Before I Go to Sleep – December CC Book Club Selection

Parent Cafe
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<p>Ignatius- I’m needing a little clarification on sequence of things.
**If you think about it, the overall time frame in Before I Go to Sleep lasts such a short period. Fake Ben lives with Christine four months. Christine starts the journal on Nov. 9, last entry on Nov. 26, to the hotel on the Nov. 30 - three weeks total. **</p>

<p>The structure of the book is quite masterful, because it allows the reader to experience the chaos of Christine’s world. Time is jumbled. </p>

<p>The first section is entitled “Today” …it ends with Christine reading her journal which is dated Nov 9th through Nov 26th. </p>

<p>The last section is entitled “Today”…and resumes in the present, which is the day they are packing and going to the coast, for that horrific scene (not my kind of book).</p>

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<p>^^^ As the story starts Today documents Christine’s actions on the morning of Nov. 30: Christine gets her journal back from Dr. Nash, reads it.</p>

<p>The journal contains entries dated Nov. 9 through the afternoon of Nov. 23.</p>

<p>The last chapter picks back up Today Nov. 30 as Christine finishes reading the journal. She has no idea Fake Ben removed the incriminating pages of the evening of Nov. 23 and Nov. 26. So, she goes ahead with plans to leave with him for the coast that same day. Later, at the hotel, she finds the removed pages and then fights for her life.</p>

<p>The sections titled Today both take place on Nov. 30. While Christine may have had time to document her morning (first chapter), she sure didn’t write down the rest of her day (last chapter). For one thing Fake Ben burned the journal.</p>

<p>I can’t imagine the book with a different structure. Watson supplied a solid frame (Nov. 9 through 30) in which to jumble Christine’s memories - or lack of: structure surrounding the ephemeral.</p>

<p>At least that’s what I gathered as I read. See I already knew about Fake Ben so amused myself with details. </p>

<p>Please point out any errors - or just plain disagree, if I’m wrong. ;)</p>

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<p>That’s interesting. Four months is such a brief amount of time! And look at the progress she made in three weeks, in part by keeping a journal. That kind of therapy isn’t exactly rocket science. Don’t you think that over 22 years—much of it institutionalized—her medical team would have suggested journal writing? What did Christine do day after day for 20 + years to keep her mind agile, other than playing cards (at which she apparently excelled)?</p>

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<p>On that note, question number 2 is: “Christine says that she feels like an animal. Living from moment to moment, day to day, trying to make sense of the world. Do you think this is what it must be like to be in her situation? Do you think animals really have no sense of their past? Is the ability to remember years gone by all that separates human beings from animals?”</p>

<p>Watson really drives home the animal imagery, probably a bit too much—or at least, not subtly enough and with little variation in writing style. For example:</p>

<p>“He steps toward me again, approaching me as if I am a frightened animal.”
and
“He held out his hand to me, as if I was dangerous, a wild animal.”
and
“I…emitted a noise like a howl, like a wounded animal, starving, praying for its end to come.”</p>

<p>And so on. Those are just a few examples of many similar phrases. As far as the reading guide questions go, I would say that the last question is an obvious “no”—the ability to remember years gone by is certainly not all that separates human beings from animals. Even living day-to-day, Christine is still exercising her free will, making moral decisions, using her imagination, thinking complex thoughts, expressing herself in writing, appreciating beauty, and working toward self-improvement. On the other hand, she actually has less of a sense of her past than some animals. A dog will know it’s owner from one day to the next. No so with Christine and Fake Ben.</p>

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<p>Chris’s medical team did suggest journal writing at one point, but it didn’t work. </p>

<p>“They apparently encouraged you to write down what you were feeling, in an effort to get you to remember what had happened before, but I’m afraid you just became convinced that all the preceding entries had been written by someone else.”</p>

<p>At any rate, Chris seemed to get worse and worse. She was calm except when Real Ben and Adam were there…that’s why they stopped going to see her.</p>

<p>It’s odd, then, that she was considered well enough to sign herself out of the care center to go with Fake Ben.</p>

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<p>^^^ So why did the journal keeping “work” this time?</p>

<p>And I agree, NJTM – the descriptions of how Christine was feeling about her lack of memory were very compelling. </p>

<p>ignatius-- how did you know beforehand that FB was, in fact, fake? (Or did I miss where you explained that?) And how did it change your reading experience, since that fact was the main “thing” about the whole book?</p>

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<p>NJTMOM, Thanks for finding that quote! I had a vague recollection of it, but when I searched for the word “journal,” I couldn’t find the passage, so I decided I had been mistaken. Guess I should have tried the word “write” instead! :)</p>

<p>CBBBlinker, maybe the journal writing worked this time because subconsciously Christine knew that Ben was her attacker and her “animal” survival instincts were triggered. </p>

<p>Did anyone else feel that the climax of the story had a little bit of the old soap opera amnesia solution that “the cure for a bump on the head is another bump on the head”?</p>

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<p>That’s a good question, CBBBlinker, about why journal keeping worked at home with Fake Ben, when it hadn’t worked earlier. </p>

<p>Actually, I think the journal keeping was tried only at the psychiatric hospital…later, when Chris was at the other place, it may not even have been suggested.</p>

<p>One can only infer that being in a different environment, and having Nash in the picture, made a big difference…? :slight_smile: Mary13’s conjecture about survival instincts makes sense too.</p>

<p>Here’s another question (I don’t know why more of these kinds of questions didn’t occur to me while the story was holding me in its thrall): If having Adam and Real Ben visit and say, “I’m your son; I’m your husband,” upset Chris so much, why didn’t Fake Ben’s coming there and saying “I’m your husband. Come away with me,” upset her equally, if not more so?</p>

<p>I think Ignatius might have seen a spoiler in the Amazon reader reviews of the book. I read some of those reviews, too, however, and didn’t notice a spoiler. Some of those Amazon reader reviewers made interesting observations. One person wondered about Claire calling the school where Fake Ben worked and asking about him, and being told by the people at the school what job FB had. Claire wouldn’t have been asking for “Mike,” of course. So was FB using Real Ben’s name??</p>

<p>And yes, Mary13, I did notice the “second bump on the head” clich</p>

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<p>CBBB: I stumbled across a discussion guide that mentioned that the man Christine lives with as husband turns out to be her abductor. I don’t really care that I knew before I started reading, because I probably would have peeked at the end at some point anyway. (Gasp! :o Mary, don’t kick me out of the CC Book Club. I really do try to get to the end of a book without looking … sometimes.)</p>

<p>Anyway, I would never have guessed that Fake Ben is in fact Fake Ben. I would have sensed an evilness about him - the unexplained bruises on her face in the first chapter raise a red flag - but would have guessed (like NJTheatreMom) that Christine lived in an abusive relationship and that her husband damaged her. I bet that much of the acclaim for the book comes from the simple fact that many people don’t see Fake Ben/Mike coming. You think you have it figured: abusive husband, amnesia, remember and then get the heck out. Maybe my insistence on calling the book psychological suspense rather than thriller comes from my knowing ahead of time that Christine lives not with her husband but rather the man who nearly killed her years earlier. Really, can you get any creepier than knowing someone watched and waited all those years … and now you’re his? Eek! (again).</p>

<p>Maybe the journal worked this time for the simple reason that mentally Christine was ready for it to work. Years passed and she had calmed … And as Mary suggests, maybe Chrissy’s subconscious emits warning bleeps.</p>

<p>Mary: Animals remember fear and pain particularly on a subconscious level. It goes back to what you said in your first post about the subconscious with smell, attraction … only in reverse. Christine may not remember Fake Ben on a conscious level but she reacts much like an animal who has reason to fear. Her subconscious shouts “danger, danger.” </p>

<p>Two points bother me. </p>

<p>When Christine visits her home, she remembers Fake Ben … surely a memory of Real Ben or Adam should have surfaced to cloud the issue. I guess I write it off as Christine needed to remember the Fake Ben in her life. Certainly she feels majorly reassured by the memory.</p>

<p>Later, Fake Ben flies off the handle when Christine makes the omelet for dinner. The reader knows for sure by the time the evening ends that Ben can lose control and get ugly. Why does the omelet set him off? Does he sense control of Christine slipping through his fingers? Or is it as simple as Christine remembering how to make an omelet and so alerting Ben to the fact that her memory rises ever closer to the surface?</p>

<p>Re the second bump on the head cliche: Watson leaves us to fill in that answer ourselves. Christine has not slept yet. Dr. Nash feels less certain that she’ll wake with her memory than Christine seems to feel. I once heard an author address this sort of intentional ambiguity at the end of a story. The particular ending supplied by the reader rather than the author tends to revealing - optimist vs pessimist, glass half full vs glass half empty. As for me, I totally believe in the cliche. Christine retains her memory. If in fact the author Watson had suggested otherwise, I would have considered him a liar. LOL</p>

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<p>I, too, had an optimistic outlook regarding the ending; with Real Ben’s and Claire’s help, Christine ends up recovering. Dr. Nash’s waffling at the end is surprising, considering that he was so full of encouragement throughout. Perhaps he was worried about the malpractice case he’d have on his hands if Christine diid not improve! Well, let’s hope he had the chance to present his successful work at many a conference:).</p>

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<p>Perhaps Christine’s memory of Fake Ben being in her old home overwhelmed all the other memories because her guilt about that encounter was so overwhelming. She hasn’t realized (yet) that Fake Ben is the man she cheated with, not the man she cheated on, and the guilt is always bubbling beneath the surface, even before reading her journal in the morning:</p>

<p>“This morning I had woken with an almost overwhelming sense of guilt, the words You should be ashamed of yourself spinning in my head.”</p>

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<p>Good point. To use Real Ben’s name at a job, Fake Ben would have to have access to his social security number, birth date, ID, etc. Seems unlikely, despite his Photoshopping skills. I think the author made a misstep there.</p>

<p><a href=“Wow,%20Mary,%20you%20can%20search%20within%20the%20text%20on%20an%20electronic%20reader?%20That’s%20cool.%20I%20read%20the%20book%20a%20second%20time%20very%20quickly,%20taking%20notes,%20like%20I%20used%20to%20do%20with%20books%20in%20college.%20That’s%20the%20only%20way%20I%20knew%20how%20to%20find%20that%20passage!”>quote=NJTheatreMOM</a>

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<p>NJTMOM, a tip of the hat to you for two readings and taking real notes! Yes, the Kindle has a search tool, which I really like (but you have to be pretty specific about what word you’re looking for, or you won’t have much luck). I can also take notes on the Kindle, although typing on the tiny keyboard and searching for punctuation marks is a bit of an ordeal for this old lady.</p>

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<p>I wondered about Fake Ben using Real Ben’s name at work also and if maybe the author made a misstep. Still it seems such an obvious error that editors etc. should have caught it. Perhaps Great Britain requires less documentation or maybe just documentation easier for Fake Ben to - hmm - fake. :)</p>

<p>Mary, your explanation as to why Christine remembered Fake Ben and not Real Ben while visiting her home makes a lot of sense.</p>

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<p>Question 3 from the reading guide is sort of odd, as if written by someone who didn’t read the book:</p>

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<p>But Christine did achieve her childhood ambitions. She had a novel published to respectable reviews and would certainly have continued in that vein were it not for the attack. Suffering amnesia and living with abusive Fake Ben is not a “life she has made for herself” (except indirectly, through her foolhardy affair). It’s a life that was thrust upon her. Christine feels disappointed when Ben tells her that she worked in an office and was never a writer, but that’s a lie. And even if Christine thoroughly believed the lie, the time of her life when she would supposedly have been “only” a secretary was when she was about 25 years old with her whole life ahead of her, and thus has nothing to do with the regrets of “a woman as she approaches fifty years of age.”</p>

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<p>Christine was thrilled to learn that she had given birth to a child and that she had written a book. It seems like her identity issues began while trying to write her second book, having writer’s block while feeling isolated with the baby. She was depressed at the quarter-point of her life, which supposedly led to the affair. As a woman approaching mid-life, she is caught in a time warp, and the disappointment comes when she discovers, over and over again, how much time has passed. Who wouldn’t struggle with the loss of all that time? How could she be expected to fulfill her childhood ambitions at that point? To me, she seems very brave in that she keeps pushing herself forward to learn the truth…that is a triumph in itself.</p>

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<p>I thought it was strange that Chris didn’t really want to read her own novel…that it didn’t ring any bells with her.</p>

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<p>I agree. The daily discovery of that loss would be a terrible thing. I would want to weep the day away, but she forges on, which is admirable. </p>

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<p>Maybe somewhere in her subconscious she remembered that it wasn’t very good. LOL :)</p>

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<p>I have forgotten (hmmm, perhaps Chris’s plight does hit close to home), but was the content of the book revealed anywhere? Any thoughts on the significance of the title?</p>

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<p>From p. 105 of the book: </p>

<p>“I flicked to the middle of the novel. I read a paragraph there, and then one from near the end. I had written about a woman called Lou, a man - her husband, I guessed - called George, and the novel seemed to be rooted in a war. I felt disappointed. I don’t know what I had been hoping for - autobiography, perhaps? - but it seemed any answers this novel could give me would be limited.”</p>

<p>The only significance that I can think of for the title, “For the Morning Birds,” is that the sound of morning birds is associated with awakenings, and Chris’s current personal struggle is very much about daily awakenings and her awakening from her amnesia in general.</p>

<p>As far as her choosing the title before she had amnesia, all I can say is that it seems like a rather bland title! Nowhere near as great as, say, “The Sun Also Rises”! :)</p>

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<p>Maybe Watson wanted to call his novel “For the Morning Birds” instead of “Before I Go To Sleep,” but the editors shot him down, and so he wanted Chris’s book at least to have that title.</p>

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<p>^^ Regarding the titles -** “For the Morning Birds”** instead of** “Before I Go To Sleep,”**
I forgot about the title of Chris’s book.
As you mention NJTheaterMom the Chris’s book is about the* morning*, when a day is filled with promise and hope.</p>

<p>Depicting a time when Chris was happy?</p>

<p>And, Watson’s title “Before I Go to Sleep”- refers to the dreaded nighttime, when all hope for Chris would be erased,
the never ending cycle beginning at night only realized when morning comes again. Morning is the horror each day.</p>

<p>Day/ Night
Truth/ Lies
Self / Self “less”
Memory/ No memory</p>

<p>The duality of things.</p>

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<p>Great observations about For the Morning Birds. I wonder about Christine’s quick dismissal of the plot “about a woman called Lou, a man - her husband, I guessed - called George, and the novel seemed to be rooted in a war.” It may have been more autobiographical than she supposed—perhaps she was expressing the marital conflict she was going through at that time. Or S.J. Watson may have been injecting a little bit of sly humor—it ‘s kind of funny that Christine remarks that the story includes, “…a man – her husband I guessed –…“ She’s been known to guess wrong. :)</p>

<p>Going back for a minute to CBBBlinker’s comment about the book calling to mind the movie “50 First Dates”: Did anyone see the movie “Memento”? That’s what Before I Go to Sleep reminded me of. It’s a gritty thriller about a man with no short term memory, who wakes up every morning to find cryptic notes that he has written to himself about his wife’s murder. From IMDB:</p>

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