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Books of common despair?
Tawfiq Chahboune
In 2004 we saw a hullabaloo surrounding the nation’s favourite books. The
predictable result, given the format, was that crass celebrities chose crass
books - except for John Sergeant’s excellent choice of Catch 22. Crass book
reviewers were then able to write crassly about crass celebrities and their
crass choices. Something like this manufactured hubbub envelops the world of
books every year: Why has Martin Amis missed out on the Booker yet again? Is
Salman Rushdie back to his best? Some cretin will say Dickens can’t write; or
Shakespeare’s plays show signs of alien abduction, or were written by Jeffrey
Archer (only a matter of time, however, before Archer announces that he is the
Bard); or how the Oxford English Dictionary is more useful than Samuel Johnson’s
Dictionary (a PhD dissertation in Cultural Theory is begging to be written).
Some poor soul will splutter: “What’s so funny about Wodehouse? I don’t get it.”
Actually, it would be better to play the same game with novelists: Why must we
be deprived of the genius of Joseph Heller but left with the imbecilic
twitterings of Tony Parsons? Is Tony Parsons an idiot or merely a moron? If I
transport Tony Parsons to Guantanamo Bay will I get a medal? Ditto Julie
Burchill - but greatly multiplied. Ditto Richard Littlejohn - but infinitely
multiplied. All of this, however, masks a more interesting observation: although
far more books are published than ever before and with every social group buying
books as never before, many homes are nearly entirely devoid of any books. It is
a curious situation.
When there are books – an improvement of sorts – they’re invariably of the
following variety: something akin to Bravo Two Zero, a heroic tale of derring-do
“special forces” giving the darkies a bit of the bulldog spirit; Harry Potter
and the Billion-Quid Industry; the miraculous-selling Da Vinci Code, among other
Dan Brown titles; a Stephen King horror; a John Grisham courtroom drama; a Dean
Koontz or Patricia Cornwell novel (interestingly I’ve never met anyone who has
read these authors); some remarkable drivel from the drivelling Tony Parsons,
bleating Julie Burchill or hate-preaching Richard Littlejohn; a miraculous fast
weight loss book (Gillian McKeith’s bullshit nutrition masquerading as science:
looking at excrement; how reminiscent of opening Parsons’, Burchill’s and
Littlejohn’s oeuvre); the curiously ever present SAS training manual; a guide on
how to improve your love-life (Parsons understood that to mean, “Let Burchill
go”); a guide on how to pleasure your lover (Parsons understood that to mean,
“Give her a divorce”); etc.
It is difficult to imagine why anyone would want an SAS training manual -
although the armchair-commando Littlejohn should have made use of the section
entitled “Piano wire: Step1. Put Julie Burchill out of the world’s misery. Step
2. Now Parsons. Step 3. And now, the piece de resistance, yourself, you
crypto-fascist moron.” And what exactly was it that was so engrossing about
Barbara Cartland’s books? Just as interesting as the books people do have is
what books they discard in charity shops for nothing. Who on earth would discard
Something Happened? Or Gulliver’s Travels? Or Homage to Catalonia? My giddy
aunt, who in their right minds can read Thomas Paine (the greatest Englishman,
in my humble opinion, and an outrage that so few people seem to have heard of
him, let alone celebrate him) and then discard his work? A pleasant outcome of
Jeffrey Archer’s imprisonment, as pleasing as that was in itself, has been the
humiliated author’s canon being quickly discarded from respectable homes and
making appearances in charity shops, with no possible hope of finding a buyer
for fear of embarrassment. With a little diligence one could build a fairly
respectable library for a few hundred pounds.
At the same time, however, DVD sales are going gangbusters. Why the chasm in the
public’s buying habits? Why do Meg Ryan’s romantic comedies outsell Evelyn
Waugh? Indeed, some “comedies” are so bloody awful that one isn’t even aware
they are comedies. The two most recent I’ve unsmilingly endured are Bridget
Jones’ Diary and The Sweetest Thing. The former was deliberate, the latter was
accidental. Not that it made any difference. Perhaps I am devoid of humour, but
I had to be informed that the two said films were meant to be funny. Actually,
I’d be hard put to explain what these films were about. The latter seemed to be
a film almost entirely devoted to Cameron Diaz and her friends dancing and doing
all manner of apparently “funny” things, which weren’t funny at all. Similarly
with the hugely over-rated Richard Curtis flicks - each film has at best one
mildly amusing gag. Although his most recent one, The Girl In The Cafe, had me
laughing so much I honestly thought that I was knocking on death’s door (by the
way, the Grim Reaper looked like Richard Littlejohn). Curtis’s conceit (deceit?)
was Tony and Gordon saving the world from corrupt and unprincipled world
leaders. With Curtis knocking around it’s not true to say that satire died when
Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. Curtis really should give serious
consideration to making the true story of Alastair Campbell during his days as a
male prostitute. That would be funny and true - the most explosive cocktail
(Campbell “providing” the cock, and the tail the “gagging”). It would also
ensure more than the one customary laugh: raucous guffaws all round every time
Campbell is paid for “providing it” to those apparently “gagging for it”, to
quote his description of his former employment.
Why is the ratio of DVDs to books so skewed? Moreover, dire teen “comedies” and
mindless action films seem to be hideously over-represented in many collections.
Perhaps modern living has put people off books - or, more accurately, certain
types of books - and requires the anaesthesia provided by mind-numbing
entertainment. This modern condition is best described by the knowing line: “Why
read when you’ve got television?” in a film whose title presently escapes me.
Are we living in an anti-intellectual age? It’s hard to say. Though with the
hilariously stupid Richard and Judy running a book club - what next? Richard
Littlejohn explains particle physics? - anti-intellectual would be an
improvement. Maybe it is something more serious. Perhaps it is a sign of people
not having the time or the energy to dive into a good book but capable of only
collapsing onto sofas to take in yet another feel good movie (romantic comedy)
or an escapist flick (action, adventure, sci-fi, etc) which transports them away
from what they consider to be dreary and monotonous lives.
A cursory inspection of the literary sections of the weekend newspapers
detailing book sales is instructive. Sales are dominated by Dan Brown’s weird
books, biographies of celebrities, the preposterous Atkins diet or McKeith’s
pseudoscientific programme for weight loss, romantic novels for forty-something
single women yet to find “Mr Right”, etc.
There are two explanations for this phenomenon. Either the public have taken
leave of their senses (a given for the readers of Parsons, Burchill and
Littlejohn), or they are a side effect of a consumerist society dominated by
tyrannical corporations creating previously nonexistent markets. The very
existence of the gormless, racist gobshite Richard Littlejohn - a knuckleheaded
fellow who looks like a hideous mixture of tattooed pub landlord, bejewelled
bookie and obese leader of a far right party - is confirmation of this drive to
create markets in, well, anything that will make a return. (In reviewing
Littlejohn’s novel “To Hell In A Handcart”, the novelist Will Self, who must
have had to bear trials rivalling those of Job and Hercules on a bad day, mocked
Littlejohn’s quasi-fascist literary achievement as “It’s not Tolstoy”, thereby
claiming, in my opinion, the prize for finest ever book review.) It’s a wonder
that no one has written a book called “Was Hitler a Nazi?”. Perhaps Channel 5
may be interested in such a programme? It’s their most glaring oversight; having
done nearly every possible “Was Hitler…”, including the inspired “Was Hitler
Gay?” what’s left for Channel 5? “Was Hitler a spasmo gyppo homo kike?” Best not
give Channel 5 any ideas. Littlejohn, no doubt, is probably making a Channel 5
documentary entitled, “Was Hitler Too Soft?”
In any event, what is true is that many books play on society’s vulnerabilities
and insecurities, fantasies and unachieved dreams. Fast weight loss books are
aimed almost exclusively at women who enjoy chocolate but want to be a size 6
with as little effort as possible. The SAS training manuals are aimed at
fantasists, brilliantly parodied by Gareth in the BBC comedy The Office, who
dream of being able to garrotte an imaginary enemy with shoestring (why not the
unfortunately very real Parsons, Burchill and Littlejohn?). Most insidious is
the eccentric romantic gibberish aimed at insecure women who have yet to find
“The One” advertised by society at large. In case you haven’t yet figured it
out, here is the news, gals and Julie, like the “War on Terror”, “The One” or
“Mr Right” doesn’t exist; it’s a myth. To clarify, I can never decide whether
there are many “Ones” or “Mr Rights” (what is the probability, given how many
men there are, that you just so happen to bump into and fall in love with such
chappie?), or whether men are simply half of a pretty bad evolutionary dead-end
(wrong turn?) called homo sapiens, the boorish and grunting half, that the
generally much better half (though they read romantic guff), women, the half
with no wish to watch such unbelievable stupidity like wrestling and monster
trucks, or burp extremely loudly as if it were a great achievement, are
unfortunately drawn to by nature. If you continue to read romantic garbage,
which, in any case, is more Mills & Boon than Jane Austen, you’ll never figure
it out.
It is all escapism from the world they inhabit to the one they believe they
ought to inhabit. In this make-believe world you are applauded for your beauty
(not you, Julie), ability to withstand torture, gorgeous trophy husband/wife.
Unsurprisingly, however, the real world can be just as fantastical, perhaps even
more so: Richard Littlejohn masquerades as a knowledgeable journalist and
novelist. Even Marx would have been amazed that people would become so alienated
that they would end up reading Tony Parsons and Julie Burchill; he would have
been struck dead if he was informed that a market for Richard Littlejohn would
exist.
October 2005
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