Sleep of Death, Philip Gooden
reviewed by Anton Shelupanov, Editor
Paperback £6.99, 310pp, ISBN 1841191469
When I first had this volume thrust into my hands by a beautiful young lady towards whom my intentions are strictly dishonourable, I felt nothing but distaste (partly because I wished she was thrusting something else into my hands). The blurb proclaimed that the novel was a murder mystery implicating none other than William Shakespeare in a series of killings. I don’t like that sort of thing and was rather hoping that Shakespeare in Love was the final nail in its coffin. However, I felt duty-bound to read the thing and comment intelligently (well, one out of two isn’t bad).
A brief plot summary: a wannabe actor Nick Revill comes to Elizabethan London to join a theatre troupe. This he manages, but is asked to investigate a series of murders disturbingly reminiscent of the events in the play Hamlet. There are indications that Shakespeare himself may be involved. Throw in a few whores and alchemists and you’ve got the makings of something which is like Terry Pratchett but without the funny bits.
The book, by any standards, isn’t a great work of literature. The dialogue is often contrived and inauthentic, the plot is implausible and rather basic and the structure at times mildly annoying. And yet, somehow, the whole thing is not unpleasant. Far from it, in fact. It rocks. Hard.
Gooden subscribes to the rule of punk. He screams “Fuck plot!” and smashes a chair made entirely of clichés over the reader’s head. He puns badly and mercilessly, brandishing Shakespeare’s Sonnet CXXXV like some deformed sword of bad wordplay, he makes his characters frig each other every time they are not getting their cocks chopped off, he tries to be transparently clever with appalling modern-day references to Viagra disguised as red herrings, he subjects his confused readership to a play within a play within a play within a play within a novel (this put me in mind of some of Gaarder’s shittier meta-philosophical plot devices). To top it all off he ends the novel / play with an erection. Oh, and it turns out that the butler did it (sort of). What more can one ask for?
This book is so damn enjoyable because Gooden does pretty much whatever the fuck he likes, without too much regard for the congealed pretensions of modern literature. Because he is having fun and so obviously enjoying it, one cannot help but share in this and go along with it. I read this book on one breath and whilst at no point did I laugh out loud or feel particularly sympathetic towards any of the characters, I had a bloody good time of it. I cannot recommend it enough. With this novel Gooden succeeds in violently buggering brother Cadfael whilst beating his brains out against a Folio edition of Love’s Labours Lost. My only reservation is that sooner or later the sods are bound to make it into a Hollywood film starring Kate Winslet and Ewan McGregor. Never mind. Can’t have everything, eh?
4 / 5
Sleep of Death is available from Amazon.co.uk and other online retailers