Books we like ... and books we're not too fussed about
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Gordon Burn
Faber and Faber 2004
I really struggled with this one. I think the main problem is that Burn’s presentation of the friendship between Jackie, a retired boxer and Len, a faded Northern comic, isn’t troubled by much of a story. We get an account of a few days in their lives in an unnamed north eastern town (possibly Sunderland?) and an extended flashback to the start of their careers in the London of the ‘forties and ‘fifties. The latter is by far the best bit of the book, convincingly conjuring up the atmosphere of those bleak post-war years in Soho (well, it convinces me; contrary to what some think, I wasn’t actually around then) but even that is meandering, skipping through the years, introducing characters suddenly (including Ray’s first wife) some of whom then disappear, and generally not really holding my interest. It’s a shame, as I have enjoyed Burn’s non-fiction. However, this just didn’t work for me at all. Would an ex-boxer really say out loud in the barber’s, “Taking the cage down into the pit and being lamped in front of two thousand people … they’re both about going into yourself”? There are some nice descriptions, including one of the long cycle ride Jackie would regularly take from the East End to the Fens - a journey which seems incredible now, but which my dad would have taken in his stride, cycling as he did from Essex to Norfolk and back in a day as he did often in his youth. The book comes highly recommended by critics, but I’m afraid it just didn’t work for me. Oh well.
Gordon Burn died earlier this year. A link to an obituary is here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/booksblog/2009/jul/22/gordon-burn
18th September 2009
See also: Best and Edwards; fullalove
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