Sunday 24 February 2013

Toby Young- How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

How to Lose Friends and Alienate People

Toby Young
2001

'What were you nominated for?' I asked, struggling to make myself heard over the din. 'Best Supporting Dress?'
She gave me a blank look.
'I wasn't nominated for anything.'
'I know. That's just my way of saying you look great.'
'I'm sorry, what?'
She turned her head so her left ear was next to my mouth.
'YOU LOOK GREAT IN THAT DRESS.'
'Thanks', she said, recoiling. 'Will you excuse me? I've just seen someone I know.'

When I picked up this book it was literally just a case of judging a book by its cover; that and the hoard of reviewers quotes. Seriously, while most paperbacks have a smattering of flattering (I did a rhyme) comments from respected reviewing publications tastefully presented upon them, Toby Young's now infamous How to Lose Friends and Alienate People lathers the front cover, back cover and the first three pages in of praise for itself. My edition, by my count, has thirty-seven different reviewer quotes, including an obligatory joke one that doesn't make sense until you've read the book. This number of review quotes is clearly ridiculously preposterous, to the extent that it kind of made up my wavering mind to buy it (which I suppose means it totally worked, except I bought it second-hand so the publishers got nothing anyway); that, and a fun premise.

Toby Young is an English journalist of higher-class breeding, and plenty of credentials in various English publications to his name. This book isn't really about that, nor his youth, family, or life in England in general. Instead, Young's memoirs focus on a very particular time in his life, just after the new millennium as he gained a job in New York writing for Vanity Fair magazine. Although you might already know this because apparently there was a feature film starring Simon Pegg that was released in 2008 and I completely missed. I still haven't seen it because it looks terrible. But anyway, Young makes it very clear early on that this is the story of a plucky (if cheeky) young Brit looking to stretch his wings and take Manhattan. He also makes it clear early on in the book that his attempts are destined to abject failure. By taking the narrative direction in doing this the book becomes a kind of lighthearted (but not always so) self-analysis of a fairly normal, likable, but flawed individual who represents a whole culture of others, but who throughout remains the proverbial fish out of water.

As a Vanity Fair writer Young spent most of his time trying to cope with the overwhelming intensity of the celebrity culture he was by definition attached to. From the beginning he doesn't fit in whatsoever. He irritates colleagues, businessmen and celebrities with unintentional aplomb, in a mixture of some very funny scenes and some very strange ones. A constant theme of the book is his ultimate failure to grasp the unwritten rules of social etiquette he encounters, and as the book progresses he philosphises more and more upon the meaning of these things, analysing his view of the US as a whole in comparison to that of the UK. In doing so he comes of as somewhat of an Anglophile; not in a negative way as such,. but with the ultimate conclusion that his second country lacks the maturity of his parent one. As a Brit myself I did find this a little patronising anyway. In spite of all his efforts, I couldn't buy Toby Young as the down-on-his-luck good guy I feel he wanted to portray himself as.

There's a fine line between endearing and annoying, and the biggest problem I had with the book (which, I might add, is very well written) was that underneath it all, his ego shines through. I admire his humour and his efforts to not appear to have a big head, but when you look at his story from beginning to end, it's obvious that he screwed himself over by being an inflexible idiot who didn't have anywhere near enough charm to get what he wanted. In certain places it felt like he was going for the tone of gonzo journalism, but Young's prose is too informal and friendly to match up to journalistic hipster icons like Hunter S. Thompson.

But it's a good book because it's so provocative. Whether you like Toby Young or not, he portrays himself with a feeling of honesty, unafraid to describe some of his biggest failings. His narration is very good, personal and funny, and it's only as he editorialises more that it becomes sharper. I can see why this book was such a hit with the presses at the time and I certainly recommend it to anyone who likes the sound of the premise, but I can't promise you'll finish it liking the author as a person, because he's a bit of a git.

Tuesday 19 February 2013

L-Space 2- Back in the Habit

Worst cover ever?
Hello everybody (all three of you), and apologies for going on an unintended sabbatical from my book reviewing blog. I haven't lost interest in the project, it's just that I've had a much busier month than I expected. As well as working full-time across six days February was also the month of birthdays and valentines; with my girlfriend's birthday being the day before Valentine's Day. Oh yeah, and we got engaged. So I've been distracted....

I don't think I can scramble my thoughts coherently enough right now, on my lunch hour from work (-edit- not any more), to write one of the three proper reviews I've got lined up, so I'm just going to ramble on about some thoughts for a bit until I get bored. Let's start with this; I'm currently reading a 'cool' textbook sort of thing called Introducing Postmodernism (by Richard Appignanesi & Chris Garratt, from Icon Books ltd.), which is all about deconstructing the messy 'genre' of postmodern art, literature and language. I'm not going to do a full review of that because it's just not that interesting to write about, but I will say here that the authors and artists involved do a decent job of trying to simplify and explain the slippery subject for a fairly new audience. I'm kind of okay with postmodernism thanks to some past academic study and quite a few books, but I learned a lot here. Recommended if it's something you're researching, although I haven't finished yet.

Another thing I've just finished reading that I find way more interesting and I'm still not going to review is the Absolute Sandman Volume 3, which is an over-sized, deluxe, extra-filled hard slipcase collection of Neil Gaiman's 90's Gothic comic book masterpiece. I made the decision not to review comic books when I started this blog simply to make it easier to keep up (although it is very tempting), but if this was going to be a full review then it'd be full of superlatives. I absolutely love The Sandman, and these self-indulgent editions are the perfect way to enjoy them. DC Comics Absolute editions are always very, very nice, but also rather expensive and so I would only recommend buying one if you're already sure you love the comic. I've got three others, Absolute Sandman Volumes 1 & 2, and Absolute V for Vendetta. In the meantime, I'm currently collecting two other series as well, Garth Ennis' brutal comedy The Boys, and The Complete Judge Dredd Files. The latter is ongoing, and I'm ready to start volume 10 of more satirical bad-ass sci-fi. I'll probably write more about comics in the future in some form.

For the Discworld fans out there, not only have I got reviews of whatever the next one in ther series is (I should probably already know which one that is... hang on... it's Small Gods, which, spoiler alert, is my favourite one), I also just read Terry Pratchett's A Blink of the Screen- Collected Short Fiction, so that's on the reviewing list. Finally, not long ago I re-watched each of the Sky1 Discworld adaptations (Hogfather, The Colour of Magic, & Going Postal). If you haven't seen them, then they're three hours long but split into two parts each, and they're all very faithful adaptations. The Hogfather was released first about five years ago as a Christmas treat, and it's a pretty good piece of work, but not great. It's hampered by some poor performances and a kind of stylistic uncertainty.

The Colour of Magic is a slight misnomer, as it's actually an adaptation of both that and The Light Fantastic. Starring UK TV favourite David Jason (who also played the much smaller part of Alberto Malich in Hogfather) as Rincewind, this was a big improvement on Hogfather, mostly because the performances are so much better. The budget still looks a little small (probably a lot smaller than it actually was) in comparison with Hollywood movies, and that's not helped by the sheer scope of the story. When you've got a script with translucent battling dragons, indescribable demon creatures from another dimension, and a 100-foot tall angry mountain troll you know you're in trouble.

Going Postal is amazing, from beginning to end. Telling a much calmer, smaller-scale story centered almost entirely in Ankh-Morpork clearly allowed the creators far more freedom and license to really stylize the look of the city; it looks fantastic, a kind of Victorian steampunk London crossed with every other random influence Terry Pratchett ever felt and included in his books. The performances are all excellent, and the story is funny and interesting, although it didn't need three hours to tell.

That's about it. My pile of books to read still grows faster than I can tackle it. I haven't bought a book in about a week though, so I think I'm doing pretty well. Until next time...