saturday night sunday morning alan sillitoe

Soon Arthur’s endeavours catch up and lead him into some serious trouble. Having become friendly with an older workmate, this friendship doesn’t stop him sleeping with his colleague’s wife, or cheating on her with another married woman, and a young singleton on the search for a husband (needless to say, Arthur is not marriage material). And if you’re still left with a tiny bit of life in your guts after all this boggering about, the army calls you up and you get shot to death.”īefore long, however, Arthur’s devil may care attitude takes him down a dark alley. “Factories sweat you to death, labour exchanges talk you to death, insurance and income tax offices milk money from your wage packets and rob you to death. However, backdropped by a changing, more affluent Britain, Arthur is well paid for his hard work, earning a fat check that pays for his nice clobber and weekend antics.Īnd while Arthur may wake up dazed most mornings, but he’s wise to life and thrives on outwitting the system to his own advantage. Working in a bicycle factory (as did Sillitoe himself, aged fourteen, and his father before him), Arthur grafts through his day job in order to get to the weekend, where he can exercise his hedonistic ways.

By the end of the night, he’s had a drinking match with a sailor, vomited over a couple of OAPs, fallen headfirst down the stairs, and ended up in bed with someone else’s wife.

This is how Alan Sillitoe’s 1958 novel, Saturday Night, Sunday Morning, introduces us to our hard-drinking, gobshite protagonist. It’s post-war Nottingham and 22-year-old Arthur Seaton is down the local, The White Horse, where you’ll find him most weekends.

Saturday night sunday morning alan sillitoe