine.

[Alessandro Pontorno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mio figlio alla fine di questo mese di gennaio compirà 3 anni.
Adesso che la sua comunicazione verbale è a buon punto, nei suoi modi, comportamenti, espressioni emotive e reazioni vedo un piccolo uomo "in potenza" con infinite possibilità davanti a sè; egli si trova, per così dire, sulla soglia di quel grande imbuto che è la vita, nella sua parte più ampia quando tutte le scelte sono ancora a disposizione. In questa mia riflessione c'è un misto di invidia -dal momento che io mi trovo certamente in un punto più stretto di quell'imbuto- e di paura -tra le infinite strade che si possono intraprendere sicuramente ce ne sono alcune migliori di altre, ma c'è anche la consapevolezza che il mio percorso fino a qui è stato frutto di scelte (giuste, sbagliate, desiderate, imposte) e che queste scelte hanno forgiato il mio essere, aprendo delle opportunità e chiudendone delle altre.
La storia di Arthur Seaton, protagonista di "Sabato sera, domenica mattina", narra in primo luogo la presa di coscienza del fatto che l'imbuto della sua vita (al confine tra gioventù ed età adulta) si sta stringendo, che molte delle scelte fatte in passato gli stanno precludendo alcune alternative. Arthur vive il progressivo avvicinarsi di un momento in cui non potrà più avere la presunzione di fare tutto ciò che si vuole, ma vorrà (o sarà costretto) a fare delle scelte definitive che metteranno un punto alla sua vita precedente per aprire nuovi capitoli.
Questo libro di Sillitoe potrebbe essere definito un romanzo di formazione, ma in realtà racconta il disagio della classe media inglese degli anni '50 (così come Sloan Wilson con "L'uomo dal vestito grigio" e Richard Yates in "Revolutionary Road" avevano raccontato quello della piccola borghesia americana), incatenata nelle sue spinte vitali da un lavoro in fabbrica che è al tempo stesso prigione e fonte di sostentamento e che cerca di condensare nel fine settimana tutte le pulsioni represse nei giorni lavorativi. Alcol, sesso, risse, famiglia, amicizia, amore, la natura, il passare delle stagioni, le passioni: tutta questa vita vissuta sembra non esistere nei giorni e nelle lunghe ore passate davanti al tornio, repressa dalla ripetitività del lavoro, anestetizzata dalla stanchezza fisica, e poi esplode potente, vibrante, eccessiva, durante il sabato e la domenica.
Parafrasando l'introduzione a questo romanzo, un buon libro si riconosce dal fatto che dopo molti anni è capace ancora di dire qualcosa di attuale. Ecco, questo di Sillitoe è davvero un buon libro.

[Peter · Rating 4 out of 5]

“If you went through life refusing all the bait dangled in front of you, that would be no life at all. No changes would be made and you would have nothing to fight against. Life would be dull as ditchwater.”

This is Alan Sillitoe's first book and probably the most well known. Written in 1958 against the backdrop of the Cold War it tells the tale of the mundane nature of working-class life in a Northern English town, Nottingham, and features an anti-hero Arthur Seaton. Arthur works in a bicycle factory doing back breaking piecework at a lathe Monday to Friday. He is 22,still lives at home,earns a decent wage and looks forward to the weekend when he goes binge drinking(no its not a new phenomenon surprise surprise) and having affairs with two married sisters. He is a well drawn character and despite being described by his own brother Fred as 'not a very nice bloke' you still end up rooting for him right to the very end. Arthur is constantly fighting against authority whether that be father,foreman, the Police and the Army but is not so daft to realise that ultimately cannot win. By having affairs with married women his is also battling against the perceived norms of courtship and hence ultimately marriage until he is beaten up by the soldier husband of one of his conquests. Yet he also enjoys fishing suggesting he is also able to appreciate the quieter elements of life.

Despite this being set at the end of the 1950's, when youth was coming to the fore after WWII with new suits hung in the bedroom ready to wear at the weekend, Arthur is in many respects just like his father and grandfather before him. Thus this becomes a comment on the class system within Britain, Arthur seems reasonably smart yet has only received a rudimentary education and is stuck in a monotonous job with seemingly little chance of advancement.

The prose is beautifully written with occasional streams of colloquialisms mainly from Arthur giving it a real authentic feel but despite giving his initials to his hero and after having himself worked in a factory the author has also insisted this was not autobiographical. Writers like Dickens have written about the realities of working class life in Britain but this marked the start of a new age of literary realism and should be more widely read.

[Historical Dolls Alice · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s drink to the hard working people! Let’s drink to the salt of the earth!

- Salt of the Earth (The Rolling Stones)

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

To my parents and other older relatives this novel is an absolute classic, and one of the best of the so called 'kitchen sink' dramas and social commentaries on the British post-war working classes. To me, it's a solid enough novel, that captures this era with sharp observations through its rascally and hedonistic protagonist's internal monologue, and the whole thing certainly has the feel of an ultra realistic and unsentimental work of honesty, as Arthur's rebellious misdeeds eventually lead him to conform to the very structure he self-consciously disregards. On the down side, it didn't hit me emotionally in the same way Sillitoe's The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner did, whilst there are a few deficiencies within the narrative that I wish had been polished up. Also, I would have liked certain other characters having a bigger part to play overall. On top of that, I much preferred the film, in which Albert Finney was terrific.

[Jan Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A bleak illustration of late fifties working-class life in Northern Britain.
Arthur Seaton works hard, plays hard, and fights hard. He fights against all authority, sleeps with married women, drinks till he falls down flights of stairs and defies anyone to tell him what to do or how to live. Life revolves around working at the bicycle factory, sex, fighting, and drinking. Until the inevitable happens. Contraception for women didn’t exist and neither did the morning-after pill let alone abortion clinics. A scalding bath and a bottle of gin was the only way to deal with an unwanted pregnancy. Not that this predicament stalls Arthur much in the grand scheme of things.

Off-setting the devil-may-care attitude of the main protagonist is the lyrical use of language, and it does elevate what would otherwise be a somewhat monotonous, depressing tale. But every Saturday night is followed by a Sunday morning, and Arthur is certainly more reflective in the final third. This quiet lead into the denouement is something of a lame, albeit satisfactory ending. However, brimful of character and the atmosphere of those times, and I loved the authentic dialogue.

[Karen Witzler · Rating 5 out of 5]

[Thinking on it overnight and I’ve added a star.] Of course the bastards will eventually grind our Arthur down and that’s where the sweetness/bitterness lies.

If the setting had been ten years forward and Arthur had played guitar or sang, this great working class novel could have slipped right into being the great English rock and roll novel.

The bit with Laurence Olivier sealed the deal for me and I would have definitely been Doreen. In this eightieth year since the end of WW II Arthur’s views on what the working classes owe to crown and country are still pertinent. The scene of the burning of the uniforms is haunting.

I chose this book almost randomly from the Boxall 1001 list. I want to read the rest of this Seaton series and perhaps the William Posters books. Sillitoe deserves a revival.

[Terri · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a hard one to rate. It definitely evokes a time and a place. Arthur is frustrating, and appealing--despite his many shortcomings. Sometimes he's infuriating. Reading this book, I was reminded of Rabbit Run, which I hated. This book isn't nearly as sour as that one. Now and then Sillitoe includes a beautiful, perfect little description. In the thick of the book, I felt like the story got slightly mired and slightly repetitive--like maybe 20 pages could have been sliced off somewhere in the middle. While I realize it may not be important to the overall point of the story, I also felt a bit as though I wanted Arthur's relationship with Doreen to be developed a tiny bit more. The quibbles are minor, though. The book deserves a 3.5.

[Darren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing portrayal of working class life set in Nottingham in the late 1950's, seen from the POV of the iconic Arthur Seaton - the quintessential "Jack-the-Lad", as he negotiates the ups and downs of work, booze, family, friends and most of all women! All written in a marvelously fluid, rolling style, shifting between first-person for Arthur's thoughts (mainly concerning women, but also some fine political rants!) and third-person for action (including a few surprisingly comic set-pieces) and with moments of poetic thoughtful depth. Ends at a good "stage" in Arthur's life, but quite clearly signalling sequel(s). Nail-on 5 Stars.

[Julio Pino · Rating 5 out of 5]

"A working-class hero is something to be." But not in this case. SATURDAY NIGHT AND SUNDAY MORNING may be the greatest British prole novel ever written, yet its anti-hero is anything but noble. Arthur Seaton is a liar, thief, adulterer, and all-around despicable lout. After getting the wife of his best friend at work pregnant he must face the music (his friend is an army veteran (with plenty of tough fellow vets) or move to the suburbs with another bird. Think of this masterpiece as ALFIE without the laughs.

[José · Rating 4 out of 5]

Un joven misógino e inmaduro tiene que lidiar con su furia incontenida hasta buscar su sitio en la vida.

[Librielibri · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ironico e poetico. Una scrittura netta, senza fronzoli.
Arthur, il giovane protagonista, nonostante sia un furfante, mi ha conquistata.
Gran bel ritratto dell'Inghilterra anni 50.

[McNatty · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sillitoe captures the life of a 24 year old perfectly here. Living day by day, working to pay for his drinks on Friday night, hanging out with his mates and chasing birds. Its easy come easy go for Arthur and I remember feeling like that. Arthur is bullet proof and goes against all the rules and conventions of the day. He's not angry he just doesn't want to be told what to do and doesn't want to be cornered. I think Sillitoe has a real knack of writing about the working class and I remember feeling just like Arthur and for a while its bliss. The booze is flowing, life is a party and you have no responsibilities. The stress and fear of war and mandatory training is ever present and not something the British have to deal with these days and it must have added to the live fast die young lifestyle. Despite being a cad, Arthur is a romantic and enjoys female company. Sillitoe manages to wrap the short story up in a nice little package. A great little book about a certain time for a young man.

[Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Still reads as fresh and unvarnished as ever. Maybe it's a little deficient in form but, like Albert Finney in the film version, it has energy to spare. It crackles with it like static.

It might be said that that the book's success - together with The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner - overshadowed almost everything Sillitoe did afterwards. It might also be said some writers would shed a limb to produce anything as powerfully, enduringly alive as Sillitoe's early work.