By Anton Constantinou
Wake Up, Sir is a comedy novel by Jonathan Ames about an alcholic writer and his valet (manservant). But also an olfactory read, about the nose and writer Alan’s obsession with the most beautiful nose he’s ever seen - that of love interest, Ava.
Taking its cues from Thank You, Jeeves, a comedy novel with a similar(ish) premise, released some 80 years prior, Wake Up, Sir revives a classic story but pays special attention to the nose.
Alan Blair is a young American author with a weakness for booze and getting into trouble. Keen to shake his alcohol habit but also write his latest book, he enrolls in an artists’ colony-cum lunatic asylum, with Jeeves, his trusty manservant, at his side to clear up after him.
What ensues is a perilous road trip involving an infestatation of bats, a shady slipper thief and a beautiful femme fatale (Ava), who Alan describes as having a nose so striking it pierced his heart.
There are times in Wake Up, Sir when you don’t know whether to heave or have a wank - its descriptions of the nose are that erotic in parts.
Such depictions include: “Her nose was right in front me…and I wanted to smother it with kisses whilst grabbing a fistful of her hair.” And “I ran my lips up and down the bone of it…I followed this up with an experimental suck, but I couldn’t fit the whole thing in my mouth.”
Other descriptions are less kinky and more poetic: “it looked different from one moment to the next, the light doing all sorts of things, casting shadows, revealing contours.”
While some depictions describe other characters, such as the head doctor at Alan’s artists’ colony, Dr Hibben: “His nose was hard to make out. Lost as it was in a galaxy of freckles. A small pink hole, like the arms of a starfish, opened from far away…”.
But the nose references don’t end there. Early on in the novel, Alan breaks his nose in a fight and lies about the breakage to curry favour and sympathy from others - including to bed Ava.
If dark comedies and fetishtistic depictions of the nose are your thing, give Wake Up, Sir a read and let me know what you think. My nose is still twitching from it.
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