Every once in a while, I encounter an artist whose aesthetic fits my own in what feels like a profound way, someone that becomes an instant and enduring favorite. In the late 1990s and early 2000s, Tord Gustaven‘s piano trio did this, China Miéville‘s fiction did this, and Eddie Izzard‘s stand up comedy did this.
As such, I read Izzard’s autobiography, Believe Me: A Memoir of Love, Death, and Jazz Chickens (2017) with great anticipation. Much of what resonates with me about Izzard’s comedy is his intelligence, and his observations about history and contemporary culture, many of which distill complex phenomena into cutting, incisive observations. I am also a sucker for artists talking about their craft, about how they think about the creation process of their art.
Unfortunately, neither of these make much of an appearance in Believe Me, and his explorations of what it meant to grow up and then come out as a transvestite in England a few decades ago are clearly personally powerful, but lack a level of sophisticated exploration to really be more universally compelling. The absence of political nuance in the book is striking, something that combines with some other clues about rushed editing (the repetition of some thoughts and phrases, etc.) that make me wonder about how much of the tone was planned/controlled.
It’s an interesting read, and I’m glad to have more understanding as to what possessed him to run 27 marathons in 26 days, but it lacks either the depth of insight or the laugh out loud moments I hoped to find.
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The Dark Defiles (2014) concludes Richard K. Morgan‘s A Land Fit For Heroes trilogy (started in The Steel Remains and continued in The Cold Commands). There’s not much new here, and the write-ups of the previous two books continue to be true: this is engaging, page-turning fantasy/speculative fiction, and worth a shot if that’s what you enjoy.
I’ve started several series as part of Reading Well; this is one of the few I carried on with and completed, and should Morgan choose to return to this world (surely there is more, either in the history of conflict with the reptilian invaders or in the intergalactic travelers), I will be happy to journey there as well.