'… have you ever known anybody to
die at the right time?
No, don't happen that way. Some guys
fall over before their lives have properly gotten started,
some right in the middle of the best
part. Others kinda linger on after everything is really
over.' George R R Martin
My dear, dear C gave me 'The Salmon of
Doubt' a book put together of Douglas Adams writing after he died. I
love the Hitchikers guide to the Galaxy but I did find it very
'British public school boy; Aren't I clever?'. I liked the two Dirk
Gently novels much better and to be honest there are many British
writers I prefer. Adams wrote as he was and of course all the other
clever British public school boys miss him and think he was a genius
– which they all think of each other btw. Do note how many of the
foremost members of British public and political life all went to
school together and do tell me what you think of our class system as
it thrives.
e.g. Lily Allen's dad is Keith Allen,
another clever boy who incidentally went to the same school as Adams,
her brother is Theon/Rank in HBO's The Game Of Thrones, notably
peppered with the British Peerage etc., etc., et al, ad nauseum.
All the above aside, Adams was a sharp,
observant, intelligent writer who placed his social criticism
carefully and subtly within the context and storyline of his books,
never lecturing just showing or putting a small spotlight on certain
issues for those who are open to them
His blatant advertising for Apple in
the book (who I loathe) turns my stomach. I hope it earned him some
freebies. The middle section of the book which is, it seems all about
computers and people who have the time and money to indulge
themselves in them (though as I skipped lots of it I can say for
sure) was tedious – obviously because or I would have read it.
I don't make myself 'read the whole
book' any more. I used to. Now I skip if I'm liking the authors style
and just don't like a subject matter of a bit of the plot (like
mutilations (of women), or murders etc – I always record programs
like GOT so that I can skip through the gratuitous violence or sex I
those too!)
Reading Salmon did however inspired me
to write again and to start amoungst others this blog.
For those of you who haven't read it.
I'm really delighted to share some of his thoughts with you...
“I used to hide under
the bedclothes … and listen enraptured to … anything that made me
laugh. It was ike showers and rainbows in the desert. …..comedy was
a medium in which extremely intelligent people could express things
that simply couldn't be expressed any other way.
But nowadays everybody
is comedian... We laugh at everything. Not intelligently anymore,
not with sudden shock, astonishment or revelation, just relentlessly
and meaninglessly. No more rain showers in the desert just mud and
drizzle everywhere occasionally illuminate by the flash of paparazzi.
To my
embarrassment, I remember and also laughed at the joke that started
his disillusion with comedy.
...It
was hearing a stand up comedian make the following observation:
“Those scientists eh? They're so stupid! ..those black box
recorders they put on aeroplanes.... it's always the thing that
doesn't get smashed. So why don't they make the planes out of the
same stuff?
The
audience roared with laughter at how stupid scientists were.... but I
sat feeling uncomfortable..... Was I just being pedantic...flight
recorders are made out of titanium if you made planes from titanium
instead of aluminium they'd be far too to heavy to get off the
ground.....?...There was no way of deconstructing the joke that
didn't rely on the teller and audience complacently conspiring
together to jeer at at someone who knew more than they did. It
sent a chill down my spine and still does. I felt betrayed by comedy
in the same way that gangsta rap makes me feel betrayed by rock
music.
*
The
only one who couldn't make a joke to save his life was Shakespeare.
Maybe it's because our greatest writing genius was incapable of being
funny that we have decided that being funny doesn't count.
What
Wodehouse writes is pure word music. … He is the greatest musician
of the English language.
Beauty
doesn't have to be about anything
