Does his hair smell like the smoke from burning buildings?

[alexsarll]

Public Enemy were heroes to most, but they never meant sh1t to me me - most of my heroes ain't appeared on no list of Farrakhan supporters. But those who disagree may be interested to learn that The Bomb Squad have got into dubstep.

burkesworks has already posted his thoughts on the David Peace South Bank Show, and as regards his opinion of Martin Amis' strengths, of ITV in general and of the second half of this programme in particular, I agree. It was especially galling that while there was some discussion of Peace's work prior to The Damned Utd (the little of which I've encountered I found pretty unimpressive), so little was made of his having published another novel since, the astonishing Tokyo Year Zero. Instead, we got some old fool of an ex-player who seemed to be under the misapprehension that he could write, talking about how no non-player could understand the allegedly unique experience of being dropped from a football team. Which for starters plays into the horrid underestimation of a little thing called 'imagination' - but he then described it, badly, in terms which would apply equally to being sacked from any job one likes, or indeed to being dumped*.
Where I'd disagree is in the association of Peace with the 'angry young men' and working class realism. When I heard Peace read from GB84, that was what I thought of too - and that's why I filed him under Of No Further Interest until the praise for The Damned Utd from people whose recommendations I respect got overwhelming. What interests me in The Damned Utd and Tokyo Year Zero isn't that sort of writer, it's one burrows into the guts the past like James Ellroy. If there's a comparison to be made with a Northern writer, I'd go for Tony Harrison - they've a similar gift for marrying the rhythms of everyday speech with something deeper, rhythmic, primal. But even ahead of that, when I hear Peace say "there is no such thing as non-fiction" and talk about his working method of immersion in the past, I think of Marguerite Yourcenar or the Alan Moore of Voice of the Fire, writers who channel the dead in a manner which breaks down those silly little genre barriers which separated art from sorcery for a time. Peace even talked about how he'd initially wanted to interweave Brian Clough's story with an "occult history of Leeds United" - and how I wish he had, beyond those enigmatic little moments of cursing which divide the sections of The Damned Utd. Moments which a typically underinformed Melvyn Bragg inevitably failed to mention at this point in the interview, remnants though they must be of that earlier incarnation of the book.
I remain convinced, mind, that David Peace could one day write the definitive book on Gordon Brown.
(In other Northern literary news: Paul Morley on John Cooper Clarke. Bit rushed, and I could understand maybe one word in ten of Mark E Smith's contributions, but still well worth a listen; I loved Morley's description of JCC as "the missing link between Diana Ross and Charles Baudelaire". But how sad that a man who once hung with Nico and the Honey Monster is now reduced to working with Reverend & the Makers and the Arctic Monkeys)

*Until he started in on this little rant, I was unclear whether he had been a player or a fan. Not only is it a pretty academic point as far as I'm concerned, but many of the fans seem a bit confused on the point themselves: wearing exact replicas of their idols' tops even down to having the idol's name on; referring to the team's performance as though they'd contributed...I'm still not entirely sure that this fellow wasn't similarly deluded, even by the standards of the field he really didn't seem very bright.

Comments

[darkship.livejournal.com]

Being dropped by a football team is more like your boss giving someone else the cushy assignments at work, whatever they might be, and having to wait for your opportunity to get them- that's hardly unique. The only difference is, most jobs aren't quite as public as football, so if you're not, for example, working the counter at McDonalds, writing the cover story in the paper or giving the big presentation to the board, not as many people notice, gossip and speculate.

The most public equivalent, I suppose, was Lol Tolhurst of the Cure- moved from drummer to keyboardist to 'other instrument' to sacked (there's a case for Brian Jones in the Stones, but I know Tolhurst better).

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Although in fairness, Lol Tolhurst was a useless tosser who was being let down as gently as possible.

I suppose politics would be the other big comparison - cf the line about all political careers ending in failure.

[cappuccino-kid.livejournal.com]

If that's Eamonn Dunphy, he's an idiot and a thug. Ghost-writer of Roy Keane's autobiography, where he boasted about the foul that deliberately ended another player's career.

I still think Peace's Sutcliffe stuff is worth a punt if you haven't tried it yet.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yeah, between my recollection and Tez's post, I think that was the guy. So what you're saying is, Dunphy scripted Keane's boast? I'm not sure who comes out of that worst. Though given Dunphy's above-mentioned lack of imagination, we can assume that he was writing from personal experience.

It is not inconceivable that I might give the Red Riding Quartet a go at some point, but it's unlikely to be any time soon - and for all that I've liked his work since, it hasn't led me to reassess that GB84 reading one iota.

[stu-n.livejournal.com]

GB84 was so bad I actually threw it across the room. Damned United is better, but it convinced me that I don't give a toss about Brian Clough, or at least Peace's version of him. Repeating the same phrases over and over again might be a poetic way to indicate obsession, but it's also repetitive, boring and pretentious. Especially when you're writing a first-person narrative about Brian Clough, who was many things, but definitely wasn't a poet.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, it was GB84 which mainly put me off him. We went to an event in one of the smaller South Bank venues because we'd seen Paul Morley was appealing; turned out it was a miner's strike anniversary event. So there's us along to hear about shiny pop, surrounded by all these grizzled veterans of the Scargill days - and Morley is being similarly sidelined by this guy we've never heard of, David Peace. Who reads some passages from his book. Now, I don't think his voice does even his good work justice, but the one of these which stuck in my mind was a bit from the POV of a copper - and it was dreadful. Like an earnest anti-authority sixth former had been given the assignment, 'Sympathetically, write a first person passage as a character you personally don't like'. Really clunking.
Whereas what he accomplishes in The Damned Utd...well, no, point taken. I very much doubt that was what was going through Brian Clough's head. But it's what *ought* to have been going through Brian Clough's head. I don't give a toss about the real Brian Clough, but David Peace makes him fascinate me. And for me that's one of the biggest achievements - to take a nothing man out of the wastes of history, be he some minor Danish princeling or a frontier saloon-owner or yes, even a football manager, and to make him into something more than that.
As to whether Peace's style specifically works for that...well, that's a subjective thing, but I will certainly concede that of writers I like, he's probably tied with Lovecraft as the easiest to pastiche.

[cappuccino-kid.livejournal.com]

the real Brian Clough is pretty good. He once took his Nottm Forest team out to a restaurant and ordered steak and sausages for the main course.
"But Sir, what about the vegetables?"
"Oh, they'll have the same as me."

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

What I like about that line - and much of The Damned Utd, for that matter - is that it seems to share my own utter contempt for professional footballers.

[augstone.livejournal.com]

did you know that farrakhan used to be a calypso singer?

i heard this a few weeks back and thought of a wonderful change to that line in 'bring da noize':

"farrakhan's a calypso singer who i think you oughtta listen to"

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I did not! If only he'd stayed a calypso singer, I would have no problem with that line.

Interesting that rappers should rate a man who was so ready to quit music at his boss' say-so, isn't it?