Screaming in Eloquence

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Self. Devout student of suburban eschatology; haranguing harbinger of the middle-class apocalypse; perennial despairer of General Public opinion (© Rupert Murdoch), Will Self, Englands prize gloommonger returns to dig his cynical claws further under the nailbed of the manicured middle-classes. Coursing through previous you could almost hear the blood vessel in Selfs forehead pumping as he witnesses Modern Mans mindless decent into a future of TV enemas of mind and colon. Like Great Apes and How the Dead Live, The Book of Dave envisages a dystopian future where the lamentable mores of nineties/noughties Britain have broken free of their fraying chains and run rampant about the Circus Maximus of modern society. But there is just the slightest chink of optimism peaking through this bleak vision; Self has found his own Orwellian proles in whom hope lies. So who are these saviours sent to rescue us from 78.54 years of chicken korma pizzas and ketchup-filled fries? None other than the humble, London cabbie: after all, a species, medically proven to have larger brains than the rest of us. Self has his Swiftian satirist cap on again as he rails against modern family structure, street-culture and Ken Livingstones transport policy. More so than Swift though, Self is a master of spoken language, twisting and perverting the careless, lazy slang of today into the Mokni the inhabitants of this Nu London talk. Old London, having been wiped out by a great flood, is now ruled by a cynosure of priests and lawyers taking their cue from a sacred text written pre-flood by schizophrenic and divorce-embittered cab-driver, Dave Rudman.

There are a lot of books in the world: over 370,000 published per year in the US and UK alone. And, although half of these are by Dan Brown, that still makes for a lot of authors and a lot of voices clamouring for individuality. So when I say that there is noone quite like Will Self writing fiction today it should not to be sniffed at. The Newspeak-like language (a dictionary is included) of the future Ingerland-dwellers is a clever and witty creation that of course speaks volumes about Selfs opinion of the txt-msg generation and his hopes for its future if we continue as is. Similar things have been done this year with the yoof culture-aping patois of Gautam Malkanis Londonstani but Selfs novels seem to be getting more moralistic and (somewhat worryingly for those of us seeking further fuel for our cultural anger) optimistic as he ages. The Book of Dave has, at its heart, a moral message of the ultimately triumphant power of the love of a parent for his child and a faith in the common sense Knowledge of the working cabbie. A monstrous postulation for the future, then, but not one we need take up.

Rating: 8.5

There’s something resolutely indie about fan art. It conjures up images of a couple of kids called Linus and Darla cross-legged in their step-dads basement after school, hand-painting brooches to stick on the front cover of their weekly fanzine. With this is mind, Belle & Sebastians decision to release a compilation of comic strips written and drawn by their wooly-mittened followers could be seen as an attempt to return to that naïve winsomeness the band epitomised in their early years. In more recent times, sell-out shows across the US and Canada have morphed the band from twee-hugging introverts to stadium-bloating, star-spangled rock colossi in the vein of Stuart Murdochs guilty idol Rod Stewart (one half expects him to grow his hair out, walk on with a leggy blonde and start kicking footballs into the crowd). The question is, does this publication show the band havent forgotten their roots and those who got them where they are or is it another sprocket in the B&S market leviathan? More pressingly, is it any good? The answer is mixed and probably depends a fair smidge on your feelings about the divisive troubadours themselves.

The strips run the gamut from the schoolyard pretty-ditties of their hey day to the modern Thin Lizzy aperies. Many of the authors and illustrators represented herein are obviously working from the same dictionary as those who compile Hollywood’s “inspired by” soundtracks as half seem more an outlet for the authors teenage desperations with a song-title tagged on than visual adaptations of the music that supposedly birthed it. Nevertheless, the drawings are invariably beautiful (if not much comic enthusiasts wont have seen before) and often capture well the spirit of the music. Fans are tricky beasts, however, and dont easily fall into the one pigeon-hole (just take a cross-section of your beer-and-chips versus feather boa-and-babycham Manics disciples) and so what you get is a mishmash of styles and outlooks that sometimes work (Legal Man, Marx and Engels) and sometimes seem like theyve stumbled in on the wrong party (Dog on Wheels, The Chalet Lines). Even so, a lot of love has gone into all the works on display. The kind of love that spends hours crotcheting little puppet band members and Fimo necklesses. If youre a fan of the band its a worthy addition to the ever-burgeoning B&S-related consumables. If youre a fan of the medium theres still plenty here to divert your attention in a Ghost World/Blankets kind of way. If youre a fan of neither then you need to open your heart a little and stop being such a grumpy stick-in-the-mud.

Rating: 6.5/10