[books 2008] Joy Division and Raymond Chandler

[inulro]

9. Farewell My Lovely by Raymond Chandler

More genius from the author of The Big Sleep. I repeat, just because it's pulp doesn't mean it's not good. Once again I marvelled at Chandler's style, which is never short of witty and ever so evocative of California in the late 30s. Can't recommend this enough.

10. Touching from a Distance by Deborah Curtis

The biography of Ian Curtis, by his wife.

This one is more difficult to write about, and some day I might attempt a longer essay. It's hard partly because Curtis comes off as such a dickhead, but for me it's difficult because it's written from a position that is so utterly alien to me - the wife & mother left behind while the husband goes off and Has Adventures. Who allowed Curtis to be completely controlling of her in the first place. It's still pretty harrowing when things fall apart and his epilepsy and depression get out of control.

As rock biographies go, it's pretty well written. I don't read them often because they tend to not come up to my standards. In fact, the only one I can think of that didn't have me throwing it against the wall wanting SOURCES, dammit or just a competently constructed sentence occasionally, is the Nick Cave bio called Bad Seed. I think it assumes you know quite a lot - not just about Factory and JD etc. The example that jumped out at me was the passing reference to "James Anderton" to explain why the police presence at a festival in Leigh was over-the-top. I know who James Anderton is (or was) and why it's relevant, but I was around when he still made the news, but I'm not convinced that a lot of people would, especially non-UK fans, or younger people.

I do recommend it. It's not a cheerful read, but there is not much of it (half of my edition is taken up with the lyrics to all JD's output).

Comments

[badnewswade.livejournal.com]

The way it ends with a particularly unpleasant suicide, and reason for it being Marlowe himself... plus the general cheapness of human life in it. Been a while since I read it, as I say, but as I recally it's more like proto-extreme cyberpunk than anything else - you know, all those books which involve characters being mown down in a hail of automatic weapons fire, right out there in public for no apparent reason, or beaten to death by a maniac just to move the plot along, kind of thing.

[inulro.livejournal.com]

Now that you mention it, the body count is way higher than in The Big Sleep. Which is a completely different kind of disturbing than the level of mental illness in the girl in The big Sleep.