We all know we’re supposed to draw a line between the artist and the art. The veteran English essayist Geoff Dyer himself once had cause to remind me, mid-enthusiastic gabble, that his book on D.H. Lawrence was, in fact, “a conceit.” But as a reader often more interested in the lives of writers than their works, I must confess the idea of a full-blown memoir – finally! – from Dyer had me excited. I was not disappointed.
The majority of us who aren’t touched by genius come to terms with our mediocrity in late adolescence, once our dreams of sports superstardom are dashed or that bumbling first attempt at a novel sets us straight. You won’t be the next Jordan or Hemingway, after all. Getting over the initial shock of one’s dreams being dashed without suffering some kind of crack-up is the mark of high character and perhaps the first sign a man will settle solemnly — but not joylessly — for a well-adjusted life of invisible, middling victories. The best-adjusted man will embrace the comfort of mediocrity and live vicariously through the great men he admires, which is to say that he’ll become a fan.
From our UK edition
‘Male writers now are the opposition party, and that may not be such a bad thing for them.’ So Rob Doyle writes in this addictive self-portrait/collection of reviews. And if male writers are now in navel-gazing opposition, ousted by a landslide of female talent, judging by this book Doyle is one of their most reactionary members, still in thrall to those outmoded frontbenchers who were long ago elevated to the Lords: Nietzsche, Huysmans, Bataille, Houellebecq, Amis Jr. His themes (male heterosexuality, aggression, drug use, alienation, philosophy) and consciously euphonious style reek of what he, in a scathing passage of self-reflection, calls a ‘desperate desire to be edgy’.
