'List of the Lost' review at The Quietus; Digested read / illustration at The Guardian

An anonymous person writes:

"Some of the most heinously overblown prose printed by a major publishing house in living memory..."

Beyond The Bulbous Salutation: List Of The Lost Reviewed by Karl Smith - The Quietus
Morrissey's debut novel is 118 pages of prose in not-ungenerously-sized type-face – but, whatever else it is, is it any good?



An anonymous person posted the link (original post):

List of the Lost by Morrissey – digested read by John Crace - The Guardian
‘“You’ll never prove a thing that I did with my ding-a-ling,” shouts the Dean who is frightfully mean

Illustration: Matt Blease

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The question is how will Moz deal with this veritable nightmare? He's become a laughing stock. "I don't care what the critics think" only works when you've got at least one of them on your side.
 
f*** Penguin shirts? :o I dunno, I don't envy him. Maybe it's time to squirrel away in his Swiss chalet with a hobby.
 
The question is how will Moz deal with this veritable nightmare? He's become a laughing stock. "I don't care what the critics think" only works when you've got at least one of them on your side.

Sure he will be fine. Most people can't tolerate anything different. I am sure people were up in arms over e e Cummings style and Jean Genet. He is still the most interesting person on the planet unlike 99% of the people on here. You are only capable of criticism, cannot see art, and I am sure are useless.
 
Me too. Let's not forget, Bill Shakespeare's first novel was a flop and he turned out pretty good.

i dont know that much about shakespeares reception but melville whom i used to compare was also highly criticized for many of the same reasons moz is now and did not exactly meet with financial or critical success. he got popular writing half a biography about adventuring at sea, even though he couldnt support himself with the royalties generated, but when he tried to get deep with moby dick it did go so well with one critic saying "The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed". when he kept writing they just got worse with " critical friend, who read Melville's last book, Ambiguities, between two steamboat accidents, told us that it appeared to be composed of the ravings and reveries of a madman. We were somewhat startled at the remark, but still more at learning, a few days after, that Melville was really supposed to be deranged, and that his friends were taking measures to place him under treatment. We hope one of the earliest precautions will be to keep him stringently secluded from pen and ink". today people think differently i guess though im still of the opinion that i cant stand reading him. my point being that popular reviews and all of things people initially complained about mozs novel are some of the same things that other "great" works have had to face and history changed how people saw them. i dont know if thatll be the case here but i know that a novel simple in language and matter of fact in realistic observation doesnt exactly make a great novel. it often makes a boring bland one that either entertains readers or just makes the reader feel good about being able to understand and recognize the point with little thought or imagination required. not everyone can be twain or kingsley. hell even plot subject is mostly irrelevant as great books are not made by really wanting to know what happened next but rather how its told
 
Obviously this novel is too unique and challenging for the Bandwagon Critics. I read it yesterday and was very impressed.
 
Few great artists receive just recognition in their lifetime. Too ahead of the populace. Plus everyone in UK thick as pig shit.
 
i dont know that much about shakespeares reception but melville whom i used to compare was also highly criticized for many of the same reasons moz is now and did not exactly meet with financial or critical success. he got popular writing half a biography about adventuring at sea, even though he couldnt support himself with the royalties generated, but when he tried to get deep with moby dick it did go so well with one critic saying "The style of his tale is in places disfigured by mad (rather than bad) English; and its catastrophe is hastily, weakly, and obscurely managed". when he kept writing they just got worse with " critical friend, who read Melville's last book, Ambiguities, between two steamboat accidents, told us that it appeared to be composed of the ravings and reveries of a madman. We were somewhat startled at the remark, but still more at learning, a few days after, that Melville was really supposed to be deranged, and that his friends were taking measures to place him under treatment. We hope one of the earliest precautions will be to keep him stringently secluded from pen and ink". today people think differently i guess though im still of the opinion that i cant stand reading him. my point being that popular reviews and all of things people initially complained about mozs novel are some of the same things that other "great" works have had to face and history changed how people saw them. i dont know if thatll be the case here but i know that a novel simple in language and matter of fact in realistic observation doesnt exactly make a great novel. it often makes a boring bland one that either entertains readers or just makes the reader feel good about being able to understand and recognize the point with little thought or imagination required. not everyone can be twain or kingsley. hell even plot subject is mostly irrelevant as great books are not made by really wanting to know what happened next but rather how its told

Are you inferring that a novel cannot be colourful unless badly written?
 
Are you inferring that a novel cannot be colourful unless badly written?

no i just dont find them badly written. i find most novels with simplistic word choice and syntax to be pointless and very uninteresting. how would a novel be colourful without these stylistic qualities. give me an example of one and ill give you an opinion
 
I hope that this book helps tips the scales towards the necessary judgement that pop culture is dementing and dying. Pop culture is dead - bring back culture.
 
Me too. Let's not forget, Bill Shakespeare's first novel was a flop and he turned out pretty good.

Aw come on, The Two Gentlemen of Verona did quite nicely (glossing over the fact that you called his works "novels")!
 
no i just dont find them badly written. i find most novels with simplistic word choice and syntax to be pointless and very uninteresting. how would a novel be colourful without these stylistic qualities. give me an example of one and ill give you an opinion
Here's four:

The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal
Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

All four of these books tell compelling stories without employing hideously ornate prose.

That said, I don't think that a book is automatically rendered unreadable or bad if the prose is dense, I just don't agree that it always the best or most effective way to tell a story. To use Vidal's book as an example: it arguably would not have resonated with so many people and made the impact that it did had it not been written in such a simple, matter of fact way, and the tone of the book suits the all-American, no-nonsense personalities of the characters quite well.
 
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A vintage quote from Moz: "I don't mind how I'm remembered so long as they're precious recollections. I don't want to be remembered for being a silly, prancing, nonsensical village idiot."

Too late.
 
Here's four:

The City and the Pillar by Gore Vidal
Other Voices, Other Rooms by Truman Capote
Go Tell It On the Mountain by James Baldwin
A Single Man by Christopher Isherwood

All four of these books tell compelling stories without employing hideously ornate prose.

That said, I don't think that a book is automatically rendered unreadable or bad if the prose is dense, I just don't agree that it always the best or most effective way to tell a story. To use Vidal's book as an example: it arguably would not have resonated with so many people and made the impact that it did had it not been written in such a simple, matter of fact way, and the tone of the book suits the all-American, no-nonsense personalities of the characters quite well.

I'm a huge Capote fan and other rooms other voices is a very stylistic novel And for sure not my favorite. I do own a first edition of summer crossing and used it as an example of characters saying very unrealistic things which was a complaint leveled at this novel. Breakfast at tiffinies his most popular for sure has very very unrealistic characters saying some very unrealistic things. Don't care for any of the rest but here's another point, should people write novels to resonate with the public and does that make them good or well written if they do. Many things resonate with the public much more so than Vidal's novels, does this make them better written or worse and just pandering. Should people write to gain an audience and mass communicate or write for themselves. I would think you would have to define what is considered well written and hold something to that standard and that it would probably be a bunch of qualities that contrast but if a body of work meets enough of them then it can add up to worthwhile novel. Many novels resonate because they comment on social conditions but are very poorly written IMO and fade when those conditions fade from public consciousness. Sometimes great writers write very self indulgent novels that are complex and require a lot of education to understand and interpret but don't resonate at all though they are still very well written. You must define what you consider well written and acknowledge that some of those qualities contrast and not meet the elements that other great novels do but can still add up a we'll written novel
 

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