I am what I look like - a triple hard bastard.
I've just been turned down by an agent. That's fair enough. I don't mind - they were perfectly pleasant about it. Well, perfectly pleasant and a BIT FUCKING ODD.
He writes: "Thanks again for this. Well and cleverly written, but not quite up my street. A bit too laddish."
Now I have been called a great many things in my time, and almost all of them were intended to sting, but I have never been called "laddish". This sudden and unexpected late-blooming as a top bloke tasty geezer comes as something of a surprise. I am now a literary Liam Gallagher, know what I mean? I may be required to "Have it" and possibly "large".
Given that traditionally I have been viewed as a faded French dandy, alone and aloof in my ivory tower, surrounded by the well-thumbed pages of the Symbolist poetry first editions that have become my friends, this was a bit of a shock.
I mean there is a pub in the book. People do drink. A man is caught looking at and...cough...responding to pornography. An unpleasant drunken man says rude things about bar staff. But the humour in these scenes, when they are funny, stems from the narrator's horror at events unfolding in front of him. The tragedy comes from the social mechanisms in place meaning he can never free himself from these situations: he dreams of a better life and can never reach it. It is a comedy of desperation. There is no revelling in crapulence in the book: his experience is quiet, sordid, depressed. I mean it is funny too but there is little in the way of prat-falling, larks and craic.
It is in no way "laddish" to my mind. But I suppose if you read the text and skim the subtext you see middle-aged blokes down the pub talking bollocks. What else could it be? We all know that they could not expect to have thoughts and feelings or learn or improve or get worse. They're just the lads.
To be fair the agent only read four chapters, which is very much the start of a journey. Stuff happens in the book. Not big, plotty stuff: there are few heists or aliens invasions. But people do things and it rather changes them. That isn't clear from four chapters but my ability to write is. One would hope that at least would be clear.
The agent is in no doubt that I will easily find representation. In fact so far all of the agents I have contacted are absolutely certain that it will be the simplest thing in the world. I wish I shared their confidence - I have an incredible ability to pick the only agents in the world who wont handle me.
Surely I have to slip up eventually?
He writes: "Thanks again for this. Well and cleverly written, but not quite up my street. A bit too laddish."
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| "Alright Geez? The book's a sort of modern take on Huysman's "With The Flow" but with wanking and lager, know what I mean?" |
Now I have been called a great many things in my time, and almost all of them were intended to sting, but I have never been called "laddish". This sudden and unexpected late-blooming as a top bloke tasty geezer comes as something of a surprise. I am now a literary Liam Gallagher, know what I mean? I may be required to "Have it" and possibly "large".
Given that traditionally I have been viewed as a faded French dandy, alone and aloof in my ivory tower, surrounded by the well-thumbed pages of the Symbolist poetry first editions that have become my friends, this was a bit of a shock.
I mean there is a pub in the book. People do drink. A man is caught looking at and...cough...responding to pornography. An unpleasant drunken man says rude things about bar staff. But the humour in these scenes, when they are funny, stems from the narrator's horror at events unfolding in front of him. The tragedy comes from the social mechanisms in place meaning he can never free himself from these situations: he dreams of a better life and can never reach it. It is a comedy of desperation. There is no revelling in crapulence in the book: his experience is quiet, sordid, depressed. I mean it is funny too but there is little in the way of prat-falling, larks and craic.
It is in no way "laddish" to my mind. But I suppose if you read the text and skim the subtext you see middle-aged blokes down the pub talking bollocks. What else could it be? We all know that they could not expect to have thoughts and feelings or learn or improve or get worse. They're just the lads.
To be fair the agent only read four chapters, which is very much the start of a journey. Stuff happens in the book. Not big, plotty stuff: there are few heists or aliens invasions. But people do things and it rather changes them. That isn't clear from four chapters but my ability to write is. One would hope that at least would be clear.
The agent is in no doubt that I will easily find representation. In fact so far all of the agents I have contacted are absolutely certain that it will be the simplest thing in the world. I wish I shared their confidence - I have an incredible ability to pick the only agents in the world who wont handle me.
Surely I have to slip up eventually?
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