"List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

I'll make up my own mind, but The Guardian are not impressed...

Morrissey: What we learned about him from List of the Lost by Michael Hann - The Guardian blog
Morrissey’s first novel is out and … well, it’s not very good. But the classic Moz tropes are present and correct

Excerpt:

"It’s commonplace in this kind of article to tell you we’re reading the book so you don’t have to. It’s a tease, usually. In the case of List of the Lost, however, it’s absolutely true. Do not read this book; do not sully yourself with it, no matter how temptingly brief it seems. All those who shepherded it to print should hang their heads in shame, for it’s hard to imagine anything this bad has been put between covers by anyone other than a vanity publisher. It is an unpolished turd of a book, the stale excrement of Morrissey’s imagination."

By the way ... I note at the very beginning "The author would like to thank Helen Conford"

The Dailybeast say...

Morrissey’s First Novel ‘List of the Lost’ Is a Bizarre, Misogynistic Ramble by Nico Hines - The Daily Beast
The writing is laughably clunky, the characters thinly drawn, the style stilted. But what’s worst about the ex-Smiths frontman’s List of the Lost is its repulsive treatment of women.

 

[Anonymous]

Re The Daily Beast, I don't think I give rat's fart about the opinions of the kind of critic who'd dismiss a book because he finds it shockingly misogynistic. Presumably, he'd find Burgess revoltingly fond of violence and Houellebecq really rather a distasteful chap. Which is true, but those are reasons why they are worth reading. Good books that make you think aren't generally written by nice people who share your preconceptions.

Don't you have your own site that we can ignore entirely without having to ignore you here as well?

 

[Ben Budd]

Looking forward to anonymous posters on Solo blaming Jesse Tobias for this.

 

[Anonymous]

It could very well be a bad book but this review is just awful. More like a character assassination than a book review.

 

[Anonymous]

now we know why american publishers passed on the book. they probably thought it was written in a foreign language.

 

[Qvist]

Re: Article: "List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

Well, I read the opening on Amazon and it is practically unreadable, I'd say. And I say that as an admirer of Naked Lunch.

"Ezra, Nails, Harri, Justy" is an interesting choice of opening line, echoing Dallow, Spicer, Pinky, Cubitt, of course. Well, I haven't read the rest, but it does seem as if it could be some bizarre extended sporting metaphor for the story of the Smiths.

Anyway, I guessed it might not be too good as his prose style is so heavily convoluted as we know - which works perfectly in the opening of Autobiography, but not here. A great lyricist he may be... a great novelist he isn't.

What, on the basis of three sentences out of the opening?

- - - Updated - - -

Given the near universal mauling the book has received in the British press
.

What, one review in the Guardian is "a near universal mauling in the British Press"?

- - - Updated - - -

"It is, without a doubt, one of the most damning book reviews to ever be printed by a national paper. "

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...ement-of-morrisseys-imagination-10515330.html

Oh great, now it's news for the Independent that somebody else has written a damning review. Fabulous.

 

[Cornflakes]

Re: Article: "List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

What, one review in the Guardian is "a near universal mauling in the British Press"?

If I hadn't part-read it, my reaction would probably be the same. But I'm sorry to say I'd be astounded if it gets a positive review anywhere.

There's now a second review in the Guardian, BTW: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/24/list-of-the-lost-morrissey-review-novel

 

[Martin]

Well, we HAVE to read it now. If it's as bad as it seems from the quoted passages this could turn out to be the absolute must-read of the year (although not in the way we hoped for...).

 

[TreeSB]

I'm just cringing inside over all of this.

 

[Anonymous]

"Losing in front of your home crowd, you wish the ground would open and take you down!!!"

 

[Qvist]

Sorry, I had to copy this post from AYNIM because I pretty much thought the same as I read the book.

"Ok, I'm half way through the novel - here is my honest opinion.

Being a Morrissey fan there are elements in what I've read so far that are interesting to me, because I got a feeling this fiction book may be more revealing that some parts of his autobiography.

The problem is that this is not an assay but a fiction novel and as such the story should flow and the plot shouldn't be extensively interrupted with the musings of the narrator, which Is unmistakably Morrissey. I also see elements of him in the 4 boys and even on other characters. This book could have been an essay (minus the fiction plot) or a short story (minus the narrators musings) but it can't be both.

The writing style is what you'd expect, having read autobiography, and I enjoy it. Some parts are humorous and witty, but the overall tone is ... quite strange, it almost feels like therapy, at times.

So as I said in the beginning, it is interesting to me because it's him. However, a casual reader picking up this book will find it weird and I'm sure most won't like it."

Thank you for sharing that. Fully appreciated. I'd just like to point out that what you're describing isn't necessarily an argument against the book's qualities (where, again, I reserve judgment, being only up to Loc 100 out of 1501 in the Kindle version). There is a lot of great literature that most casual readers would find weird. Also, there is a lot of great literature that blurs the line between genres, and is experienced as a strange creature. Take Clarice Lispector for example, many of whose best novels have hardly a trace of plot or character development, essentially they are just vehicles for reflection. There is nothing wrong with interspersing plot with narrator observation ir opinionating, you get that in a lot of great literature - Javier Marias, Milan Kundera, Karl Ove Knausgård. It's just that Morrissey's observations are already so familiar to us.

Indeed, the fact that it is being read by fans and people who already have strong perceptions about Morrissey works against the book, which deserves to be taken into consideration. We are not reading an autobiography. Simultaneously, there is no reason why Morrissey would not or should not draw strongly on his personal experience or vision for the book's content, and if we as a result distort our reading experience by approaching it as something to be mined for a deeper understanding of a rock idol, we are not really giving the book a chance to be more than just "him", and have only ourselves to blame.

I try to read it without thinking too much about who wrote it. What I hope for is something that works as a different kind of art than what you encounter in lyrics to music and has to be approched separately and differently, but which conveys ultimately a similar vision.

 

[A Man Escaped]

Re: Article: "List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

What, on the basis of three sentences out of the opening?

- - - Updated - - -


What, one review in the Guardian is "a near universal mauling in the British Press"?

- - - Updated - - -



Oh great, now it's news for the Independent that somebody else has written a damning review. Fabulous.

Terribly sorry old bean for my presumptuous comments. As I speak, the positive book reviews are being typed up to be rolled out in due course, compounding my embarrassment.

 

[Qvist]

Re: Article: "List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

If I hadn't part-read it, my reaction would probably be the same. But I'm sorry to say I'd be astounded if it gets a positive review anywhere.

There's now a second review in the Guardian, BTW: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/sep/24/list-of-the-lost-morrissey-review-novel

What does it have to do with anything whether you've half-read it or not? A review in The Guardian, or two for that matter, is not "A near universal mauling in the British Press". It will take consistently very bad reviews in nearly all major British newspapers to justify that description.

Thanks for link. The second review is at least a proper review. Although I find it annoying that it is held against the verbal economy of Morrissey's pop lyrics, which I do not find very relevant. And a bit unfair. And more than a little just like The Guardian at its worst, which is to say somewhat arbitrarily opinionated, as when they railed against the reissue of Maladjusted and Southpaw Grammar because they felt it was unwise of Morrissey to dwell upon releases that the reviewer hadn't really liked when they appeared (and probably stil didn't like, it's hard to tell since she didn't really go into that).

- - - Updated - - -

Terribly sorry old bean for my presumptuous comments. As I speak, the positive book reviews are being typed up to be rolled out in due course, compounding my embarrassment.

We'll see about that. In any case, you're simply being grossly inaccurate. If you want to take offense at having that pointed out, suit yourself.

 

[A Man Escaped]

Re: Article: "List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

What does it have to do with anything whether you've half-read it or not? A review in The Guardian, or two for that matter, is not "A near universal mauling in the British Press". It will take consistently very bad reviews in nearly all major British newspapers to justify that description.

Thanks for link. The second review is at least a proper review. Although I find it annoying that it is held against the verbal economy of Morrissey's pop lyrics, which I do not find very relevant. And a bit unfair. And more than a little just like The Guardian at its worst, which is to say somewhat arbitrarily opinionated, as when they railed against the reissue of Maladjusted and Southpaw Grammar because they felt it was unwise of Morrissey to dwell upon releases that the reviewer hadn't really liked when they appeared (and probably stil didn't like, it's hard to tell since she didn't really go into that).

- - - Updated - - -



We'll see about that. In any case, you're simply being grossly inaccurate. If you want to take offense at having that pointed out, suit yourself.

I take absolutely no offence. Its just a book. I am reading it now.

I always knew I could never write lyrics as genius as Rusholme Ruffians, I Know Its Over or Maudlin Street.

But I now know I can write as a book just as bad as Morrissey. And that is my opinion.

 

[Cornflakes]

Re: Article: "List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

What does it have to do with anything whether you've half-read it or not? A review in The Guardian, or two for that matter, is not "A near universal mauling in the British Press". It will take consistently very bad reviews in nearly all major British newspapers to justify that description.

True and, like I say, it would probably be my instinct too to point that out. I don't want the book to be a failure, but it is. The fact that the rest of the bad reviews haven't been published yet seems like a bit of a technicality to me at this stage.

 

[realitybites]

"Eliza and Ezra rolled together into the one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it smacked its way into every muscles of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.”

Best run-on sentence ever. Seriously. I like it.

 

[Black Eyed]

Re: Article: "List of the Lost" reviews in The Guardian, The Daily Beast

I'm only part way through and cant say it's one of those books that I will read twice, but did laugh that on page 39 is the following paragraph about the Royals......he even got his feelings vented in his book
"Thankfully the poor will die for us, yet the historic honor will belong only to Churchill, whilst the names of the dead shall never be said, and those who insist upon being known as 'the royals' shall neatly and tartly cocoon themselves away in the preserved luxury of various country seats (as paid for by the dying poor), utilizing any rules within or without the game to avoid getting hands dirty. This, after all, is what the poor are for, and although the young men of England will die (unasked) to spare the self-elected 'royals' from Nazi Germany, the favor shall never be returned" ......noticing the American spellings too!

 

[valvano]

Maybe he and Sheila shouldn't have included his Creative Writing assignments among the homework they threw into the fire.

 

[Detritus]

Another review, this time from a fan. https://medium.com/@rey_z/morrissey-list-of-the-lost-561697014e7b

 

[CrystalGeezer]

It's like nobody reviewing or here has read Finnigan's Wake? Oh wait, I doubt anybody has.

 

[realitybites]

It's like nobody reviewing or here has read Finnigan's Wake? Oh wait, I doubt anybody has.

Well we know you haven't.