Jun 03 2008
B S Johnson and his book-in-a-box
I have just received a copy of The Unfortunates by B. S. Johnson (no relation to Boris, as far as I know). This guy’s name was Bryan and he died back in 1973. I got interested in him through reading his biography Like a Fiery Elepehant (nice title, and, it would seem, an apt description of the man) by Jonathan Coe. I love Coe’s novels so I thought I’d try it. It’s a wonderful book, even if you’ve never heard of BSJ, which I hadn’t. I’ll review it some other time. For the moment, I want to focus on BSJ himself.
BS Johnson was an experimental author who saw himself as following the tradition of James Joyce and Samuel Beckett. He thought the traditional novel was dead and wanted to start (or continue) a new trend. One of the things he believed was that novels should tell the truth about the writer’s life. Not just in the loose sense most of us mean, but in the sense that as a writer you shouldn’t make things up. It should all come directly from your own experience.
I wish he was still alive and had a blog so I could ask him about this. As a novelist – the idea that you can’t make things up…? Isn’t that the heart of the enterprise? Yet there is a discipline to this that appeals to me. Not all novels, but some. I’d like to take on the challenge, and may just have a go myself.
Anyway – The Unfortunates is one of BSJ’s most experimental novels. It’s written in sections, separately bound (hence the box to keep them in). There’s a First and a Last, which should be read as such, but the remaining sections are intended to be read at random. The idea, I think, is to capture the random, arbitrary nature of memory. The author took a trip to Nottingham to review a football match (yes, he was keen on football and he didn’t make a lot of money from his novels). When he got there, the city brought back memories of a previous visit to his close friend Tony, who died of cancer. So it’s a set of recollections about Tony’s life, their friendship, and the way the cancer affected him.
I haven’t finished it – in fact I’ve barely started. It’s not a long novel and I’m expecting to read it quite quickly. What I’ve read so far is intriguing. No, it’s riveting. As Coe points out, BSJ invented the male confessional novel, apart from anything else. He’s witty, he’s funny, he’s clever, he’s thoughtful. He should never have been forgotten. I feel as though I am making a new friend.
More soon….
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