threebikesmcginty
Corn Fed Hick...
- Location
- ...on the slake
Shhhh, Mrs 3BM would go nuts if she found jazz mags like O and B in the house!
the 'Send a Writer to Devil's Island' thread
- Thread starter dellzeqq
- Start date
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Shhhh, Mrs 3BM would go nuts if she found jazz mags like O and B in the house!
slowmotion
Quite dreadful
- Location
- lost somewhere
Scilly Suffolk
Über Member
I'd like to nominate Lance Armstrong for his autobiography. If a ghost writer was involved, they should be ashamed; if one wasn't, they should have been.
While there is no doubting his talent and how remarkable his triumph over cancer is, the book reads as hackneyed, clichéd and liberally peppered with Hollywood style excess.
Some of the photos are particularly heavy-handed (not to mention soft focus), as if the lumpen prose wasn't sure to hammer home the Disney storyline.
A nine year old's "what I did on my holidays" report at the start of term has more sense of narrative, as if the unedited transcripts of his conversations with a proper biographer had been published.
Liberal doses of PG Wodehouse were required to restore some semblance of calm; fortunately I read the free CC copy that is doing the rounds, so I'm only out of pocket for the postage it cost to send the book on: I have invoiced Mr Armstrong.
While there is no doubting his talent and how remarkable his triumph over cancer is, the book reads as hackneyed, clichéd and liberally peppered with Hollywood style excess.
Some of the photos are particularly heavy-handed (not to mention soft focus), as if the lumpen prose wasn't sure to hammer home the Disney storyline.
A nine year old's "what I did on my holidays" report at the start of term has more sense of narrative, as if the unedited transcripts of his conversations with a proper biographer had been published.
Liberal doses of PG Wodehouse were required to restore some semblance of calm; fortunately I read the free CC copy that is doing the rounds, so I'm only out of pocket for the postage it cost to send the book on: I have invoiced Mr Armstrong.
Hover Fly
He, him, his
- Location
- Besides the lake, beneath the trees
I'm glad you explained that, I was wondering why he had his front doors painted different colors, as if he had an infant school class as decorators.
I have to disagree with you there. It's not great literature, but it is a compelling insight in to the man, not least because it's warts and all.
And it does leave one question unanswered. If Lance is as unsympathetic a character as he paints himself, why did people stick by him. By the time I got to the end I was convinced that he'd kept his human side hidden from us, and that's an oddity in autobiographers.
Scilly Suffolk
Über Member
And a strong argument for biography as opposed to auto-biography! A good biographer is impartial and able to put things into some sort of perspective.
In much the same way that great athletes usually make poor commentators, the same could be said for their skill as authors.
The only autobiography that I have enjoyed recently is "Pimp - The Story Of My Life" by Iceberg Slim (Robert Beck). Possibly it's because it is a world so far removed from my own that I have nothing to reference it against; either way I read it in three or four sittings, where as I had to force myself to finish Lance's book.
Mad Doug Biker
Banned from every bar in the Galaxy
- Location
- Craggy Island
After working in a special needs school the person who wrote the Wellington Square books.
It wouldn't have been so bad, but we only had a few books, so we just used them over and over again, so reading them to the kids, you were bored, they were bored and you just wished that someone would nuke Wellington Square and put us out of our misery!
It wouldn't have been so bad, but we only had a few books, so we just used them over and over again, so reading them to the kids, you were bored, they were bored and you just wished that someone would nuke Wellington Square and put us out of our misery!
Well, quite! And I would add
. You lot are mentalists who should have your library tickets confiscated. Eliot? Shakespeare? Conrad? Joyce? Chaucer? Swift? Austen? Dostoyevsky? Atwood? Have a word with yourselves. And Adrian! Shocked and disappointed doesn't even cover it. The devil turns up in Moscow with a Mauser-toting giant cat who eats pickled mushrooms - what exactly do you want in a novel??? And I've not even started on the focalization [/narratology nerd]. This thread need only have been one post long, with Hardy being the correct answer from the off. Although in a rare moment of connection with Andy in Sig, I won't be shedding too many tears over Wordsworth. There's room on this island for Andrew Motion, obviously?that's a pretty fair offer!
Archie_tect
De Skieven Architek... aka Penfold + Horace
- Location
- Northumberland
Any person who works out their angst through the written word is never going to get my vote. Banish the lot and let them work out their personal problems on their own.
Mad Doug Biker
Banned from every bar in the Galaxy
- Location
- Craggy Island
In that case, Paul Threoux.
Sorry Mr Theroux, but just because you are a 'traveller' and not a tourist, doesn't mean that you have to look down your nose at us and be such a bloody snob! Also, what IS your obsession about circumcision all about? It always seems to appear in your description of places whether it is the local custom or not.....
....Does Devils Island have tourists, just to piss him off??
Scilly Suffolk
Über Member
I hadn't read the whole thread but instantly recognised The Master And Margarita from your short description; I must admit that I found it needed re-reading at times to keep a grip on proceedings: the patronyms confuse me!
Either way it is a genuine masterpiece!
- Location
- Glasgow
Well said MDB! That Durell guy, from "the bitter lemons of Cyprus", is another one imo: after reading the book's first pages I abandoned it in disgust. Patronizing nob! The cypriot people are dear to my heart.
Mad Doug Biker
Banned from every bar in the Galaxy
- Location
- Craggy Island
To be fair, to Mr Theroux, one of his favourite books is also one of my favourites, The Worst Journey In The World by Cherry Apsley Garrard, and he was very scathing of charities working in Africa treating it all like some sort of business, but still, he's a right arrogant twat!
I'll bear your Cypriot book in mind
I'll bear your Cypriot book in mind
Flying_Monkey
Recyclist
- Location
- Odawa
Absolutely: brilliantly written and wildly entertaining too. One of my favourite books. Heart of a Dog is also excellent. Adrian can't have Dostoevsky sent away either. Come on, man, get a grip! Gogol, on the other hand, I would happily have exiled from humanity: Dead Souls is pretty much as interesting as it sounds, and it will tempt you even less when I tell you that it's a satire on the pre-Soviet Russian rural class structure. I'm sure it was very funny at the time...
The only contemporary writer I want sent away is Paul Auster, because he is the epitome of the pretentious, self-regarding New York writer, who thinks he is producing work of the style and callibre of Calvino or Perec, and has the most sycophantic (also New York) fans and reviewers who keep telling him how brilliant he is, but in fact he is an annoyingly, staggeringly bad writer. I am sure there are equivalents in every major city...
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