F - 2158 | Birthday by Alan Sillitoe

Arthur and Brian Seaton, one with an ailing wife, one with an emotional knapsack of failure and success, are on their way to Jenny's 70th birthday party. But there is still pleasure; and still pain.

"As an undergraduate at UCLA, I read and re-read Alan Sillitoe's Saturday Night and Sunday Morning, reveling in the antics of the boozing, brawling, working-class character Arthur Seaton. However, as years passed (and I got my Ph.D., married, bought a house and had a kid), I found it difficult to identify with the literary hero of my young adulthood.

Birthday has made Arthur Seaton alive and relevant to me again. What a joy to catch up with Arthur over 40 literary years later and see how an "angry young man" ages gracefully... sort of . Arthur is now a responsible parent, loving husband to a terminally-ill wife, and tender of a vegetable garden in his own home. Yet, he is the same old Arthur: telling outrageous stories, complaining about the uselessness of the government, and half-threatening to kill a young co-worker for wasting food (remember, Arthur Seaton grew up in a war-deprived England)." - John Nakashima

ID:  F - 2158