When one thinks of ‘odd’, one might imagine the bizarre but not the boring. Yet odd thingscan indeed be boring – as Peter Carpenter’s book shows.
First, a word about my admiration for David Bowie, which began when I was 12. He was a vastly gifted artist as well as being a supremely ambitious man, who once floated himself on the stock exchange and appeared in an ad for bottled water when already a millionaire many times over. He also had sex with children, helping himself to the virginity of a 13-year-old girl as part of the ‘Baby Groupies’ circle. I think of myself at 13. Would I have had sex with Bowie, given the chance? You bet! Do I think it was creepy he seduced 13-year-olds? Without a doubt.
No such paradoxes are explored in the pedestrian plod that is Bowieland. Indeed it has the air of Adrian Mole: The Prostrate Years (there’s even an omnipresent friend called Nigel), although the author is somewhat older than Sue Townsend’s fictional hero and has a heart problem. Here are some examples of his prose:
Very often I didn’t know where I was going… but I can promise it was never boring.
I had been brought up in Epsom, following a short move from the high street in Ewell village where my father’s family had run the bakery.
It was decidedly uncool to win prizes at school. In fact, potentially dangerous. Yet I knew how to win the Elizabeth Blanchett Prize for Literature year in, year out.
It’s a straightforward proposition: Carpenter sets off to visit those places in which his hero was formed and influenced.
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in