You have to applaud the bravery of anyone attempting a biography of Patrick McGoohan. Leaving aside the impossibility of interviewing him for the book - he died just over two years before this was published - he preferred not make to many interviews, and to make as few public appearances as possible. It's thin material to attempt to fashion a biography from, inevitably reliant as it will be on research and interviewing those who worked with him who are still alive and happy to go on record.
First off, a declaration - I've known the author for ten years or so, to the extent that I had a cameo in what was planned to be the first in a line of Prisoner novels. On the plus side it means I can declare he's got an exceptional knowledge of The Prisoner, not only that he's highly eloquent on the themes and ideas of the show. And he's also well versed in archive television, having a large and wide ranging collection of shows. In terms of knowledge of the context in which McGoohan's star rose in the late 50s and early 60s, he's well suited to the task in hand. And McGoohan's career is excellently researched, from his time on a farm, through rep in Sheffield, through career highlights Danger Man and The Prisoner to his subsequent flight to Hollywood. It's only natural that the largest section of the book is dedicated to The Prisoner. Booth captures McGoohan's obsessive nature here very well. It's a theme that runs through the book but is most evident here where he's got almost carte blanche from Lew Grade.
Where it falls down a little is the speculation Booth's often forced to make to explain McGoohan's decisions. It's informed by extrapolations of what we know about McGoohan, and other career choices, but it's still speculation nonetheless. Although it might be said to be in keeping with the themes of The Prisoner, with the way society imposes perceptions on the individual...
Booth though is scrupulously fair in his portrayal of his subject. Whilst it's always evident that he's an admirer of McGoohan, he doesn't shy away from mentioning the flaws that obsession brought on. Whilst there's no womanising or 'my drugs hell' secrets to come out, the penalties of having drive and obsession aren't shirked from, nor is McGoohan's propensity for heavy drinking.
There was a remake of The Prisoner a couple of years ago. They even got a lot right, updating some themes to reflect today's society and maintaining relevant ones. Where they went wrong was that as good an actor as Jim Calviezel might be, he's got nothing of McGoohan's cryptic intensity; nothing of the driven investiture McGoohan had in his own project. It's almost inconceivable that anyone in modern times would give the freedom to McGoohan that Grade did - that's why The Prisoner ended up an idiosyncratic, compelling modern fairy tale; an allegory for McGoohan's view of society. The modern version smoothed the edges that made the original so fascinating away and lacked the engine McGoohan provided to the original. What this biography gets so right is to show what a fascinating, complex character McGoohan was. In the end that's probably all you can ask of any biography.
Sunday, 7 August 2011
The Revolutions Will Be Recorded - 33 Revolutions Per Minute by Dorian Lynskey
There are two ways to write about rock music. The first is the easy way, buying into and reinforcing the self perpetuating myths about musicians. That way lies anecdotes of TVs through windows, groupies and red snappers and Rolls Royces in swimming pools, the music of The Dirt and Hammer of the Gods. With the PR machines of record companies becoming ever more controlling it's the way the majority of rock journalism in the country seems to be heading, even if the ever more intense gaze of tabloids and internet bystanders makes it harder for personal foibles and excesses to be hidden. Entertainers and musicians become deities to be places on pedestals rather than human beings who find ways to communicate on a mass level; miracle workers performing sonic alchemy rather than simply humans doing something anyone could do to a remarkable standard. This way lies the likes of heritage rock magazines and Q's slack-jawed admiration,complete with fawning reviews.
And then there's the type of writing that understands how preposterous it all us, and reminds us there's a fallible human element in the middle of it all. No matter if they've achieved on the levels of the Beatles, Bowie or Bob Marley they can still be questioned, criticised and mocked. Mockery is the cheap way of doing that, one that only really works when the writer doing it also loves the art form - reminding you at the same time that it's all simultaneously brilliant and utterly ridiculous. It's best exemplified in the likes of Danny Baker, the casually brilliant swagger of Smash Hits and its alumni or Alex Petridis in The Guardian. It's a wonderful art form, at its best it has the effervescence and sparkle of sunlight catching bubbles in champagne. But even that art form comes with the great writing safety net that you can get yourself out of trouble with a decent joke. And that humour can allow musicians protection, a couple of witty lines allowing themselves to demonstrate that they're human whilst avoiding too much troublesome soul baring. The other, more difficult way of demythologising music and musicians is ultimately the more rewarding one - analysis and deconstruction, pinning the butterfly to the wheel. This way lies the very best writing about music - Ian Penman, Ian McDonald's Revolution in the Head, Simon Reynolds' Energy Flash or (especially) Rip It Up And Start Again, Nick Kent's The Dark Stuff or Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces. It's even there, albeit with a breathtaking lightness of touch which merges the highbrow and Smash Hits approaches, in Caitlin Moran's account of her meeting with Lady Gaga in The Times. There's little recourse to humour and no myth for subjects to hide behind here. The seriousness of the approach jars somewhat with the way music's sold by the industry in Britain so it tends to be confined to books and the magazines aimed at the older music fan. It's to this school of writing that 33 Revolutions Per Minute belongs, an almost academic attempt to study the use of popular music as a form of protest.
It's almost deceptive to call 33 RPM a book about music. Instead it's a Trojan Horse, sneaking a book about popular protest in the twentieth and early twentieth centuries using music as the hook. There's a brief contextualisation with an appendix covering previous forms of protest music but Dorian Lynskey's focus doesn't lie with the spirituals of slaves and left wing songbooks but rather how the advent of a mass market for music meant that one voice could now make itself widely heard - radio and records meaning a message could be spread far more easily than in previous years, and direct from the originator rather than via pamphlet or third hand through the performances of others. The point where there's no process of chinese whispers diluting or bowdlerising the message.
Probably the only obvious choice Lynskey makes is in where he starts. There's probably never been a protest song as startlingly effective as Billie Holliday's Strange Fruit; even today it retains an eerie power, long after the specific issues it highlights are... well, not dead by any means, but certainly somewhat defused. Lynskey's long term background as a politically engaged music writer means he's eloquently able to explain what gave the song such effect, both in terms of the music itself and also in the context in which it was released. It summarises the approach he takes throughout the book in that the song the chapter is ostensibly about is merely a point by which he engages with the issues the song raises. In that way this is really a work of popular history via music. Where the approach gets more interesting is at the point the protest song becomes more popular, around the rise of the folk movement eventually headed by Dylan in the late 1950s and early 1960. Lynskey doesn't stick to the point of view presented by his chosen song but more often contrasts it with other works on the same thing - contrasting Dylan and his actions with Phil Ochs for instance, or presenting James Brown's Say It Loud, I'm Back and I'm Proud coming in the context of the approaches of Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers. As a result it's a much more rounded and informative work than a book than a book which concentrated simply on the songs in question, bringing both sides of an argument. For example Country Joe and the Fish's I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag (and the whole peace movement) makes a lot more sense when it's understood against more conventional and patriotic songs of the late 60s such as The Ballad of the Green Berets.
That's not to say that individuals get lost in the great sweep of history - it'd be an interesting but repetitive experience if this was all political movements and ideology. Lynskey never loses sight of the human element at the heart of the work, where this is really strong is how it presents the songs as an understandable human reaction to conflicting political pressures. One of the themes that recurrently emerges throughout is the price of sticking to political ideals - ranging from tragedies such as those of Phil Ochs and Victor Jara to the frustrated idealism of Crass. It's that latter chapter that's probably the most affecting in the entire book, with their growing realisation that their music can't change the world, swept away in the capitalist tidal wave of Thatcherism. I genuinely wouldn't have thought it possible that a chapter on a relatively politically extreme band could come across as such a tragedy that could make me simultaneously angry and sad.
All this wouldn't matter though if Lynskey was simply presenting essays on thirty three different songs and thirty three different movements. There are a few songs which don't conform to a simplistic timeline of cause, effect or influence, but Lynskey's able to justify the 'history' in the subtitle by finding common threads and influences - no small task given he's ambitious enough to attempt to cover not only a divergent range of music including gospel, folk, funk, rock, rap, ska, country, disco, pop and punk but also a range of political movements as well as bringing in a more global context. Relating the protest music of Jara and Fela Kuti to the more obvious American and British movements is no mean feat, but it never feels gratuitous and gives the book a better global context.
There's no way anything short enough to be contained in a book - even a book such as this which runs to 800 pages including appendices and indices could be comprehensive but that's a problem Lynskey is clever enough to know and deal with. Not only does he deal with it in his approach to the book - essentially history via a series of thirty-three snapshots which are then contextualised, but in then providing room for further investigation. There's the already mentioned pre-history of the protest song as we understand it, a list of the songs included in the text, however peripherally, and a hundred further songs which didn't fit into the overall story. The sign of an intelligent author is that he's not arrogant enough to think of himself as a definitive authority on a subject, more a far-better informed expert. The leaving open of further avenues for investigation, and active encouragement to explore them, is entirely to the author's credit. I guess that my favourite type of rock writing is one which encourages the reader to share the author's passions by demonstrating (not explicitly explaining) what's so great about them. Revolution in the Head encouraged me to go back to listen to The Beatles with fresh thinking, Rip It Up And Start Again sent me careening through the dark corners of post-punk I didn't know about and encouraged me to return to the familiar areas I knew about. 33 Revolutions Per Minute? Let's just say that my hard drive is much fuller than it was before I started. And so was my mind.
And then there's the type of writing that understands how preposterous it all us, and reminds us there's a fallible human element in the middle of it all. No matter if they've achieved on the levels of the Beatles, Bowie or Bob Marley they can still be questioned, criticised and mocked. Mockery is the cheap way of doing that, one that only really works when the writer doing it also loves the art form - reminding you at the same time that it's all simultaneously brilliant and utterly ridiculous. It's best exemplified in the likes of Danny Baker, the casually brilliant swagger of Smash Hits and its alumni or Alex Petridis in The Guardian. It's a wonderful art form, at its best it has the effervescence and sparkle of sunlight catching bubbles in champagne. But even that art form comes with the great writing safety net that you can get yourself out of trouble with a decent joke. And that humour can allow musicians protection, a couple of witty lines allowing themselves to demonstrate that they're human whilst avoiding too much troublesome soul baring. The other, more difficult way of demythologising music and musicians is ultimately the more rewarding one - analysis and deconstruction, pinning the butterfly to the wheel. This way lies the very best writing about music - Ian Penman, Ian McDonald's Revolution in the Head, Simon Reynolds' Energy Flash or (especially) Rip It Up And Start Again, Nick Kent's The Dark Stuff or Greil Marcus' Lipstick Traces. It's even there, albeit with a breathtaking lightness of touch which merges the highbrow and Smash Hits approaches, in Caitlin Moran's account of her meeting with Lady Gaga in The Times. There's little recourse to humour and no myth for subjects to hide behind here. The seriousness of the approach jars somewhat with the way music's sold by the industry in Britain so it tends to be confined to books and the magazines aimed at the older music fan. It's to this school of writing that 33 Revolutions Per Minute belongs, an almost academic attempt to study the use of popular music as a form of protest.
It's almost deceptive to call 33 RPM a book about music. Instead it's a Trojan Horse, sneaking a book about popular protest in the twentieth and early twentieth centuries using music as the hook. There's a brief contextualisation with an appendix covering previous forms of protest music but Dorian Lynskey's focus doesn't lie with the spirituals of slaves and left wing songbooks but rather how the advent of a mass market for music meant that one voice could now make itself widely heard - radio and records meaning a message could be spread far more easily than in previous years, and direct from the originator rather than via pamphlet or third hand through the performances of others. The point where there's no process of chinese whispers diluting or bowdlerising the message.
Probably the only obvious choice Lynskey makes is in where he starts. There's probably never been a protest song as startlingly effective as Billie Holliday's Strange Fruit; even today it retains an eerie power, long after the specific issues it highlights are... well, not dead by any means, but certainly somewhat defused. Lynskey's long term background as a politically engaged music writer means he's eloquently able to explain what gave the song such effect, both in terms of the music itself and also in the context in which it was released. It summarises the approach he takes throughout the book in that the song the chapter is ostensibly about is merely a point by which he engages with the issues the song raises. In that way this is really a work of popular history via music. Where the approach gets more interesting is at the point the protest song becomes more popular, around the rise of the folk movement eventually headed by Dylan in the late 1950s and early 1960. Lynskey doesn't stick to the point of view presented by his chosen song but more often contrasts it with other works on the same thing - contrasting Dylan and his actions with Phil Ochs for instance, or presenting James Brown's Say It Loud, I'm Back and I'm Proud coming in the context of the approaches of Martin Luther King and the Black Panthers. As a result it's a much more rounded and informative work than a book than a book which concentrated simply on the songs in question, bringing both sides of an argument. For example Country Joe and the Fish's I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag (and the whole peace movement) makes a lot more sense when it's understood against more conventional and patriotic songs of the late 60s such as The Ballad of the Green Berets.
That's not to say that individuals get lost in the great sweep of history - it'd be an interesting but repetitive experience if this was all political movements and ideology. Lynskey never loses sight of the human element at the heart of the work, where this is really strong is how it presents the songs as an understandable human reaction to conflicting political pressures. One of the themes that recurrently emerges throughout is the price of sticking to political ideals - ranging from tragedies such as those of Phil Ochs and Victor Jara to the frustrated idealism of Crass. It's that latter chapter that's probably the most affecting in the entire book, with their growing realisation that their music can't change the world, swept away in the capitalist tidal wave of Thatcherism. I genuinely wouldn't have thought it possible that a chapter on a relatively politically extreme band could come across as such a tragedy that could make me simultaneously angry and sad.
All this wouldn't matter though if Lynskey was simply presenting essays on thirty three different songs and thirty three different movements. There are a few songs which don't conform to a simplistic timeline of cause, effect or influence, but Lynskey's able to justify the 'history' in the subtitle by finding common threads and influences - no small task given he's ambitious enough to attempt to cover not only a divergent range of music including gospel, folk, funk, rock, rap, ska, country, disco, pop and punk but also a range of political movements as well as bringing in a more global context. Relating the protest music of Jara and Fela Kuti to the more obvious American and British movements is no mean feat, but it never feels gratuitous and gives the book a better global context.
There's no way anything short enough to be contained in a book - even a book such as this which runs to 800 pages including appendices and indices could be comprehensive but that's a problem Lynskey is clever enough to know and deal with. Not only does he deal with it in his approach to the book - essentially history via a series of thirty-three snapshots which are then contextualised, but in then providing room for further investigation. There's the already mentioned pre-history of the protest song as we understand it, a list of the songs included in the text, however peripherally, and a hundred further songs which didn't fit into the overall story. The sign of an intelligent author is that he's not arrogant enough to think of himself as a definitive authority on a subject, more a far-better informed expert. The leaving open of further avenues for investigation, and active encouragement to explore them, is entirely to the author's credit. I guess that my favourite type of rock writing is one which encourages the reader to share the author's passions by demonstrating (not explicitly explaining) what's so great about them. Revolution in the Head encouraged me to go back to listen to The Beatles with fresh thinking, Rip It Up And Start Again sent me careening through the dark corners of post-punk I didn't know about and encouraged me to return to the familiar areas I knew about. 33 Revolutions Per Minute? Let's just say that my hard drive is much fuller than it was before I started. And so was my mind.
Saturday, 26 March 2011
You Turn Around And Life's Passed You By..
Bloody hell. Nine months. Where did that go?
Catch up time soon then...
Catch up time soon then...
Wednesday, 9 June 2010
Everything Picture - Round Up #4: Picture Book
And finally the graphic novel bits and pieces.
Vampire State is the final chapter of Paul Cornell's fine run on Captain Britain and MI13. It opens rather wonderfully with two of the finest and most melodramatic villains of the past century meeting on the moon to agree a non-aggression pact and proceeds to chronicle Dracula's attempted invasion of the UK. As you'd expect from Cornell it's a wonderfully twisting plot with several sleights of hand, but with the story having lasting emotional consequences for those who survive. It's immeasurably enhanced by clever kinetic artwork cour testy of Leonard Kirk and Michael Collins, bringing a neglected icon (well, neglected for those of us who hanker for the work the two Alans, Moore and Davis, did with the character).
Another writer I know via Doctor Who fandom is Javier Grillo-Marxauch, responsible for some fine early episodes of Lost, some Charmed episodes which I've never seen and above all, the magnificent but shortlived The Middleman TV series. A mutual friend, the rather wonderful Tara O'Shea pimped us some DVDs of the show whilst on a trip to the UK and dammit, hooked me and my wife immediately. It's a clever conceit, placing Steed and Mrs Peel into a landscape derived from the Silver Age of comics and lacing that with healthy pop culture references and a sly wit. The TV show was cut off after half a season, never having a chance to make it overseas, but the comic managed to tell a full story in three volumes. It opens up in the same way as the TV show, immediately juxtaposing the mad and the mundane, before settling for simply jetting off for wondrous realms of insanity. Postmodernism's a tapped out concept but it works here as the square jawed old fashoined heroism of the Middleman is offst by Wendy's modern wisecracks. It's quite a feat to have the jokes flow naturally in the conversation, and it contrasts nicely with some knowing narration. The clean line, cartoonish artwork from Les McClaine enhances the story, fitting the larger than life nature of the story well.
Brian Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat' is a different case altogehter. It's one of those moments where comics step away from the superhero genre with which they're become inextricably associated, and tell a very human story instead. The central character is Helen, who starts the story as a Beatrix Potter loving homeless vagrant with a pet rat on the London underground. The story gradually unfolds to tell us exactly why and how she ran away from home and, eventually how she comes to terms with it. Tabot deals skilfully with the central issue of child abuse, importantly never cheapening or sensationalising it whilst using it to tell a heartbreaking and eventually uplifting story. It's also about how we often use fiction as a refuge from the the horrors of reality, and using Potter's works as a metaphor for innocence is startlingly effective. It's one of those rare moments where comics achieve a real beauty and depth.
Vampire State is the final chapter of Paul Cornell's fine run on Captain Britain and MI13. It opens rather wonderfully with two of the finest and most melodramatic villains of the past century meeting on the moon to agree a non-aggression pact and proceeds to chronicle Dracula's attempted invasion of the UK. As you'd expect from Cornell it's a wonderfully twisting plot with several sleights of hand, but with the story having lasting emotional consequences for those who survive. It's immeasurably enhanced by clever kinetic artwork cour testy of Leonard Kirk and Michael Collins, bringing a neglected icon (well, neglected for those of us who hanker for the work the two Alans, Moore and Davis, did with the character).
Another writer I know via Doctor Who fandom is Javier Grillo-Marxauch, responsible for some fine early episodes of Lost, some Charmed episodes which I've never seen and above all, the magnificent but shortlived The Middleman TV series. A mutual friend, the rather wonderful Tara O'Shea pimped us some DVDs of the show whilst on a trip to the UK and dammit, hooked me and my wife immediately. It's a clever conceit, placing Steed and Mrs Peel into a landscape derived from the Silver Age of comics and lacing that with healthy pop culture references and a sly wit. The TV show was cut off after half a season, never having a chance to make it overseas, but the comic managed to tell a full story in three volumes. It opens up in the same way as the TV show, immediately juxtaposing the mad and the mundane, before settling for simply jetting off for wondrous realms of insanity. Postmodernism's a tapped out concept but it works here as the square jawed old fashoined heroism of the Middleman is offst by Wendy's modern wisecracks. It's quite a feat to have the jokes flow naturally in the conversation, and it contrasts nicely with some knowing narration. The clean line, cartoonish artwork from Les McClaine enhances the story, fitting the larger than life nature of the story well.
Brian Talbot's The Tale of One Bad Rat' is a different case altogehter. It's one of those moments where comics step away from the superhero genre with which they're become inextricably associated, and tell a very human story instead. The central character is Helen, who starts the story as a Beatrix Potter loving homeless vagrant with a pet rat on the London underground. The story gradually unfolds to tell us exactly why and how she ran away from home and, eventually how she comes to terms with it. Tabot deals skilfully with the central issue of child abuse, importantly never cheapening or sensationalising it whilst using it to tell a heartbreaking and eventually uplifting story. It's also about how we often use fiction as a refuge from the the horrors of reality, and using Potter's works as a metaphor for innocence is startlingly effective. It's one of those rare moments where comics achieve a real beauty and depth.
Everything Picture #3 - Round Up
And as for everything non-Doctor Who...
First up, an exceptionally cheap acquisition, Phoenix's massively abridged 60 page extract from Jostein Gardner's Sophie's World, The Greek Philosophers. I could see how Gardner's book was a massive success from this, it's a concise and engaging run through an important section of Greek Philosophy and includes the Sophists, Socrates and Plato. It manages the difficult feat of informing and educating at the same time, the writing teaching without ever condescending. It's made me hanker for the unabridged version, which I'd guess is the point. And no I don't feel guilty about buying such a short book, on the same trip to Hay I picked up Proust's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu. Yep, I admit it, I'm a literary ponce - what the hell, I never know when I might have a year or two spare!
Which makes for a contrived but neat segue on to Alain De Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life. I hadn't read any of de Botton's output before, but followed him on Twitter. Like all thinkers he can be profound, but occasionally banal when striving for depth, but hey, that's what you get for trying for wisdom in 140 characters. He's much better at book length, where his ideas have room to breathe and roam unconfined. It's essentially a series of essays based around concepts from Proust's epic, demonstrating how each aspect shown can be used to improve your life. And while it's doing that it explains the point of what Proust was trying to achieve - no mean feat when he's doing it in over a thousand less pages of larger print. It's not as pretentious as I've made it sound there, rather it's a thought provoking read that threw my brain some interesting tangents. Again, it's something that's fascinating enough to make me want to read more by the author and Proust.
Giles Smith's Lost In Music is an object lesson that pop music is rarely as life changing as we'd like it. It intersperses Smith's youthful attempts to make it big musically with a series of reminiscences sparked by certain artists and/or records. As such it hits upon the point of music in exactly the way Nick Hornby's abysmal 31 Songs doesn't. Music tends to mark time and places for us (in much the same way Proust used sensory experiences such as the taste of a madelaine cake) - cultural markers of sound replacing tastes and sights in evoking memories. Hornby initially tried to separate music from experience but, as the essays in his book demonstrate, that rarely works. Smith's book is livelier, funnier and more enjoyable than that and is better on the essence of why we end up loving music, why we remember the good and bad times with a soundtrack. I find Smith smug in his normal newspaper columns but here he makes for an engaging narrator, hindsight grating him the wisdom to laugh at his daft mistakes and faults.
The Infernal Desire Machines of DOctor Hoffman is a thin looking book, but that's a massive deception. As I expected from Angela Carter, it's a wild and strange book, full of seensuous prose and concepts beyond the ken of almost every other writer. The first chapter is a mere 24 pages, but it packs more into those than other peic fantasies pack into ten volumes - it's the tale of an assault on the city, but it's equally an assault on the reader's imagination, asking them to engage with mad, wild and almost random ideas and happenings. It's unsurprisingly full of Carter's usual preoccupation with carnal desire and its consequences, broaching some areas still largely taboo. At times it's like running through mid-Wales - gruelling, but you'll be marvelling at the beauty around you.
Timeleon Vieta Come Home is Dan Rhodes' first novel, but sensibly as an experienced short story writer he ensures it comprises a patchwork of stories, the first a novella length story of a dog and his master and what happens when their life is disurbed by the arrival of 'the Bosnian'. The second half is a procession of short stories of the people Timeleon Vieta meets on his way home. It's touching and funny, and while 'the Bosnian' is an irredemable villain (particularly given the ending) the rest of the characters are vivid and engaging. Even Cockroft, who could've been deeply unlikeable in lesser hands is sympathetic and engaging. It's a beautiful, light read that brings rural Italy vividly to life. Oh, and I defy any dog owners not to shed a tear at the ending.
First up, an exceptionally cheap acquisition, Phoenix's massively abridged 60 page extract from Jostein Gardner's Sophie's World, The Greek Philosophers. I could see how Gardner's book was a massive success from this, it's a concise and engaging run through an important section of Greek Philosophy and includes the Sophists, Socrates and Plato. It manages the difficult feat of informing and educating at the same time, the writing teaching without ever condescending. It's made me hanker for the unabridged version, which I'd guess is the point. And no I don't feel guilty about buying such a short book, on the same trip to Hay I picked up Proust's A La Recherche Du Temps Perdu. Yep, I admit it, I'm a literary ponce - what the hell, I never know when I might have a year or two spare!
Which makes for a contrived but neat segue on to Alain De Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life. I hadn't read any of de Botton's output before, but followed him on Twitter. Like all thinkers he can be profound, but occasionally banal when striving for depth, but hey, that's what you get for trying for wisdom in 140 characters. He's much better at book length, where his ideas have room to breathe and roam unconfined. It's essentially a series of essays based around concepts from Proust's epic, demonstrating how each aspect shown can be used to improve your life. And while it's doing that it explains the point of what Proust was trying to achieve - no mean feat when he's doing it in over a thousand less pages of larger print. It's not as pretentious as I've made it sound there, rather it's a thought provoking read that threw my brain some interesting tangents. Again, it's something that's fascinating enough to make me want to read more by the author and Proust.
Giles Smith's Lost In Music is an object lesson that pop music is rarely as life changing as we'd like it. It intersperses Smith's youthful attempts to make it big musically with a series of reminiscences sparked by certain artists and/or records. As such it hits upon the point of music in exactly the way Nick Hornby's abysmal 31 Songs doesn't. Music tends to mark time and places for us (in much the same way Proust used sensory experiences such as the taste of a madelaine cake) - cultural markers of sound replacing tastes and sights in evoking memories. Hornby initially tried to separate music from experience but, as the essays in his book demonstrate, that rarely works. Smith's book is livelier, funnier and more enjoyable than that and is better on the essence of why we end up loving music, why we remember the good and bad times with a soundtrack. I find Smith smug in his normal newspaper columns but here he makes for an engaging narrator, hindsight grating him the wisdom to laugh at his daft mistakes and faults.
The Infernal Desire Machines of DOctor Hoffman is a thin looking book, but that's a massive deception. As I expected from Angela Carter, it's a wild and strange book, full of seensuous prose and concepts beyond the ken of almost every other writer. The first chapter is a mere 24 pages, but it packs more into those than other peic fantasies pack into ten volumes - it's the tale of an assault on the city, but it's equally an assault on the reader's imagination, asking them to engage with mad, wild and almost random ideas and happenings. It's unsurprisingly full of Carter's usual preoccupation with carnal desire and its consequences, broaching some areas still largely taboo. At times it's like running through mid-Wales - gruelling, but you'll be marvelling at the beauty around you.
Timeleon Vieta Come Home is Dan Rhodes' first novel, but sensibly as an experienced short story writer he ensures it comprises a patchwork of stories, the first a novella length story of a dog and his master and what happens when their life is disurbed by the arrival of 'the Bosnian'. The second half is a procession of short stories of the people Timeleon Vieta meets on his way home. It's touching and funny, and while 'the Bosnian' is an irredemable villain (particularly given the ending) the rest of the characters are vivid and engaging. Even Cockroft, who could've been deeply unlikeable in lesser hands is sympathetic and engaging. It's a beautiful, light read that brings rural Italy vividly to life. Oh, and I defy any dog owners not to shed a tear at the ending.
Tuesday, 8 June 2010
Everything Picture - Round Up #2 (Time Lord Remix)
And things just got a lot busier round here, but more of that at some point in the future. In the meantime, clearing a little headspace...
First up are the three new Doctor Who novels from BBC Books. You might've guessed from previous entries that I'm an absolute junkie for Doctor Who novels. Can't help myself, I've been collecting the damn things for over thirty years now and I just can't kick the habit - suppose it's more stimulating and cheaper than a drug habit. The latest batch are Matt Smith's print debut, Apollo 23 from Justin Richards, Night of the Humans by David Llewellyn and Brian Minchin's The Forgotten Army. Of the three my favourite was easily Minchin's book, primarily as it takes an absolutely ridiculous looking premise and has an absolute blast with it - it involves a New York, woolly mammoth and an invading army straight from one of Douglas Adams' throwaway Hitchhiker gags. It's also got that very Doctor Who thing of knowing how ridiculous the premise is but keeping a straight face long enough to get away with it, letting the humour arise naturally from absurdity. He's also got a very good handle on the Doctor and particularly Amy, who's the de facto lead in this one. Sarky, fiery, slightly insane yet kindhearted it's the perfect print Amy.
Apollo 23 is fairly standard fare from Justin Richards - it takes an intriguing image as a starting point (an astronaut materialising in a shopping centre) and unravels a well-plotted adventure out of it. There's nothing wrong with the book particularly, all the right elements of a good Doctor Who book are in place, but it just seems to lack a certain spark - Richards is exceptional on plot, but none of his characters linger in the memory long enough to survive the turning of the final page. It somehow sums up the current Doctor Who novels - there's no real room for surprises, and they're simply merchandise to be flogged on the back of the TV show. Whilst the TV show should be the focal point for Doctor Who, it feels somehow cheapening to have the novels so lacking in adventure, flair and surprises. They've not been so unambitious since the early 80s and the infamous days of Uncle Tewwy churning out a book a month.
I rather enjoyed David Llewellyn's mainstream debut Eleven, a blacker than George W Bush's heart character study comedy, and his Torchwood work's shown flair and humour. His The Taking of Chelsea 426 wasn't particularly distinguished, having plenty of good moments but never quite coming together into a satisfying whole. Night of the Humans is very much in the latter camp. It's got plenty of clever moments - the way the 'Humans' are named, and their whole society, the Nanobomb device and the nature of the planet for three - but I've come to the conclusion I'm not overly keen on the way Llewellyn sees Doctor Who. From his two stories so far Llewellyn seems to view Doctor Who as a British Star Trek - campy, old fashioned SF with cultural nods and winks dropped in. I'm not quite sure I'd agree with that, it can tell those stories but it can be so much more than that. I might be being unfair, Llewellyn might simply have been stuck with the offworld SF book of the three, but if there is a next time I'd love to see him stretch himself with an Earthbound or oddball story. The old cultural references mean it feels like an RTD era story rather than a Moffat era one too, which jars a little. Again, it's far from bad, but it lacks the spark and sheer exuberance that makes The Forgotten Army the standout of this bunch.
On the non-fiction side I've also been reading Graeme Burk and Robert Smith?'s collection of fanzine writings, the unsnappily titles Time Unincorporated 2: Writings on the Classic Series. As a disclaimer I know both Robert and Graeme, and can thoroughly recommend them as charming company for an evening. TU2, as I shall space savingly refer to it from here on, is a spiritual sequel to Paul Cornell's Licence Denied (also the inspiration behind Shooty Dog Thing). Both are well qualified to edit such a volume - Graeme spent more than ten years editing the Doctor Who Information Network's highly professional magazine Enlightenment, and Robert runs the Doctor Who Ratings Guide, the largest collection of Doctor Who reviews online (certainly since Outpost Gallifrey went offline). It's a huge collection of musings on the Doctor Who produced between 1963 and 2004, and does draw extensively on both Graeme's magazine and Robert's website. There's nothing wrong with that when the material from both tends to be of such a high quality, not when such a breadth of other fanzines are represented. It might lack the scabrous edge of Licence Denied, but it's generally smarter. I'm possibly a touch disappointed that Tat Wood's The Frame essay on the scientifically worked through consequences of Axonite on the frog from The Claws of Axos isn't present (hey, it's funnier than it sounds), but it's a minor quibble, if you've read enough fanzines you're going to be disappointed by one or two of your favourite articles being omitted.
For me the highlights tended to be Graeme's own articles (if it wasn't such a worn down and useless descriptive cliche I'd use the word 'seminal' for his The Talons of Stereotyping) but I'd be remiss to not mention Paul Magrs lovely grab bag that leads off, Scott Clarke's 'Keys to A Time Lord' or Ben Hakala's 'The Re-Awakening of Mediocre Who', which implores us to treasure even the unmemorable stories. OR there's Dave Owen's 'Johnny Come Home', Deborah Standish's 'Classing Shipping' or the entire 'The Ones Who Made us' section... Even if an essay doesn't engage you, there'll be another smart, funny one along in a minute. A bit like Doctor Who itself really.
First up are the three new Doctor Who novels from BBC Books. You might've guessed from previous entries that I'm an absolute junkie for Doctor Who novels. Can't help myself, I've been collecting the damn things for over thirty years now and I just can't kick the habit - suppose it's more stimulating and cheaper than a drug habit. The latest batch are Matt Smith's print debut, Apollo 23 from Justin Richards, Night of the Humans by David Llewellyn and Brian Minchin's The Forgotten Army. Of the three my favourite was easily Minchin's book, primarily as it takes an absolutely ridiculous looking premise and has an absolute blast with it - it involves a New York, woolly mammoth and an invading army straight from one of Douglas Adams' throwaway Hitchhiker gags. It's also got that very Doctor Who thing of knowing how ridiculous the premise is but keeping a straight face long enough to get away with it, letting the humour arise naturally from absurdity. He's also got a very good handle on the Doctor and particularly Amy, who's the de facto lead in this one. Sarky, fiery, slightly insane yet kindhearted it's the perfect print Amy.
Apollo 23 is fairly standard fare from Justin Richards - it takes an intriguing image as a starting point (an astronaut materialising in a shopping centre) and unravels a well-plotted adventure out of it. There's nothing wrong with the book particularly, all the right elements of a good Doctor Who book are in place, but it just seems to lack a certain spark - Richards is exceptional on plot, but none of his characters linger in the memory long enough to survive the turning of the final page. It somehow sums up the current Doctor Who novels - there's no real room for surprises, and they're simply merchandise to be flogged on the back of the TV show. Whilst the TV show should be the focal point for Doctor Who, it feels somehow cheapening to have the novels so lacking in adventure, flair and surprises. They've not been so unambitious since the early 80s and the infamous days of Uncle Tewwy churning out a book a month.
I rather enjoyed David Llewellyn's mainstream debut Eleven, a blacker than George W Bush's heart character study comedy, and his Torchwood work's shown flair and humour. His The Taking of Chelsea 426 wasn't particularly distinguished, having plenty of good moments but never quite coming together into a satisfying whole. Night of the Humans is very much in the latter camp. It's got plenty of clever moments - the way the 'Humans' are named, and their whole society, the Nanobomb device and the nature of the planet for three - but I've come to the conclusion I'm not overly keen on the way Llewellyn sees Doctor Who. From his two stories so far Llewellyn seems to view Doctor Who as a British Star Trek - campy, old fashioned SF with cultural nods and winks dropped in. I'm not quite sure I'd agree with that, it can tell those stories but it can be so much more than that. I might be being unfair, Llewellyn might simply have been stuck with the offworld SF book of the three, but if there is a next time I'd love to see him stretch himself with an Earthbound or oddball story. The old cultural references mean it feels like an RTD era story rather than a Moffat era one too, which jars a little. Again, it's far from bad, but it lacks the spark and sheer exuberance that makes The Forgotten Army the standout of this bunch.
On the non-fiction side I've also been reading Graeme Burk and Robert Smith?'s collection of fanzine writings, the unsnappily titles Time Unincorporated 2: Writings on the Classic Series. As a disclaimer I know both Robert and Graeme, and can thoroughly recommend them as charming company for an evening. TU2, as I shall space savingly refer to it from here on, is a spiritual sequel to Paul Cornell's Licence Denied (also the inspiration behind Shooty Dog Thing). Both are well qualified to edit such a volume - Graeme spent more than ten years editing the Doctor Who Information Network's highly professional magazine Enlightenment, and Robert runs the Doctor Who Ratings Guide, the largest collection of Doctor Who reviews online (certainly since Outpost Gallifrey went offline). It's a huge collection of musings on the Doctor Who produced between 1963 and 2004, and does draw extensively on both Graeme's magazine and Robert's website. There's nothing wrong with that when the material from both tends to be of such a high quality, not when such a breadth of other fanzines are represented. It might lack the scabrous edge of Licence Denied, but it's generally smarter. I'm possibly a touch disappointed that Tat Wood's The Frame essay on the scientifically worked through consequences of Axonite on the frog from The Claws of Axos isn't present (hey, it's funnier than it sounds), but it's a minor quibble, if you've read enough fanzines you're going to be disappointed by one or two of your favourite articles being omitted.
For me the highlights tended to be Graeme's own articles (if it wasn't such a worn down and useless descriptive cliche I'd use the word 'seminal' for his The Talons of Stereotyping) but I'd be remiss to not mention Paul Magrs lovely grab bag that leads off, Scott Clarke's 'Keys to A Time Lord' or Ben Hakala's 'The Re-Awakening of Mediocre Who', which implores us to treasure even the unmemorable stories. OR there's Dave Owen's 'Johnny Come Home', Deborah Standish's 'Classing Shipping' or the entire 'The Ones Who Made us' section... Even if an essay doesn't engage you, there'll be another smart, funny one along in a minute. A bit like Doctor Who itself really.
Thursday, 20 May 2010
Shooty Blog Thing 2: This Time It's Personal
I'm shamelessly stealing an idea from Graeme Burk's excellent and insightful gem, geek or rare bug blog regarding his new book Time Unincorporated 2, and doing a kind of Making Of... with regards to my articles for the first Shooty book. Because a) it's a very nice idea, b) it's here to remind me c) it's the only way to talk about my articles and d) to get me thinking about my own writing.
Before I start, I'd push any readers of this blog toward Graeme's book. He's been responsible for ten very fine years of DWIN's own fanzine Enlightenment, and I know from experience and reading said zine that he's an exceptionally high quality editor. Buy it. Now.
Right... one by one, the blogging equivalent of a DVD commentary.
"Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story" (2009) was the first of three pieces commissioned for the book. One thing Paul's always been very keen on is that Shooty covers all forms of Doctor Who; novels, novelisations, comics, cigarette cards and so forth. Part of that was that he wanted a small piece on Benny to accompany two other articles he'd already selected to go in the book. We'd already talked about this, but Paul's original plan of a year's break in between issues of his fanzine put paid to that. In preparing for it I read DWM's review, which is a good, straightforward overview of the contents - I'd expect no less from Matt Michael. But it didn't necessarily sell me on it. And then I sat there looking at a blank Word document for ages, to find the right angle. One of the things I love about fanzines is that they can go where official magazines fear to tread, so I wanted to convey exactly why I adored both the character of Benny and the book - I might not have the chance again! If you like, I wanted it to balance head and heart in a way that I didn't think the DWM review quite did, balancing fannish love with some analysis. Simon Guerrier and Lisa Bowerman both adored it, which was a rather lovely ego boost.
"Craggles Rocked!"(2007) I'll get to the story of how Paul and I met in a moment or two, but the origins of this lie in a splendid afternoon spent in a bar in Swansea. The December 2007 issue of Shooty was due to come out around a year after Craig Hinton's death and Paul wanted a tribute to him for that issue. Since we'd both know Craig a little and first known each other from the infamous Jade Pagoda mailing list I was his natural choice to write this one. It was originally going to be around a thousand words shorter but it sprawled a bit and, as is ever the way with fanzines, there was enough space to turn it into the issue's centrepiece. Paul's little epilogue to the piece is probably my favourite piece of his, a lovely personal counterpoint to the review of Craig's professional work.
Licence Denied (2007) Paul and I were acquaintances rather than friends prior to a Sunday afternoon bonding session at Regenerations over a few Guinnesses - we'd been on mailing lists and met briefly at Battlefield in Coventry in 2002. But I asked a mutual acquaintance to reintroduce us that afternoon, and we spent the entire afternoon in the bar whilst friends came and went around us simply talking about what we loved about Doctor Who. We grew up adoring the Target novels, encountered the New Adventures at precisely the right time and didn't care about which stories counted and which didn't, we just loved a good story. And one of the things we bonded over was Paul Cornell's Licence Denied, a fanzine collection from 1997 - it was the inspiration for Shooty. Paul was initially reluctant as Shooty already had a significant review section, but I persuaded him in that it wouldn't quite be a review but more of a ten years on tribute. I smile when I reread the last line about a second volume being the only thing that's lacking now - there's two volumes of fanzine writings published since with three more that I know of on the way.
'And Cut It... Now!' (2008)Prompted by what I'd heard about new series fans not being particularly interested in the old series. One of Paul's ideas with Shooty was to introduce new series fans to the wider Doctor Who universe, so that got me musing on how we might be able to get new fans to watch the old episodes. For me it falls victim to my usual thing of not giving myself room to explore the topic fully and I think it could do with a rewrite or two, but I stand by the sentiment.
Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing (2009) The second of three original commissions. This was commissioned as part of a review section to tie in with Hirst Books' other title being launched around the same time as Shooty, Colin Baker's 'Look Who's Talking'. I'd written an eulogy for the end of the Short Trips range a few months earlier, so Paul asked me to pick my favourite Sixth Doctor story from the range and talk about it for about 1,500 words. This is one of my favourite Doctor Who short stories, the Doctor touching the life of an ordinary person and how he doesn't quite understand human emotions and domesticity so it was a fairly simple choice.
It's All About Unfinished Business (2009) The final one of my new pieces for the book. I originally pitched it to Paul as a companion piece to the review section, dealing exclusively on the rehabilitation of the Sixth Doctor in novels, short stories and audios, but when I'd barely got to dealing with The Twin Dilemma 2,000 words in it was clear it was going to be broader than that. To set the context it needed to detail exactly why the character needed rehabilitating. Writing this also helped me crystallise a few ideas about Colin's era in my own head. Probably my favourite piece.
'Alien Bodies: The End Was Nigh' (2008) If you're at all familiar with the Eighth DOctor Adventures you'll know of the reverence Alien Bodies is held in. This is my shot at slaughtering a sacred cow, almost playing devil's advocate.
'Tennant's Hamlet' (2008) What it says on the tin - a review of the production of Hamlet David Tennant did between the end of Season Four and the Specials. I thought it might be too New Series foor Paul to include given Tennant's involvement, but as he rightly pointed out, 400 year old material falls within Shooty's remit of widening cultural boundaries.
'Iris? Iris? Who The Heck Is Iris?'(2009) One of the rare occasions Paul commissioned me to write a specific piece for the fanzine itself, intended as a lead for the large section he was devoting to Iris and Obverse Books launching their range of books based around the exploits of the character. Always fun to try to introduce and sell your passions.
'Missing Pieces' (2009) I've always been fascinated by the way Doctor Who fans in particular fill in gaps - if there's no new Who on the telly, we (collectively) write our own. I like to think having to reconstruct the missing stories in our own head is one of the reasons for the creative fecundity of Who fans, part of the inspiration for this was to explore that. It's also my tribute to the Target range that I devoured so avidly when young.
'Short Trips: The End of the Road?' (2009) There's nothing so tragic in art as audience indifference. The Short Trips range had always seemed a distant third to the novels and audios but ended up the last original fiction range still standing, and the last that had (at times) an open submission policy. It seemed the end of an era to my mind, and it's an attempt to make people care.
'Iris Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus' (2009) Review of Obverse Books' launch title. Deliberately avoided mentioning every story since I think that's almost trying to curry favour with all the authors and (to use a technical term) a bit wanky.
Stay Tuned...
Before I start, I'd push any readers of this blog toward Graeme's book. He's been responsible for ten very fine years of DWIN's own fanzine Enlightenment, and I know from experience and reading said zine that he's an exceptionally high quality editor. Buy it. Now.
Right... one by one, the blogging equivalent of a DVD commentary.
"Bernice Summerfield: The Inside Story" (2009) was the first of three pieces commissioned for the book. One thing Paul's always been very keen on is that Shooty covers all forms of Doctor Who; novels, novelisations, comics, cigarette cards and so forth. Part of that was that he wanted a small piece on Benny to accompany two other articles he'd already selected to go in the book. We'd already talked about this, but Paul's original plan of a year's break in between issues of his fanzine put paid to that. In preparing for it I read DWM's review, which is a good, straightforward overview of the contents - I'd expect no less from Matt Michael. But it didn't necessarily sell me on it. And then I sat there looking at a blank Word document for ages, to find the right angle. One of the things I love about fanzines is that they can go where official magazines fear to tread, so I wanted to convey exactly why I adored both the character of Benny and the book - I might not have the chance again! If you like, I wanted it to balance head and heart in a way that I didn't think the DWM review quite did, balancing fannish love with some analysis. Simon Guerrier and Lisa Bowerman both adored it, which was a rather lovely ego boost.
"Craggles Rocked!"(2007) I'll get to the story of how Paul and I met in a moment or two, but the origins of this lie in a splendid afternoon spent in a bar in Swansea. The December 2007 issue of Shooty was due to come out around a year after Craig Hinton's death and Paul wanted a tribute to him for that issue. Since we'd both know Craig a little and first known each other from the infamous Jade Pagoda mailing list I was his natural choice to write this one. It was originally going to be around a thousand words shorter but it sprawled a bit and, as is ever the way with fanzines, there was enough space to turn it into the issue's centrepiece. Paul's little epilogue to the piece is probably my favourite piece of his, a lovely personal counterpoint to the review of Craig's professional work.
Licence Denied (2007) Paul and I were acquaintances rather than friends prior to a Sunday afternoon bonding session at Regenerations over a few Guinnesses - we'd been on mailing lists and met briefly at Battlefield in Coventry in 2002. But I asked a mutual acquaintance to reintroduce us that afternoon, and we spent the entire afternoon in the bar whilst friends came and went around us simply talking about what we loved about Doctor Who. We grew up adoring the Target novels, encountered the New Adventures at precisely the right time and didn't care about which stories counted and which didn't, we just loved a good story. And one of the things we bonded over was Paul Cornell's Licence Denied, a fanzine collection from 1997 - it was the inspiration for Shooty. Paul was initially reluctant as Shooty already had a significant review section, but I persuaded him in that it wouldn't quite be a review but more of a ten years on tribute. I smile when I reread the last line about a second volume being the only thing that's lacking now - there's two volumes of fanzine writings published since with three more that I know of on the way.
'And Cut It... Now!' (2008)Prompted by what I'd heard about new series fans not being particularly interested in the old series. One of Paul's ideas with Shooty was to introduce new series fans to the wider Doctor Who universe, so that got me musing on how we might be able to get new fans to watch the old episodes. For me it falls victim to my usual thing of not giving myself room to explore the topic fully and I think it could do with a rewrite or two, but I stand by the sentiment.
Teach Yourself Ballroom Dancing (2009) The second of three original commissions. This was commissioned as part of a review section to tie in with Hirst Books' other title being launched around the same time as Shooty, Colin Baker's 'Look Who's Talking'. I'd written an eulogy for the end of the Short Trips range a few months earlier, so Paul asked me to pick my favourite Sixth Doctor story from the range and talk about it for about 1,500 words. This is one of my favourite Doctor Who short stories, the Doctor touching the life of an ordinary person and how he doesn't quite understand human emotions and domesticity so it was a fairly simple choice.
It's All About Unfinished Business (2009) The final one of my new pieces for the book. I originally pitched it to Paul as a companion piece to the review section, dealing exclusively on the rehabilitation of the Sixth Doctor in novels, short stories and audios, but when I'd barely got to dealing with The Twin Dilemma 2,000 words in it was clear it was going to be broader than that. To set the context it needed to detail exactly why the character needed rehabilitating. Writing this also helped me crystallise a few ideas about Colin's era in my own head. Probably my favourite piece.
'Alien Bodies: The End Was Nigh' (2008) If you're at all familiar with the Eighth DOctor Adventures you'll know of the reverence Alien Bodies is held in. This is my shot at slaughtering a sacred cow, almost playing devil's advocate.
'Tennant's Hamlet' (2008) What it says on the tin - a review of the production of Hamlet David Tennant did between the end of Season Four and the Specials. I thought it might be too New Series foor Paul to include given Tennant's involvement, but as he rightly pointed out, 400 year old material falls within Shooty's remit of widening cultural boundaries.
'Iris? Iris? Who The Heck Is Iris?'(2009) One of the rare occasions Paul commissioned me to write a specific piece for the fanzine itself, intended as a lead for the large section he was devoting to Iris and Obverse Books launching their range of books based around the exploits of the character. Always fun to try to introduce and sell your passions.
'Missing Pieces' (2009) I've always been fascinated by the way Doctor Who fans in particular fill in gaps - if there's no new Who on the telly, we (collectively) write our own. I like to think having to reconstruct the missing stories in our own head is one of the reasons for the creative fecundity of Who fans, part of the inspiration for this was to explore that. It's also my tribute to the Target range that I devoured so avidly when young.
'Short Trips: The End of the Road?' (2009) There's nothing so tragic in art as audience indifference. The Short Trips range had always seemed a distant third to the novels and audios but ended up the last original fiction range still standing, and the last that had (at times) an open submission policy. It seemed the end of an era to my mind, and it's an attempt to make people care.
'Iris Wildthyme and the Celestial Omnibus' (2009) Review of Obverse Books' launch title. Deliberately avoided mentioning every story since I think that's almost trying to curry favour with all the authors and (to use a technical term) a bit wanky.
Stay Tuned...
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