You Don't Wanna Be His

Some books just fly by, addictably readable, entirely sympathetically, only just putdownable and whereas 470 pages of academic consideration of the poetry of Ezra Pound could leave one none the wiser and not having enjoyed oneself, John Cooper Clarke's autobiography is pure entertainment. 

It is a grim story at times. Heroin addicts should keep themselves to each other because they are, as a demographic group, far more boring than accountants, golfers and Rod Liddle all multiplied by each other. But John is aware of that even while explaining the roller-coaster years of his career - the exhilarations and desperations- and whether you'd want such a clearly talented and erudite character as your closest companion for the long haul is entirely up to you. Several decided they'd rather not and I don't blame them but, on the other hand, anybody whose life included no encounter with him was the poorer for it.

He didn't have to provide 470 pages. If this had been the kind of book that just met the contractual requirements of a publisher who thought there was a market for it, he could have done 250. And he stops in the 1990's, with ever decreasing detail, because after that, I suppose, he was just famous and did what famous do to earn a living, not unlike Pam Ayers or Roger McGough who carved out comparable careers as 'professional' poets with less risk to life, limb or sanity.

Baudelaire's got a lot to answer for, big hero to Eliot, Rosemary Tonks, John and countless others.  

In its turn, that book led to deciding that James Young's Songs they never play on the radio would be the Nico book to have. We will see about that. The introduction looks a fraction over-written.

But before that I'll finish Le Grand Meaulnes which needs to save itself in its last sixty pages if it's going to justify its reputation. And then the library has provided The Shooting Party by Chekhov and library books jump the queue because they have a due back date.

A Very Short Introduction to Elizabeth Bishop by Johnathan F.S. Post also arrived today, not that I feel I need it having cleaned up 3/3 on the round of questions on her on this week's University Challenge. 

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But, Happy Birthday for tomorrow to Rosemary Tonks, Johnny Haynes, Wyclef Jean and me. The bus pass and state pension make it feel more like a coming of age than 18 or 21 did. These days it seems to be called 'state' and not 'old age' pension but I'm ready to embrace 'old age'. It does sometimes feel like it and it seems to me a ready-made excuse, if and when one needs one, for any lack of enthusiasm for contemporary culture. 

We necessarily live in the past because all books and music were written in the past, it's just that some of it comes from further into the past than some other.