Breathe by Anne-Sophie Brasme

A minor publishing phenomenon in France, Breathe was published when the author was seventeen and went on to sell stacks. Inevitably translated into English, this novella finds itself in the teenage-fiction section of the Barbican Library (confusingly labelled ‘Skills for Life’) looking a little forlorn without the attendant hoopla that greeted its arrival back in 2001.

Charlene Boher is a typical teenager: grumpy, hormonal and full of existential angst. She reads Camus and realises that the part of Meursault was written for her. Unfortunately, she takes the whole L’Etranger thing a bit too far: the story is narrated retrospectively from prison.

After she tries to kill herself when she is thirteen, Charlene is befriended by Sarah, a gregarious red-headed girl at her school. Charlene shares her life with Sarah, but when she takes Sarah on holiday with her family, Sarah carelessly tosses her aside for the attentions of a local boy. Charlene’s response is to get more than a little clingy...

Despite being bestowing her with the title of ‘best friend’ Sarah persecutes Charlene and treats her like dirt. Away for New Year, she bosses her around in front of her mates and the depressed Charlene decides to get drunk:

I was bored silly. I reckoned if I knocked back a lot of booze and got pissed then Sarah and the others might notice me. I started drinking. Glasses of spirits, white wine, cherry liqueur, red wine, beer, it all went down the same way. I was enjoying losing control. I let myself slip slowly into an almost comatose sort of happiness. The more I drank the more I enjoyed myself, so I carried on drinking. And suddenly Sarah noticed.

Uh oh. Sarah’s none too pleased that her little friend is acting up. Charlene carries on regardless:

One more drink, let’s see what happens... Then I drank that one too many.

Usually, and I speak from experience here, the adolescent reaction to mixing alcoholic drinks is to spend the rest of the night talking down the big white telephone in the bathroom. Charlene should count herself lucky that she only gets locked in a cupboard by Sarah, and doesn’t even appear to wake up with a hangover...

As for Sarah, she should have run while she could. Charlene goes from needy to obsessed in little over a year and by page 117 is suffocating her best friend with a pillow.

Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

Philosophical novel and cult sixties read, Steppenwolf is about the dichotomy of Harry Haller, a man both lone wolf of the steppes and sophisticated mystic, a ‘suicide’ unable to join the two halves of his personality.

Hesse complained that his book had been violently misunderstood, which was almost certainly a pop at the counterculture’s enthusiasm for the drug taking and frank sexuality in the latter half of the novel to the detriment of its more subtle nuances. At risk of being accused of a misunderstanding myself, here’s a quick dash through some of its boozy references.

Steppenwolf takes the form of a set of notes by Haller, containing A Treatise on the Steppenwolf, a pamphlet he is given in the street, and a preface by the nephew of the lady renting a room to Haller. The nephew, a rather serious young man, takes a liking to Haller, despite his rather dissolute behaviour. A furtive prowl around Haller’s room while he’s out confirms the nephew’s suspicions that he’s a lush:

On the big table among the books and papers there was often a vase of flowers. There, too, a paint box, generally full of dust, reposed among flakes of cigar ash and (to leaving nothing out) sundry bottles of wine. There was a straw-covered bottle usually containing Italian red wine, which he procured from a little shop in the neighbourhood; often, too, a bottle of Burgundy as well as Malaga; and a squat bottle of Cherry brandy was, as I saw, nearly emptied in a very brief space – after which it disappeared in a corner of the room, there to collect the dust without further diminution of its contents.

He follows him into a tavern one night and sits with him, an experience that does nothing to change his mind:

We sat there for an hour, and while I drank two glasses of mineral water, he accounted for a pint of red wine and then called for another half.

Mind you, Haller’s own accounts of his nights spent down the pub relate some steady imbibing:

None the less, the quiet of the place was worth something; no crowds, no music; only a few peaceful townsfolk at bare wooden tables (no marble, no enamel, no plush, no brass) and before each his evening glass of good old wine. Perhaps this company of habitués, all of whom I know by sight, were all regular Philistines and had in the Philistine dwellings their dreary altars of the home dedicated to sheepish idols of contentment; perhaps, too, they were solitary fellows who had been sidetracked, quiet, thoughtful topers of bankrupt ideals, lone wolves and poor devils like me... Here I cast anchor, for an hour, or it might be two. With the first sip of Elsasser I realized that I had eaten nothing that day since breakfast.

Wine by the pint cannot be a good idea, especially on an empty stomach. Could this be the real provenance of the illuminated letters on the wall advertising the Magic Theatre. Entrance not for Everybody. For Madmen Only...

The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ by Sue Townsend

A real time piece from the 1980s, The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole Aged 13¾ is a brilliantly funny slice of social observation, drawn through the eyes of its eponymous hero. Sue Townsend’s pen was as sharp as ever during the later books, but unfortunately, Adrian himself had begun to depress me and I stopped reading them...

A hypochondriac who thinks he’s an intellectual, Adrian bumbles through life with a complete lack of self unawareness. His diary captures his frustrations with his family, his school and his love for the treacle haired Pandora Braithwaite.

He starts the year with a worthy set of New Year’s resolutions:

8. After hearing the disgusting noises from downstairs last night, I have also vowed never to drink alcohol.

My father got the dog drunk on cherry brandy at the party last night. If the RSPCA hear about it he could get done.

Woodbine smoking OAP Bert Baxter is another thorn in Adrian’s side. After looking after him for the Good Samaritans for a few months, he finds himself having to clean up his filthy home:

Pandora and I went to look at Bert’s house today. It is a truly awesome sight. If Bert took all his empty beer bottles back to the off-license he might get enough money on the empties to pay off his rent arrears... My father took Bert’s beer bottles back to the off-license this morning. The boot, back seat and floor of the car were filled with them. The car stank of brown ale. He ran out of petrol on the way and called the AA. The AA man was most uncivil, he said it wasn’t the Automobile Association my father needed, it was Alcoholics Anonymous.

He drily recounts the time that Bert comes to visit, driven over by Pandora’s father:

Pandora’s father stayed for a quick drink, then a pre-lunch one, then a chaser, then one for the road. Then the had one to prove that he never got drunk during the day... I had to endure watching my father do his imitation of some bloke called Frank Sinatra singing ‘One for my baby and one more for the road’. Pandora’s father pretended to be the bartender with our Tupperware custard jug.

New Year comes round again so quickly. His last entry for the year ends thus:

My father came crashing through the front door at 1 a.m. carrying a lump of coal in his hand. Drunk as usual. My mother started going on about what a wonderful son I was and how much she loved me. It’s a pity she never says anything like that when she’s sober.

And so onto Adrian’s Growing Pains...