Critical Distance.

Over in Basingstoke, I started reading "Namedropper" by Emma Forrest, a book that was first published in 1998, and is a genuine pop cultural oddity, being a sort of Britpop novel about a girl falling in love with a thinly veiled Richie Manic. I only read a few chapters, just get the flavour of it - and there's a lot of umami funk from the prose. It's fantastically cringe-worthy, and none of the characters are likeable, in a sort Londony-would-be-edgy way. But Forrest was only 17* when she wrote it - she's only in her mid-forties now - and it does have something. 

There are analogues of Damon Albarn (as a friend who thinks Viva - our heroine - is fascinating, but whom she doesn't fancy) and Oasis (they're called Skyline here, which is a terrible name, but not as bad as Oasis). The first few chapters are an introduction to Viva and her dreadful sounding friends, each worse and more self-obsessed than the last, and all seen through the prism of Viva, who is the most fascinating person the planet, and a gossamer-cloaked Emma Forrest. The prose is charged and self-conscious and piles aphorism on cliche, and collages it together like the blu-tacked pin-ups on Viva's wall. 

The book is quite bad, but it isn't terrible. Forrest is writing a succession of dreadful things, and it feels like there's no shape to any of it. It's a teenage manifesto, a look-book of all the cool stuff she likes. But  she can write. It's awful, but she can write. The book is autobiographical, which shows either a total lack of self-awareness or penetrating, soul deep insight. I'm not sure which. 

And Viva is a recognisible human being. I'm a bit older than the author and, because of my Hampshire upbringing, less dazzlingly metropolitan.** But I knew people like this girl, back in the days before social media, an unimaginable distance in time now. I can see the black hair and red lips, the cigarette flashing between fingertips, the low, ironic drawl. I remember the chic chaos of bedrooms cut up and collaged with 20th Century glamour. The heavy smell of incense, clothes all over the floor, exploded out of wardrobes. All those paper lampshades. It doesn't make the book any better. But I do remember those people. They're probably alive now, walking the earth. No longer in London. Unrecognisable middle-aged mums, gliding through Waitrose and still looking good. Sunglasses on the top of their heads, a tattoo of a dolphin at their calf. 

I was going to carry on reading the book. I thought I might underline some of the more egregious passages, and snark hard. 

And then I thought...fuck it. Who the hell am I? Why am I spending my time slagging off a novel that not even the author has thought about for twenty plus years. Emma's doing alright. She's written four novels, she's written and directed films. She's bi-polar but she gets things done, which is hard enough. Why would I be sat here, at fifty, slagging off her Mary Jane novel about fancying Richey Manic, whom she actually met? What on earth is the point? It's a cultural artifact, as remote and strange as Loaded  magazine or Don't Forget Your Toothbrush. Is Heat magazine still a thing? I haven't heard anything about it for ten years, but it used to be huge. 

Jack magazine. Imagine. Not Jackie. Jack, named after Jack Nicholson, who was an aspirational figure then for some reason. Jack. 

I'm not going to slag off "Namedropper". I used to do that sort of thing but, really, what's the point? You're not going to read it. You've never heard of it. Its not as bad as, say, "Camden Girls", which came out around the same time, and is genuinely appalling. At least "Namedropper" is flamboyantly terrible. It has style and moxie. It's trying to do stuff. I can't fault that. 

I used to love to slag things off, as though belittling the achievements of others was in itself an achievement. It isn't. I did it because I felt hopeless and powerless. I didn't feel I could ever achieve anything so, by deciding that everything was shit anyway, I could congratulate myself. At least I hadn't contributed to humanity's tower of art turds. 

But I have now. And I realise just how hard it is to create even bad art. It's incredibly difficult and everyone sets out with the best intentions: no one wants to be terrible. They're all doing their best. It's just really, really hard. And you'll get better. So I'm not about to slag off someone's debut novel from twenty years ago. Even though I sort of did. Sorry Emma. 

She doesn't care. She's doing fine. 

*she was actually in her twenties. 

**And I'm no child prodigy. I'm the opposite: an old man prodigy.