The Staggeringly Concise Book Review Series [#5]

The Fall are a post-punk institution: an avant-garde band of shambolic renegades controlled and manipulated by enigmatic Mancunian mastermind Mark E. Smith. Their music is dissonant, unpleasant, thunderous, venomous, cerebral, and remarkably inventive. Smith is widely recognised as being one of the most original writers in the history of rock music.

Smith presaged the legion of cryptic alt-rock wordsmiths that followed in the ‘90s and ‘00s, his influence imprinted upon the songs of Pavement, Guided By Voices, Half Man Half Biscuit and Joanna Newsom. The influence their music has had on the countless "indie" groups formed since the band’s inception in 1977 is incalculable.

The Fall have based their career around a powerful form of awkward and inscrutable cacophony, taking an anti-culture, anti-counterculture stance. The Fall dislike both sides of the cultural fence, defining themselves as themselves: impenetrable, uniquely The Fall.

To me, there have been few bands who can write songs as strange, original, breathtaking and addictive as The Fall. And so, with that preamble, we get to the topic of Dave Simpson’s fantastic book, The Fallen. Dave is your average Fall obsessive: the sort of man who knows the set-list from a 1983 gig in Oslo, or what colour shirt the fifth drummer was wearing at a gig in Brixton 1986. Fairly common behaviour among fans of the definitive cult band.

He’s also a reputable music journalist for the Guardian, but for the purposes of the book, he’s a man on a mission: to track down everyone who was ever in the Fall. The band has a high turnover rate of members to keep the music fresh, you see, and Mark E. Smith (MES) notoriously flings people out the band whenever he feels like it. The premise of Simpson's book is, essentially, an exercise in decrypting the psyche of MES, exploring the reasons why this speed-abusing, alcoholic, foul-mouthed lout is able to keep producing such staggering work.

We meet long-suffering members of the band who discuss the wall of disdain erected between MES and his musicians, the power games he uses to manipulate guitarists into producing such unique sounds, and his numerous public humiliations. Smith’s idol is clearly Captain Beefheart, from whom he takes the notion that graft, punishing labour, and making musicians uncomfortable yields the greatest results. Simpson expounds on these theories, painting MES as a cult-leader, bully, and bumbling genius. All three are equally valid.

Simpson’s book is a treat for the Fall fans who are familiar with the prominent band members and their contributions to the music. The story of the band is such a whirlwind of hilarious anecdotes, bust-ups and bizarreness, that Simpson rightly keeps a journalistic distance and crafts these tales without too much mock-incredulity. He also introduces an appropriate warning against the Curse of the Fall: those who come into close contact with the band are destined to fall spectacularly from grace.

I think of Fall in terms of the Victorian artists – suffering for their work, spending most of their lives in poverty, being underappreciated in their lifetime. Simpson compares MES to a Victorian taskmaster, another apt image. MES is certainly an unpleasant and bellicose individual – this is quite obvious – though he wields a strange magnetism. We listeners are his battered wives, refusing to let go of our tyrannous love.

The nagging question, then: does this book appeal to non-Fall fans? Yes. There are no bands in existence as interesting and worthy of your attention as The Fall. Rock books are usually fawning tales of millionaires having fun at the expense of their fans. This is the anti-rock book. It’s an avant-garde statement in its own right. Simpson, despite coming from a contrasting world to MES, would have made a great addition to the Fall.

In fact, as the book ends, he too joins the ranks of the Fallen. No spoilers, but I hope the guy’s OK.

We end, appropriately, with a song. This is the slack-snappingly magnificent Eat Y’Self Fitter:

THE WAR AGAINST CLICHÉ (Pt 1 – Weather)

Cliché is a virus. It seeps into our lives like a plague and fits us like a glove.

Although we might spend weeks perfecting the most cliché-free paragraph ever imagined, at some point the hellhound of hackery will come barking at our door, munching apart our precious manuscripts like a rather rabid creature with teeth that hurt.

I have heard numerous cliché-avoidance theories over the years, many of them wise, many of them unwise. So, assuming I understand SOMETHING about the process of writing at this stage (I hope, I hope), the following are a series of ideas for evading the dreaded Beasts of the Banal.

Weather

1. The rain beat hard against the windows.

No no no! This phrase should be kidnapped, knifed and dumped in a dustbin. Rain neither lashes nor beats against windows. The force of the wind propelling the raindrops might create a lashing or beating effect, but this is irrelevant – it’s still a fusty way to create eeriness.

If heavy rain must be deployed, think about other sounds it makes outside a house. What the rain collides with, for example (though be careful to avoid tin roofs and the like). Better still, why not invert the description? Instead of the rain hitting the window, have the window being sieged by the rain. Inversion is a caring sharing tool. However, rain is a cliché hotspot, esp. in horror.

Learn from gothic windbag Henry James. Centre the action around the suggestion of fear. Use deceiving images or misleading sounds to create basic paranoia and suspense, or keep the action character-centred. For me, real tension resides within the relationship between what a character fears the most and the unpredictability of their surroundings.

2. A blanket of snow lay upon the ground.

Snow might look snug and cosy, but it’s not. It’s bloody freezing without four jackets and thermal gloves. This blanket image is misleading. No one wants to climb into bed and get frostbite. Why not expose snow for the menace it is? We have to extricate our cars from its slush-web, grit our paths and roads all winter, avoid being snowballed by teenage punks, etc.

Why not: An invasion of snow? A persecution of snow? A molestation of snow? An endless white diaspora of frostbite and hassle… of snow?

If the snow must be described favourably, then ignore snow’s cutesy images: penguins, tundra, Christmas. Concentrate on that bizarre human fixation with below-zero conditions, on plunging our hands into crystals of ice and getting colds that last three years, on taking six weeks to get dressed to go outside. We love it, but why? Why, oh why? Avoid referring to how it perches on trees, roofs, cars or the bobble hats of beautiful winter bints.

3. The sun broke through the trees.

There are an infinite number of sun-based clichés, but this one irritates me the most. Why must the sun always break through trees, stream in through windows, or appear on the horizon? The above expression is a nuisance, since it implies a newness about the sun’s appearance, rendering it significant when it is obviously not. The sun is endless. The sun never goes away. Of course it's going to appear from behind some bloody trees.

Why must it always break through trees? Why can’t it break from behind the head of a bald man sitting on a park bench getting rat-arsed? Or, as it does in the city, from behind horrible corporate buildings that keep you locked indoors all day away from the sun? The tree image creates an artificial beauty, when the reality of the sun is this: heat, sweat, exhaustion, irritation, sunburn, cancer.

Like snow, the sun has been misrepresented in fiction. The sun is evil. Consider such phrases as: The sun crept up from behind the trees. The sun ogled through the clouds. The sun prepared its blistering luminosity for another day’s torment of the populace. And so on. My suggestion is to capture that menacing dimension to the sun. It is deceitful in fiction to create the illusion of a benign weather condition and ask readers to ignore the skin cancer/death threat.

4. The wind howled all night long.

Only under very extraordinary circumstances can the wind howl. It makes whooshing and whirling noises to various degrees of extremity. It does not have the ability to do wolf impersonations.

The wind is a difficult weather condition to describe, since the whooshing noises vary in their tone and pitch, and we need words other than ‘whoosh’ to describe the function it performs (blowing things about). Personally, since I find the wind such a banal weather condition, I choose to ignore it unless I need something to auto-happen in a scene. The wind is a good back-up ‘happening’ if nothing else is going on.

E.g. She stood stock still. A man walked past. Umm… umm… umm… a breeze blew around her legs.

Also, remember that breezes ordinarily affect the whole body, but it might feel the strongest around a certain area. I would reserve wind for back-up circumstances only. If you’re writing a twister novel, you might wish to ignore that last piece of priceless advice.

I must retire now. The windows are weeping droplets, the wind is making things wobble, the sun is violating my precious skin, and the snow is freezing my bloody feet off.

The Books You’ve Read and the Books You’ve Said You’ve Read

I feel the need for candour. As a man unable to conceal his own general uselessness at things that don’t involve reading, writing or alphabetising books, the truth must be set free. Here are some literary prejudices and unfounded fears I have been saddling for yonks now.

1) Austen & Brontë – I have a degree in English Lit and still cannot appreciate the artistry of these authors. I’m tempted to write this off as a male/female difference, though legendary prose usually speaks for itself. It seems whenever I am confronted with these authors, my insides congeal into pâté and I run behind the sofa. I think it’s the bonnets. I hate bonnets.

2) Shakespeare – There was a time when I looked upon his works as the pinnacle of invention in the English language. Then it occurred to me: I was among the multitude of people who acknowledged his genius, but could not connect with his works. Shakey for me belongs on the stage, in heavily edited form. When I sit down to sift through a play, the whole experience bemuses me. I also feel his comedies are antiquated and are no longer relevant to folks now.

3) Dickens – I began reading Bleak House and aborted ship two or so years ago. I’ve never returned to Charlie since then. I’d like to reconnect with the master of the six-page sentence at some point, though I would really need a definitive Dickens experience. 19th century London doesn’t hold as much historical interest for me as, say, Dostoevsky’s Russia.

4) James Joyce – An unnamed critic informed me recently all Joyce was useless. The nerve! A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a brilliant work – the perfect balance between Joyce’s formless innovation and his talents as a chronicler of the quotidian (wow – how pretentious!)

Ulysses & Finnegans Wake belong to the ‘admiration’ camp – they are impossible to sit down, read and devour, but startling to dip into. It would be thoughtful for the academics to collect the highlights from these books and compile them into one volume. That way, more people could appreciate his finest moments without sifting through 1000 pages.

5) Novels Inviting Me to Emote – I confess, I am a wholly unemotional reader. Studying literature might have deadened my natural emotional responses towards prose. Instead, I acknowledge moments that are profound or significant, without reacting to them in the way I would a moving song or film.

As an emotionally volatile individual, the world itself reduces me to tears on a daily basis – the last thing I seek in books is greater dollops of sadness. I loathe moments I am supposed to react somehow – moments when characters come together in a straight-faced manner that seek to tug the heart strings, regardless with how much panache the author achieves this feat. Yes – I’m heartless. I suppose I appreciate books more on an aesthetic or technical level.

6) Commercial Books – OK, I’m a complete lit-snob. I admit it! If I hear about a book from a friend, then go onto Amazon and see over 100 reviews, a bulb pings in my head: MAINSTREAM! I deliberately go out of my way to read obscure books, and refuse to even contemplate a popular potboiler. Not every commercial book is a Dan Brown, I know, but I’m drawn more to lesser-known works, works from those no can be bothered to read.

I have found myself reading a popular book, getting into the story, then taking against the book for any formulaic imperfection. I loathe the formula in books. Sometimes at night, I have nightmares about computer-written books – detective stories cranked out by an algorithm, or herds of faceless ciphers writing the same books over and over again in giant skyscrapers. Never. NEVER.

Goodnight. Remember to feed the fish.

The Staggeringly Concise Book Review Series [#4]

A trio of books this time.

We begin with two anti-memoirs, both essential insights into the torturous practice of life writing. I say ‘torturous’ since I am currently bleeding my heart-rending adolescence onto the page in the noble pursuit of a decent grade. One person who turned her childhood into profit is Janice Galloway in her 2008 anti-memoir This is Not About Me.

As the title indicates, this is a book about familial ties and the endless desire to sever them. Galloway takes a conventional childhood in Saltcoats, Ayrshire – absent father, weak-willed mother, domineering sister – and transforms these laboured ideas into original and vital prose, crackling with tension, magic, insight and eye-popping characterisation.

Galloway’s novels have always been ludicrously compelling once inside, if somewhat difficult to pitch to the reader. So instead of flailing around like an octopus on speed attempting to explain what makes this a winner, I’ll say this: it’s special. Banalities become bravura. Boredom becomes brilliance. The humdrum becomes a humdinger. And so on. I recommend this for those seeking to be converted to the (anti-)memoir.

Next up is John Burnside’s A Lie About My Father. This is recommended for those seeking the quintessential evil father memoir. The father in this case is an alcoholic, a deadbeat and a Scottish hardman who mistreats his wife and son. The son (the author) then goes on a rebellious rampage of alcohol, sex and drugs. This culminates in a long spate of mental illness.

Uplifting? No. However, Burnside utilises a very poetic and compelling turn of phrase throughout, which lifts the antics from the potential whirlpool of navelgazing. He has a remarkable tale to tell and – because he can actually write with some profundity and wisdom – wipes the floor with the exploitative "misery memoir" market.

Lastly is Raymond Queneau’s comic novel Zazie in the Metro. This short whimsical novel from the Parisian polymath (and co-founder of the Oulipo) isn’t representative of his phenomenal talent, but is a tittersome romp through a cinematic Paris of the 1950s with the acid-tongued Zazie the charming misfit at its core.

The humour was, for its time, subversive, with its foul-mouthed heroine, the consistent references to ‘homossesuality’ and the playfully childish words spelled phonetically throughout the text. There is no plot as such, minus Zazie’s persistent dissatisfaction at being unable to ride the metro, but Queneau uses witty dialogue and crackling comic prose to keep us entertained.

This novel rightfully takes its place in the canon of classic comic works with the efforts of Wodehouse, Kingsley Amis and Douggie Adams, and has been adapted into a cult French film and a comic strip. So there.

Ember in Wrilogonzia, Part 6

Note: This is a baton-handing blog opera that started here. For previous installments, see the previous installment links below. For a cushion or a soda, consult your sofa or fridge respectively. It is a wise idea to volunteer to write the next part, otherwise the Blog Mafia will hunt you down and extract your teeth.

****

Ember mind-clacked in her mind a series of words – glug gurgle gaggle gulag golliwog – then read them back (in her mind). This code emerged which – if her mind wasn’t deceiving her, which was common around mating season – explained Wyndel’s missing pants debacle:

u
ure
ae
au
oiwi

“You are a… something. What’s the chemical symbol for gold? Of course, Au! Now, Oiwi… what could this mean? Oiwi… oiwi… Kiwi? Is it true? Is Wyndel a Kiwi? That is, a native of New Zealand?”

There was a pause, at which point Wyndel looked around him, wondering whether it was his turn to re-enter the narrative. Frankly, prancing around in Rocky Horror garb was not what he had signed up for in this chain-writing saga. He had expected a spunky sidekick role – perhaps as a romantic subplot to the central adventure – but instead, his todger was limping in the cold air like a soggy peanut dangling from a pub table somewhere in the Real World.

“It’s true. And furthermore, since this narrative began, I’ve been embedding pro-NZ propaganda throughout the narrative. Did you know two New Zealanders invented the zigzag?”

Cassie’s second eye formed through sheer incredulity. Unlike her left peeper, her right peeper was green and was permanently showing the reflection of gothic novel pioneer Washington Irving.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Ember said. If Wyndel was a New Zealander, did that mean she was one too? And where was New Zealand? And why hadn’t she eaten anything since beginning the narrative? God, she was starving! Perhaps she could snack on Dean’s pecs? They certainly looked nutritious…

“It’s true. If you tip the capital N on its side, and place it beside the Capital Z, what do you get?” Wyndel asked.

“A burger? A sandwich?”

“No… ZZ! Along with W, the Z is the most crucial letter in forming the zigzag! Haven’t you ever wondered why New Zealanders are so symmetrical? It’s because our forefathers invented the zigzag! The zigzag is in our DNA!” he said. He too wanted something to eat, but he was so involved in this ludicrous theory, that food was sadly off the agenda for the time being.

As he explained how New Zealand had invented socks, cheese, TNT, the Village People, Blogger, the goosestep, geese, almanacs, the internet, the elderly, the harominca, John Lennon, litotes, squares and Texas’s annual Gay Rodeo, Ember wriggled free from the narrative for a moment to have a snack.

Arriving at the Cheese or Get Out cafe, she walked up to the waitress behind the counter, admiring the skinned dalmation draped around her neck, and studied the menu, which read (in alphabetical order):

Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese
Cheese

“Do you have any cheese?” she asked. The waitress scratched her head and decided that she was going to be remarkably silly in this narrative (she did have a glowing green head and five noses, after all!)

“No, we’re fresh out, sorry. We do have the next installment of this saga, however,” she said.

“Hmm. What does that taste like?”

“You’re about to find out. Well, time-permitting. Anyway, do hang around. In the meantime, have this fistful of fudge to keep your stomach tame,” she said.

Ember thanked her and admired the radioactive chic upon her cheeks. She was beautiful, despite looking like the Incredible Hulk’s anorexic little sister. She decided this character was definitely going to play a very important part in the next installment of the saga – so important that the person responsible for writing it would have to share her remarkable qualities: green head, five noses, eight mouths, seven knuckles and an umbrella for a bum.

*****

Part 5
Part 4
Part 3
Part 2
Part 1

BIG Opinions from a BIG Idiot (#1)

When we turn teenagers, we’re expected to form opinions and stances upon the BIG issues – i.e. what politicians are paid to deal with – that we retain for our lives. Trouble is, I spent my teenage period ignoring BIG issues, maintaining a stubborn insouciance toward things that had nothing to do with me getting laid.

So, as I approach the one-third mark of existence, it’s time to form BIG opinions. Though, seeing as I don’t want to get involved in actual grown-up debates and end up discussing things with men in suits – feigning interest while I consume a thin glass of Merlot – I’m going strange, fascist, and evil.

Issue 1: Abortion!

My opinion is this: abortions are granted or denied after a series of psychological evaluations on the abortionee. Basically, the potential parents are assessed, prodded, poked and bothered, then are either deemed fit for purpose or potentially useless. Abortions are also to be made obligatory under the following conditions:

– If someone is unable to financially support, love, or take an interest in their accidental spawn. No point raising a potential bus driver!
– If the father and mother are between 12-24. You can’t raise a child when your main concerns are ipods and dildos.
– If the father and mother are unable to spell the word ‘instrumental’ then no child is allowed.
– If the father or mother is a postmodern writer, then the child will turn into a haggard sump working at Burger King. So no child allowed.
– If the father has forced the mother into getting an abortion, he is to have his genitals removed with clamps and a forklift truck.

Other technicalities: aborted foeti will be turned into a delicious pie, to be consumed by those who napalm clinics or slaughter doctors to put across their dogmatic pro-life views.

Those with the surname Jones or Smith are to undergo a name change before having a child, otherwise abortion is compulsory.

Abortionees are to be given a commemorative plaque stating: CONGRATULATIONS ON NOT REPRODUCING! Upon leaving the clinic, they are to be given a goodie bag including a leaflet on all the things they can now do, such as form a cult, write a postmodern novel about a writer writing a postmodern novel, and get a kitten (adorable picture above).

Next time: the Death Penalty.

Shit Writing Avoidance Therapy (SWAT)

Banal:

The man got out of bed. He walked to his cupboard and put on his dressing gown.

Unrealistic:

The man leapt out of bed. He rushed over to his cupboard and thrust on his dressing gown, desperate to start the day.

Over the top:

The man was blasted from his snoozy-woozy-beddy-byes and rocketed onto his feet for a day of action action action! He hurled on his superslinkysoft dressing gown and howled with happiness! Owww-oooo-oo-oo-ooooo!

Mechanical:

The man opened his eyes. He then stretched his arms and legs, twisted his torso, placed his left hand onto the mattress to support him as he raised his body from the recumbent position, then placed his feet on the floor and yawned. He then stood upright by placing pressure on his legs and winching his upper body skyward, using his left and right legs in a metronomic walking motion to reach his dressing gown.

Rhyme:

The man opened his eyes, it was no big surprise. He was tired, he had perspired, and now he desired breakfast. His dressing gown was upside down, and this made him frown. The fluff – it was enough – now he was in a huff!

Faux-Poetic:

The morning sun streamed through the blinds. He awoke from a dream about Ella – beautiful, celestial Ella – high school sweetheart and possessor of those dark, dangerous eyes. He sat upright and wiped a bead of sweat from his brow, musing on the ephemeral nature of man and the deep love he felt for the trees, plants, petunias, rosebuds, weeping willows, and fish around him. He applied his dressing gown: a soft cushion supporting the shoulders of time and the love he carried in his dark heart for dear, sweet, frigid Ella.

Surreal:

The bed got out of the man. The caribou in the mauve-green negligee was puffing on a filter tip and reading Jacques Costeau’s Guide to Snorkelling in Nice. A Mexican bollard floated across the room and ate the pockets of time attempting to form a unity in the room’s self-contained temporal vacuum. Somewhere, a piano farted.

Dan Brown:

The man – that is, Detective John Wilson of Rome’s 4th Division Michelangelo Squad – awoke from his bed. The man – Detective John Wilson – walked to the cupboard. A sizzling fire erupted from the cupboard in the manner of a volcano somewhere deep in Mexico, such as the Popocatépetl (5452m high), or the Ixtaccihuatl (5286m high), and shocked him (Detective John Wilson). He (the Detective) thought that something strange might be happening here, something to do with Jesus being a Sheila.

Minimalist:

The man awoke. Light. Traffic noise. Sweat in armpits. Weariness of purpose. He stood. Cold floor. He walked. Got dressing gown. Had breakfast. Choked on Cornflake. Absence of life. Damn.

Exclamatory:

He woke up! It was bright! The sun was shining! The bed was warm! He spent an extra few minutes in bed! He put on his dressing gown! It was very comfortable! He laughed! Breakfast was delicious! He broke wind!

Cynical Bourgeois Dad Novel:

Edmond Frampton, fast-drinking editor on the cheap TV serial Lazy Satirical Swipe, grumpily rose to his feet. The bloody milkman clanging on the door again. Stupid Asians. The teenage girl he had bedded last night was dribbling on his favourite pillow. When would the young people learn respect? Especially the young people he was sleeping with? He shrugged on his dressing gown and popped back a series of nondescript pills, grumping into the sink. Why was his life as an influential TV director, earning £40K a year, with a high-profile in the business, and opportunities to do better things in the future, so shit?

Shock Novel:

The Iraqi terrorist awoke from his bed and shot a Jewish man seven times in the head with a gun made from the skins of a Muslim, a Catholic, a pro-lifer, an underage teenage girl, a nun and Dave Eggers. The small rabbit he was having sex with then expelled its bowels and made a negative remark about Barack Obama being too idealistic and not fit for office.

More later. Maybe.