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Miaoooow.
Though, since you put it like that, and being no fan of Burchill myself I can almost excuse the horror that is Sugar if I consider it a trauma response to having had Parson's mouth(god I hate his mouth) anywhere near her ladygarden.
Which is to say, taking the piss along the lines of 'god, he slept with the moose' isn't very stylish, if I'm reading the implication right. There are far more interesting/apt things to attack them both for.
Anywaaay, Hornby.
Seem to have read more Hornby than I want to have done. And it's an interesting point about his music criticism, as my usual Hornby theory is that he's not very capable with fiction, but okay at reminiscence.
This based mainly on the fact that I think Fever Pitch is pretty good (and I try not to let the fact that it opened the floodgates to a slew of terrible football books get in the way of that) both as an self-critiquing investigation of fandom and as a memoir. Also, I know, because it's got 'therapy' stamped all over it while critiquing his own engagements with specific therapists.
I tend to think the fact that he's working with his own life and real external events anchors his narrative/reins in his excesses in a way that doesn't happen in his fiction.
But then, as Flybs points out, this doesn't seem to happen in his execrable music criticism which is smug, self-regarding and horribly convinced of the universality its viewpoint.
So, I tend to think that Hornby has a type of passion for football (provokes self-awarness, analysis and sense of humour) that he doesn't have about music.
Eg in FP, he's very aware of the contrast/absurdity of his obsession and the ways it drags him out of the norm, even in a mass fandom, whereas his music writing tends to function at the level of 'I like this, therefore it's great'.
Haven't seen him write about anything else, though.
As is presumably evident, I don't think much of him as a novelist, his novels are incredibly slight and yet manage to irritate me with their glib assumptions around gender and traumatic events. (thing with gender stuff than annoys me, is that there are flashes of real good stuff on masculinity, but they're never developed/usually resolve/disppear too simply. His nonfictional examination via FP is the best work he's done in this area) And everything else, come to that. There's no questioning or critique in the way that riddles FP, there's just event, consequence, event. Blah.
Can't stand High Fidelity(having, like Fly, had several people recommend it to me) and am not much keener on About a Boy.
I can see AAB might work on a YA level but I'm very loath, as per making excuses for Rowling, to assign writing I simply don't think is good to the YA category. Jacqueline Wilson and Mervyn Burgess both do this stuff so much better it's almost an insult to mention them.
I don't find Will's issues and movement believable but rather pat, and yet again, glib. It's too linear and easy. The description of the mother's mental health problems is appallingly broadly rendered/unrealistic. (agan, see JW and especially the Illustrated Mum for how to do this well) The women in general are ciphers and in fact it's very difficult to see anything from beyond the point of view of what Haus acutely describes as the 'Hornby on Hornby' exchanges.
It's self-indulgent, unsubtle nonsense and I probably wouldn't find it so annoying if it weren't so influential. But it is, and like Alex and Flybs, I find that appalling. |
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