Famous Last Words

Collected Stories by Saul Bellow. Complete Prose by Woody Allen. And, since not so long ago, Famous Last Words. Three books that never leave my bedside, my desk, the field of my vision.

The latter is special. No one can resist some slight flirtation with death. It’s a book I stole from a British pub some time ago and it’s a book I can open at any point and on any page and fish out a couple of lines of perverse inspiration. It’s a constantly reprinted book that has a very old-fashioned feel about it. It’s divided into sections like “Gallows Humour”, “The Show Must Go On”, “The End Is Nigh”, etc.

And while you do realise this is clearly a sham in 95% of cases (at the very least), you tend to purr with delight at, say, the defiance of Allen Ginsberg and the bitter poetry of Lord George Byron. So recognizable, so grotesque, yet so in character.

Still, my absolute favourite famous last words were spoken by Jimmy Hoffa, an American trade union leader, who died (presumably) in 1975. These words have to be true as they seem the most naturally tragic of all: 

‘Has Tony Giacolone called?’ 

Slanted & Enchanted

Generally, you know it from the start. By the fourth page and by the fifth minute you should know if it’s any good. Or, alternatively, if it’s any good for you. It’s a rare miracle when you hate a book from the get go and then suddenly, almost accidentally, floodgates open and you see Jesus. Hooks might come, but it’s the style that does it in the end. The click that should come when you first arrive.

Built To Spill didn’t click but Stephen Malkmus did. Except that Built To Spill never did.

In fact, Pavement was one such miracle I’ve alluded to earlier. After the ragged pointlessness (or that’s what I thought) of Slanted & Enchanted, I was never going to give them another chance. Until one day “Summer Babe” began playing and suddenly, almost accidentally, floodgates opened and Malkmus’s melodies started to make sense. Not the lyrics, no, but that one Lou Reed-esque laugh is worthy of most artists’ entire discographies. That’s just one hook in the sea of colourful noise, granted, but it clicked. 

And how. 

Let Me Imagine You

Music from a museum, as in art that heals you. Lyrically, too, Forster arrogantly rhymes ‘things’ with ‘things’, the brilliant man that he is. The album has been on repeat for days, merging with faces and streets, and the review is due at some point next week.

I haven’t heard a better song in years. The melody stings with understatement, as do the lyrics. The lyrics are phenomenal. Unassuming. Forster-like. 

Another misguided adaptation

Or that’s my feeling whenever the idea of a Martin Amis movie comes up. His books are unfilmable by default – in case you want to retain the authentic feel, that is. Even in the old days, when he was a lot more straightforward than he is now, it didn’t work (ever seen Dead Babies?). Later on, the grotesque balance of brutality and charm became so fine that you had to struggle to imagine Keith Talent making a screen appearance. 

Which brings me to the upcoming release of London Fields. It half-excites me, admittedly, but that’s inertia rather than great expectations. Which might actually work, when the film is out and I gasp with admiration seeing Billy Bob Thornton play Samson Young. And Christ what if Johnny Depp’s cameo as (I’m not saying) makes people read the book… Whose last few pages devastate you like nothing else. And I do mean both physically and emotionally. 

Wire (self-titled)

There are rainy days and then there are days when it’s raining (actually a good first sentence for a novel). Rainy days are tolerable and can even be called romantic if you’re in that sort of mood. Days when it’s raining, on the other hand, leave not a vestige of hope. They depress the guts out of you. It’s just one massive stream of intensely grey water that looks like it is never going to stop pouring down. It’s like a pair of grizzly, horribly overused lenses that make your eyesight even worse.

And accidentally – I’ve found the perfect album for a day like that. On a bus taking me to the airport, at 8 in the ghastly morning, I decided to play an album which had not done much for me up to that point. Wire’s self-titled (interesting how some bands choose to go for this righteous excuse so late in their career) album from 2015. It just merged so well with these overwhelming floods slashing down the bus windows and made it all seem so much better. The album and the day when it was raining. 

By the time of “In Manchester” I’d been converted. But it all started here.  

An impulse

I believe the idea to automatically reject something popular (and popular is often annoyingly popular) is a perfectly natural one. We all have the right to do that. Hell, we all should do it. Frank Black, remember, hated Nirvana when they first arrived even though everyone kept telling him they were influenced by Pixies (never bought that to be honest). 

Later, if you actually like this popular something, against your desire or otherwise, keep resisting it. Keep fighting back. If you lose, you lose, but at the very least give it a good shot and die a noble death. Fortunately, with a hilariously awful album like Miley Cyrus and The Dead Petz, you don’t even have to try. Speaking of which, what the hell is wrong with Wayne Coyne? What’s in it for him?

Akutagawa's prose

Japanese art is eccentricity made organic. It is strangely enticing.

Akutagawa’s fables create odd worlds that are not unlike those created by Kafka. They are less claustrophobic but they are just as natural. It’s some incredible feat – to make absurd seem so wholesome and so consistent. Only in Kafka’s case it was the mental state of one man. Here, it’s the state of the whole nation. 

“The Nose” in particular seems a masterpiece of abstract expression that you can smell and almost taste. Japanese art is like Japanese tea. And I mean that in the best possible way.