I posted this in the existing Renegade thread yesterday but I guess it really ought to go here so excuse any deja vu...

Thanks to the way-beyond-the-call-of-duty generosity of a Forum member, I just read Renegade.

While it's not exactly the book I imagine most of us want, we'll have to take what we're given - and on its own terms it's a glorious read.

The temptation to mention all sorts of things about it is overwhelming but I don't want to spoil any surprises. Far better that people experience those for themselves.

I must admit I do have a slight issue re the ghost-writerliness of it but that's a minor detail. It's as incisive as you'd expect, not to mention a hoot (although I dare say many ex-Fall members might beg to differ) and you definitely put it down with your respect for MES's indefatigibilty vastly enhanced.

If it takes anybody more than two days to bomb through it then they definitely need to sort their lives out. Great stuff!

Review on hold till the book comes out. :)

can't wait.

Me too :applaud:

First Post?
Welcome to the FOF AW.
:rolleyes:

me neither

I've read an advance copy... Some lovely bits but a bit too polished and chronological for me...I think the Mick Middles book is still my favourite...

I guess the reviews will start appearing now.

Here's the first one I've seen.

"There's no one quite like grandad"
Sean O'Hagan, Observer, 20 April 2008:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,2273977,00.html

Dan

got my copy yesterday. getting well stuck into it. i like the style - its like an interview, one on one.

:)

Got mine and seems to be fun.

Found it in Waterstones and read half of it in the pub last night - site-specific reading, as it turns out. It's quite fun, in a pub-rant sort of way and I'd prefer it ghost-written than a whole book of the Voices cut-up chapters that crop up from time to time.

I noticed that I started off laughing at something on just about every page, but by the time my mate turned up I wasn't smiling so much, despite having 2 pints of Youngs in me. Some good stories, and I'm glad he's not giving any secrets away, but the opinion stuff, well, I think 'wearing' might be the word.

Mark's a 'grandad' ?

Marc E Smith?? :o

Got it yesterday from Waterstones and am about halfway through it. Stylistically it reminds me very much of Dylan's 'Chronicles' book. Had to laugh at his discussion about cover versions and his appreciation for Louise's cover of 'Stuck In The Middle' :lol:

Read the bulk of it yesterday. Reminded me of Chronicles a bit too, except Dylan's book was more outward-looking. The "pub rant" comparisons are accurate - it's really like an informal monologue. It's regularly amusing and MES comes across as thoughtful and likable. Really like the "Voices" cut-up sections, which underlines my disappointment that the book doesn't really reflect MES's writing talent. Nevertheless, essential for fans. Not sure that it'd serve as a decent primer for non-fans though.

Picked it up today and so have only read the first two chapters and am loving it!! The piece about the Irish family changing the lyrics to 'All the Young Dudes' made me laugh out loud on the train (DART). Don't think the excerpts (esp. part 2) in the Guardian were enticing but as someone said they are just bits taken at random. Most likely read it all tonight in one go. IWS is available now in Freebird (Temple Bar and secret Book shop) at 18.99.

Just finished reading it, hardly life changing but very funny. I think I'll have another go through in a few weeks too.

I quite liked it, as a bit of fun. And some interesting insights, but not too many (as you would expect).

The "voices" bits confused me. Some of them included quotations from this very forum.

Dan

I was a little disappointed to find out that MES didn't actually sit down and write the thing out, instead it was collated from hours of taped conversations in various pubs and at home by Austin Collings, a part of me feels a little let down by that. I guess that's where the pub rant feeling comes from.

Excellent. Read it in one sitting: to at and from the pub. A surfeit of highlights.

Doctor Carl!! :lol:

Spot on about Dostoevsky, football and a lot else.

I reckon his version of the Brownie's incident is the definitive -_- (so put that in your pipe Hanley adorers!! :devil: )

God bless MES!


Also re Christians: Cunts all week and saints on Sunday. :lol:

do they? which ones?

got my copy yesterday on the way home from work and nearly finished already. happy to spend too much time on here whilst at work but i think putting my feet up with a book would be a bit too conspicuous.

hugely enjoyable.

"So I said to Riley, Right pal, consider this a three-week ban."

"The Missus says to me: Right-ah, what's ya fuckin' favourite track on Jesus Meets The fookin Stupids, eh?"

"We played at Bilston that night. It were a shit show and I for one was just going throguh the fuckin' motions, like."

"Perhaps it's me, but I am still drunk. I'm writing this just after the gig. The traffic was really bad. I wish they'd play all the tunes that I like. That beer we had was good, wasn't it, Totale? I've watched them now for nigh on thirty-nine years and never have I encountered such a... Is it me or is Rob's head the next to roll... I hope so. There's no place for beards in the... This is the worst line-up since... And why has he asked for the forum to be closed down... What happened to freedom of speech? I can't believe he's asked for the forum to be closed down. Just because he's not that way inclined..."

Some direct quotes in there, if not all of it. As ever, he nails his subject perfectly.

Who - the ghost writer?!

That's as maybe but the, uh, subjective description of what actually happened on stage won't be much help to future generations of Fall Civil War Re-enactment Societies...

He's quoted my thingy about speed but got the math wrong.

Steve Hanley is writing a book.

Marc Riley says so.

he really gives a fuck about the ex-members, despite what he says. first half dozen pages is just ben pritchard, karl burns is all over it.

i think it's disappointing. just one long interview without any hand on the tiller. "and another thing..."

i got it yesterday and i'm about 3/4s of the way through it.

the ghost was all too present to start with but it's come to feel like mes's voice now (apart from 'fellow', for fuck's sake!).

it's enjoyable, but not that much is entirely new to us long time admirers, listeners and interview readers, but... i imagine it will be a real eye-opener to unsuspecting readers who may pick it up cheap in fopp or vivaldi (or whatever it's called) in a few years/months time.

this stuff needs to be out there, but i really wish it was a crafted work of idiosyncratic mes prole art, rather than a transcription of a few nights in the pub.

------------
but why am i complaining?
because i'm a fucking fall fan.
would u2 fans whinge about the words of the great god bongo? of course not; that's why they're u2 fans.

I've read it and I think it's pretty shoddy. Just one, long, actually (for the most part) pretty dull transcribed set of cobbled-together interviews. I feel sorry for the "ghost writer" - he was just a glorified transcriber! Imagine having to replay hours of that crap day after day and trying to cobble it into some coherant sense!

It was hardly insightful. I mean, we all want to keep the mystery preserved, yes, but to wait so long and end up with what is mainly a rant about ex-fall members (incidentally, it is some feat that after pages of bile directed againbst them, they all come off looking better for it!!) is just a disappointment.

Every time I picked it up to read it I had to fling it down not long after, it was so annoying! The man has little to no grip on the real world. He is entertaining for the time it takes to read a short interview in a music mag, but a whole book???? It's stuff we've heard many times before! Some mildly witty turns of phrase but it's mostly garbage.

I was surprised when I came on here that most people don't think it was as bad as I did.

From Mojo:

Hold on: in that Mojo review above, the book is subtitled "The Gospel According to".

I think Marks pre-occupation with Ben Pritchard makes the start of this book suffer just a little bit. There are two side of every story, and considering most of The Fall 07/08 live set has the ‘ghost’ of Pritchard written all over it (Sparta, P Joint, Blindness, Mountain Energei), makes me wonder if MES has regrets over Bens abdication in the desert.

The Consortium ‘interviewed’ Ben at Reading in 2006, and Ben was a massive fan of Mark E Smith. He also loved The Fall, and being in The Fall.

What a shame it came to all this bollocks.

I think it's bizarre. The fact that it's so obviously transcribed rather than written means that it doesn't really work as a book. It's odd that by page 25 we're already off on a rant about TV (the image of Mark and Elena sitting down for their daily fix of Neighbours will stay with me forever).

There's far too much 'In my day...' and 'These days...' – my favourite example so far is on p.37: 'It was bad in those days, but I think it's just as bad now, worse.'

This bit's baffling, too, from p.26: 'I've always wanted to write a really good British film – something on a par with Dead Of Night. But I've never quite got there. Other things have got in the way.' That's a bit like me or someone else from this forum saying 'I've always wanted to write a really good British album – something on a par with Hex Enduction Hour. But I've never quite got there. Other things have got in the way.'

Let's hope it's all one big joke.

Also, I think it's really sad that he chose to begin his 'life story' with a seven-page tirade against former band members. Ironically, he has now immortalized them in print – having already immortalized them in last year's bitter-sounding LP title. If they still bother him so much, wouldn't it have been better to ignore them completely and effectively wipe them out of the band's history?

Haven't finished the book yet, but sense it's going to be hard-going.

As I said here, I think he'll eventually disown the book and blame the ghostwriter for any views expressed that he doesn't want to stand by.

A poll about Renegade

I think what you get with this book, more than any of the others is Mark's world view and view of past events. But whereas you would normally read this in interviews , here you get it in a more sustained format. I find it more than just entertaining though, I find it covers so many incidents and key perceptions that here you get a clearer picture of Mark's point of view than in previous books or articles. Despite the usual exaggerations and distortions of the truth to suit Mark's perspective of the world, you tend to see where he's coming from, regardless of how convinced you are by his arguments.

The book is very easy to read. He is not like an old codger stuck in the past.
The Fall will get good again... and again. :D

This book is very hard work indeed. Good job the chapters are short. I think it demonstrates how as a 51 year old man how he has actually stopped moving or thinking forward, he is stuck in the past now (Like with his music) and like any old codger he just sticks to what he became a few years ago and there's limited mileage in what's left.

Haven't read it yet, but I think Stephen's right. MES will definitely disown the book and blame the ghostwriter at some point. I wouldn't be surprised if he started doing it half way through the promotional process.

But I guess that "never satisfied" attitude is what's kept him going.

I wouldn't be surprised, but unlike Stephen, I don't think there's anything in the content that MES should be embarrassed by. On the contrary, I think this is the best representation of "MES the Legend" that I've seen in print.

Yup. I think maybe some people wanted a book written in the style of MES's lyrics. Which would have been interesting, of course.
And we have kind of had the "Mark ranting into a dictaphone" already with the Middles book.
But, I'm really enjoying it - I'm dipping in a non-linear waty.
Great insights into his lyrics and mindset, and I think I've laughed out loud at some point on every page.
Even if he's capable of contradicting himself within the space of one sentence.
I've just had two huge disasters in my life, so reading about Mark battling on has made me feel so much better.
Being Brighton, I particularly loved page 154 - so did other Fall Brightonians.
Have just come away to type after reading MES describing a Fall fan as a "sexless office fellow."
Is that how he sees us?
Great stuff.

[/QUOTE]
Being Brighton, I particularly loved page 154 - so did other Fall Brightonians.
[/QUOTE]
Yes, I pissed myself laughing but MES obviously only knows the central, surface Brighton and not the Council estates of Coldean, Mile Oak, Whitehawk, etc. There's few middle class media halfwits who've ever been into - or more pertinently left alive - the Hikers Rest in Coldean. The invasion of the frapuccino media halfwits is accurate BUT Brighton has also got it's rough, criminal fraternity pubs and other corners just like Manchester (and I speak as a former resident of Chorlton and Hume).