Saturday night and Sunday morning
Saturday night and Sunday morning (Engl. " Saturday Night and Sunday Morning ") is the title of a 1958 published novel by Alan Sillitoe , he was schlartig by the known and which has sold nearly one million copies. The novel is assigned to the Angry Young Men movement and is set in the working class in Nottingham in England in the 1950s. But he shows how the rebellious protagonist integrates himself into society in order to bond firmly to his girlfriend. The British consumer society of the 1950s and 60s is looming.
The original for the novel with autobiographical features, which describes the dissolute life and loves of a young worker on the weekends and the subsequent disenchantment, was a series of short stories entitled The Adventures of Arthur Seaton .
action
The novel is divided into two chapters: Saturday night and Sunday morning .
Saturday night
Arthur Seaton, the protagonist , is in his early twenties and works as a pieceworker in a factory that makes bicycle cylinders. In order to break out of the monotony of factory work and have fun, he does what most workers do: he goes to pubs on weekends, drinks up his weekly wages. The book opens with a drinking contest that Arthur throws to the ground. He has affairs with Brenda, the wife of his work colleague and friend Jack, and later with Winnie, her sister, wife of a soldier. For him this is the optimal solution, since a relationship with an unbound woman always means the sword of Damocles of marriage. The affair with Winnie is exposed; her husband wants to beat up Arthur. Jack now also suspects that Brenda was having an affair with Arthur and the situation is getting worse.
Meanwhile Arthur meets a new woman: Doreen; independent, young, pretty, reserved. He spends a lot of time with her, and a tender affair ensues. But his reservations about unattached girls prevent him from taking the relationship really seriously - when Arthur goes to the military for some time, they lose sight of each other for the time being. And finally it comes as it had to come, as it challenged Arthur's wild and affair-rich life: He is surprised and beaten up by Winnie's husband and another soldier in an alley.
Sunday morning
Arthur was in the hospital and has to stay in bed for some time at home to recover. Time to rethink your situation, your life and your ideas and goals in order to finally make the decision to lead a different life - more stable, more constant - and with Doreen. At the end of the book, they move together to one of the newest and most modern areas of London.
Explanation
Sillitoe, who came from a poor family in the East Midlands , originally wanted to write until he had made enough money to soon stop having to write. In it he shared his hero's instrumental relationship with work.
The choice of title and the naming of the chapters with the same name symbolize two phases of life. Saturday night stands for the stormy, impulsive, free and unbound, provocative life and desire of the young workers to enjoy. During the week you work in the factory to earn the money you need for rent, good clothing and “free time” - women, watching football (in this case Notts County ), drinking, going out. The life of young English workers can be divided into two parts: the gloomy, monotonous time in the factory and the actual, wild life on the weekend, which usually culminates in a big binge and other pleasures on Saturday evening and with the quiet Sunday morning - sleep in, relax, have a long breakfast , stroll etc. - ends. The chapter comes to its dramatic, fatal and also symbolic end with the “revenge” (the beating) on Arthur - unspoken question: can it continue like this?
The answer to that is Sunday morning : Arthur led his wild life full of self-confidence and conviction, energy and enjoyment. But he realizes that he doesn't want to continue this wild life forever. He becomes more level-headed, wants a family and begins to appreciate calm and a stable and intimate relationship on which a life can be built differently. Sunday morning stands for prudence, for human maturity, for the intellectual and emotional development process of a young man who is in the process of shaping his life and taking on responsibility.
style
In the documentary, realistic , even naturalistic work, in which there is no ideologically closed world view, social criticism takes a back seat. The novel is written in casual everyday language without any pathos and with a lot of humor. The fragmentation of the work with internal monologues, leaps in time and frequent changes of scene is typical.
Adaptations
In 1960 the novel by Karel Reisz with Albert Finney in the role of Arthur Seaton was made into a film (" Saturday night to Sunday morning ").
In 1964, David Brett made a stage adaptation for the Nottingham Playhouse . Ian McKellen had one of his first leading roles in the play.
literature
- Sillitoe: Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. In: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon. Munich 1996, vol. 15, p. 478.
Individual evidence
- ↑ DJ Taylor: The loneliness of Alan Sillitoe on wsj.com, December 29, 2016.