A literary miss, Moffatt.
The two books I'm reading while I'm away are Aristotle's "Poetics" because if you are going to write plays you're supposed to read it. I have read it before but I'm not sure how much of it went in so I'm reading it again. I'm not sure how much of it is going in...
The other book I'm reading is James Moffatt's novelisation of the film Queen Kong. Its an astounding piece of work. I'm very fond of the film which stars Rula Lenska and Robin Askwith, who genuinely believed it would end their careers, but the book is on another level entirely.
James Moffatt is the real name of Richard Allen, the author of the Skinhead books so beloved of Morrissey, and fully invests this comic romp about a 60 foot gorilla with tits who falls in love with a King's Road hippy with his usual crypto-fascist sensibilities. This film does have some lunk-headed reactionary things to say about feminism (its safe to say that its makers didn't quite get it) but is also chock-full of shabby 1970's cheerful vulgarity. Its silly nonsense with songs, scrappy English grass, Valerie Leon in a bikini, the worst model effects you have ever seen and women going on strike because its a British film from the 70's and therefore would not be complete without somebody downing tools and marching with placards.
The novel is quite different. Moffatt gives the character's back-stories: Luce Habit, the bolshy director hates men because she was abused by an uncle. Her assistant Ima Goodbody (cough) is motivated solely by her jealousy of her beautiful boss and is saddened and embittered because she will never be able to compete. Ray Fay, Robin Askwith's character, is just gay. That's what he is and what he does and that is the extent of Moffatt's investigation into his character: he's a poof. Or a queer, or a fag - Moffatt lends each of these equal weight with no nuance or understanding. They are interchangeable words for precisely the same thing.
He is a genuinely terrible writer. I don't know how long it took him to write Queen Kong but it has a definite feeling of "dictated not read" about it. His sentence structure is elaborate and clumsy and knotted with poor word choices and lazy similes. Try these:
"A cockney taxi-driver waited patiently as Luce Habit struggled with her burden and womanhandled it from the cab"
"Ever since a short-skirted redhead let him share her sandwiches and milk behind the school gym, Ray Fay had been a committed woman-hater."
"Wearing ordinary male clothing, Ray could have been accepted in any bastion of warrior class chauvanistic piggism."
"After all, animals did not insist on boudoir settings for their copulatory intervals!"
"She loved a soccer-ball to kick and Ima made a fair substitute for a pigskin get-it-out-of-the-system battering orb."
Actually it reminds me of nothing so much as Morrissey's prose style in "List of the Lost". Maybe he was paying tribute to Moffatt's oeuvre. Or maybe he can't write either.*
The worst thing about Moffatt's prose is that he thinks he's being cool and sassy. There will suddenly be the odd flourish of 40's hipster argot, just to prove how above it all he is. It's like Bodie from The Professionals has written a book: its full of his little gay voice and jokes about hairdressers and handbags.
I never got the sense that Ray is gay in the film. Asexual certainly, at least early on. And to be honest his love for Kong has to be a spiritual one. As prodigiously endowed as Askwith undoubtedly is he'd be lost inside a 60 foot gorilla. Ray even worries that he looks like a "fag" in the film. His name is Ray Fay and he doesn't fancy Luce Habit and these are the only cues that Moffatt uses to prove that he must be gay. But he doesn't know what to do with a gay character except for constantly insult him. He's rather painted himself into a corner: the engine of the script demands that Ray acts in a certain way but because his masculinity is different to Moffatt's he must be gay. What else could he be?
I miss bad writing. Proper bad writing. Hacks with no interest and no skills churning out genre trash. The lost art of paperback writing is gone forever. There are no really bad writers being published now.* There are very few good ones but almost everyone is at least competent. Bland, bloodless, unimaginative and professional, but not actually bad. Moffatt is gloriously bad. There is no merit here - you can practically smell the fag smoke and whisky pressed into the prose, the lack of effort, the lack of interest. It is cobbled together careless nonsense but it is home-made and artisanal: you don't sense the hand of an editor here, it hasn't been processed and refined. This feels like something he has done on his own, after dark, possibly in his pants, possibly between crying fits. His fingerprints are all over it, the text padded out with his weird quirks, his little psychological obsessions. There is a lot of James Moffatt in the book and all of his nasty prejudices stacked neatly against one another. He betrays himself on every page. This is an ugly and crass little book but I embrace it. It is emblematic of a time where things like this could happen, back when there was a market for nasty, inept little books.
I would have excelled.
*Its the second one.
**I'm excluding self-published writers, of course.
The other book I'm reading is James Moffatt's novelisation of the film Queen Kong. Its an astounding piece of work. I'm very fond of the film which stars Rula Lenska and Robin Askwith, who genuinely believed it would end their careers, but the book is on another level entirely.
 |
| As good as it looks. |
James Moffatt is the real name of Richard Allen, the author of the Skinhead books so beloved of Morrissey, and fully invests this comic romp about a 60 foot gorilla with tits who falls in love with a King's Road hippy with his usual crypto-fascist sensibilities. This film does have some lunk-headed reactionary things to say about feminism (its safe to say that its makers didn't quite get it) but is also chock-full of shabby 1970's cheerful vulgarity. Its silly nonsense with songs, scrappy English grass, Valerie Leon in a bikini, the worst model effects you have ever seen and women going on strike because its a British film from the 70's and therefore would not be complete without somebody downing tools and marching with placards.
The novel is quite different. Moffatt gives the character's back-stories: Luce Habit, the bolshy director hates men because she was abused by an uncle. Her assistant Ima Goodbody (cough) is motivated solely by her jealousy of her beautiful boss and is saddened and embittered because she will never be able to compete. Ray Fay, Robin Askwith's character, is just gay. That's what he is and what he does and that is the extent of Moffatt's investigation into his character: he's a poof. Or a queer, or a fag - Moffatt lends each of these equal weight with no nuance or understanding. They are interchangeable words for precisely the same thing.
He is a genuinely terrible writer. I don't know how long it took him to write Queen Kong but it has a definite feeling of "dictated not read" about it. His sentence structure is elaborate and clumsy and knotted with poor word choices and lazy similes. Try these:
"A cockney taxi-driver waited patiently as Luce Habit struggled with her burden and womanhandled it from the cab"
"Ever since a short-skirted redhead let him share her sandwiches and milk behind the school gym, Ray Fay had been a committed woman-hater."
"Wearing ordinary male clothing, Ray could have been accepted in any bastion of warrior class chauvanistic piggism."
"After all, animals did not insist on boudoir settings for their copulatory intervals!"
"She loved a soccer-ball to kick and Ima made a fair substitute for a pigskin get-it-out-of-the-system battering orb."
Actually it reminds me of nothing so much as Morrissey's prose style in "List of the Lost". Maybe he was paying tribute to Moffatt's oeuvre. Or maybe he can't write either.*
The worst thing about Moffatt's prose is that he thinks he's being cool and sassy. There will suddenly be the odd flourish of 40's hipster argot, just to prove how above it all he is. It's like Bodie from The Professionals has written a book: its full of his little gay voice and jokes about hairdressers and handbags.
I never got the sense that Ray is gay in the film. Asexual certainly, at least early on. And to be honest his love for Kong has to be a spiritual one. As prodigiously endowed as Askwith undoubtedly is he'd be lost inside a 60 foot gorilla. Ray even worries that he looks like a "fag" in the film. His name is Ray Fay and he doesn't fancy Luce Habit and these are the only cues that Moffatt uses to prove that he must be gay. But he doesn't know what to do with a gay character except for constantly insult him. He's rather painted himself into a corner: the engine of the script demands that Ray acts in a certain way but because his masculinity is different to Moffatt's he must be gay. What else could he be?
I miss bad writing. Proper bad writing. Hacks with no interest and no skills churning out genre trash. The lost art of paperback writing is gone forever. There are no really bad writers being published now.* There are very few good ones but almost everyone is at least competent. Bland, bloodless, unimaginative and professional, but not actually bad. Moffatt is gloriously bad. There is no merit here - you can practically smell the fag smoke and whisky pressed into the prose, the lack of effort, the lack of interest. It is cobbled together careless nonsense but it is home-made and artisanal: you don't sense the hand of an editor here, it hasn't been processed and refined. This feels like something he has done on his own, after dark, possibly in his pants, possibly between crying fits. His fingerprints are all over it, the text padded out with his weird quirks, his little psychological obsessions. There is a lot of James Moffatt in the book and all of his nasty prejudices stacked neatly against one another. He betrays himself on every page. This is an ugly and crass little book but I embrace it. It is emblematic of a time where things like this could happen, back when there was a market for nasty, inept little books.
I would have excelled.
*Its the second one.
**I'm excluding self-published writers, of course.
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