I have no author news, except for a brief mention of what I’m working on here. As Fugazi once sang, Never mind what yer writing / it’s what your reading — or words to that effect.
Motor Spirit: The Long Hunt For The Zodiac by Jarett Kobek
Both of Jarett Kobek’s new books are about The Zodiac killer (his lockdown project) and both are self-published, which is not surprising given the opening chapter of 2019’s Only Americans Burn In Hell (read the sample here). This month, I tackled the first entry in this double album, Motor Spirit, a history of The Zodiac, and I’m happy to report that it’s excellent. Kobek is predominantly known for his fiction, and this is his first foray into true crime/reportage (or thereabouts) after a short book on XXXTentacion.
As expected, it’s full of wry sentences, but more so it’s a reminder of Kobek’s chief talent: generosity. He has a great eye — and ear — for human frailty. In Motor Spirit, he carries the stories of the Zodiac victims with requisite care (almost a given, to write this stuff this century), but where his work really comes into its own is the attention given to all the in-between people. The families, the cops, the journalists, the politicians, lawyers, hangers-on and cranks. No one gets shit on because they made mistakes or give in to relatable weakness. No historical figure gets judged from the lofty perch of the present. Instead, Motor Spirit saves its disdain for the self-oscillating mistakes of history — our collective errors — rather than the foibles of individuals in the moment. Read it alongside The Doors: A Lifetime of Listening To Five Mean Years by Greil Marcus and you’ll never feel good about the 60s again.
Drive by James Sallis
Nicholas Winding Refn’s 2019 Amazon series Too Old To Die Young looks (and sounds) spectacular, but it seemed like an epic waste of Ed Brubaker’s talents. At times, it’s hard to locate much of Ed in it. This got me thinking about Drive. I was curious about how much Sallis made it to film. At first glance, not much. Driver (played by Ryan Gosling) speaks less than a thousand words in the movie. In the book, he says as much in 3 chapters, and half the book is given over to his backstory. But then, I realised other parallels. The book is novella-length, despite the increased breadth of story. It’s very lean. And Driver remains immensely stoic in both, set against the same pungent neon sewer version of L.A. The violence in the book is Refn’s ultra-violence. There is a lot of overlap, at second glance. So to get Drive, you need to hold the paperback in your hand, to understand that both book and film are about control and pop economy.
Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative by Mark Fisher
The truth is, it’s someone else’s church. With Fisher, I’ve never been able to locate what others love so dearly. I try but reading Capitalist Realism thirteen years after the fact didn’t change a thing. The section on neoliberal bureaucracy still rings true. If anything bureaucracy has become less efficient and more metastasized since 2009; even what is convened in Web3 — Capital’s new wave — involves a lot of onboarding, committees and busywork. But I found the rest patchy. Cultural analysis veering between acute and overblown. What, for example, are we to do with a type of Capitalism that is ‘a monstrous, infinitely plastic entity, capable of metabolizing and absorbing anything with which it comes into contact?’ Save the BBC and politicise mental health, apparently. It’s a cheap shot — and at least Fisher had a prescription — but it’s where the friction lies for me. Look, I came away with notes, so who knows. Maybe I’ll come round yet.
That’s all.
— IAIN
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