'The guy who puts Dostoevsky in Louie Louie...'
I ran a bath just now. When it was drawn I got in and read most of the chapter devoted to Iggy Pop within this while thinking about whether I wanted to go to church or not. Towards the end of the chapter the woman downstairs started shouting at the man downstairs. Not wishing to eavesdrop I got out of the bath and finished the chapter at my desk. I had already decided I would go to church. The alternative seemed to be to go a bar.
Alasitair McKay is an excellent writer. His writing appears to have no structure but I suspect it has lots. This is the most difficult kind of journalistic writing. The best thing about him is his generosity. He gives his subjects a lot of space and tries to represent their ideas as truly as he can. And through their ideas them. In this second section of the book he only writes about himself as a chanel.
If you have to read seventeen pages about Iggy Pop you could do worse than read these. Iggy and the state of his soul doesn't seem to have changed much since he was seventeen. That's greatly to his credit. He was alreay grown up by the time he was seventeen. He's still struggling just as much as he ever was with how to engage with society. The most difficult thing of all. He's devoid of self pity. The definition of bravery. The definition of an artist. He also does jokes.
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