Morrissey Autobiography: A Penguin Classic?

Two biographies were released in Australia this week . The first is a meticulously researched bio of a deep thinking and creative man who is respected by many. The second is autobiography of an ego-driven rock star. I'm planning to read Brian Jay Jones' biography on Jim Henson for pleasure and Muppets nostalgia. I wouldn't normally give a shit about Morrissey's biography but for the fact that it has been so controversial.

So what is the controversy? Morrissey, it seems, believes that his autobiography is so interesting and will have such a great cultural impact that it deserves to be published under the Penguin Classics imprint. And Penguin, it seems, have been willing to play ball. Basically, they've tampered with a much-loved and well respected imprint to satisfy the whims of an ageing, albeit intelligent and well-respected rock star.

Why?

To be honest, as a consumer I am divided on the issue. I get that rock and roll is all about pushing cultural boundaries and accepted norms. Rock and roll is intended at times to upset and challenge. That is what the best kind of art does. The sacred Penguin Classics imprint is quite an interesting boundary to push and something that no one has tried (or at least tried successfully,) before.

On the other hand ... it's Penguin Classics. That's one hell of a sacred imprint. The books published under the imprint are always those that have stood the test of time and the editions are always thoroughly and meticulously researched by scholars, and come with introductions, appendices, footnotes, etc. As a university student, I knew that the Penguin Classics edition of any set text was always the finest choice--the only other publisher who ever came close was Oxford University Press. And now the imprint has been cheapened with the inclusion of a rock and roll autobiography. Suddenly, the imprint does not seem so special any more.

So what happens now? Well, maybe it will turn out that Morrissey's autobiography is just as well written and important as he claims. But I doubt it.  My guess is that Morriessy's autobiography will sell a decent number of copies, be shelved as biography rather than with the classics and in a few years time the whole controversy will be quietly forgotten. Maybe we'll get a quick recap at the end of the decade or if the author should create more controversy somehow, somewhere. As for Penguin well, I suppose that it is their publishing house and their imprint. They can do what they like with it.

But I doubt that they will publish another rock star autobiography under that same imprint again.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Peppermint Patty: I Cried and Cried and Cried

Image
Unrequited love is a common theme in the Peanuts Comics and is one that I have previously explored on this blog. We know that Lucy loves Schroeder, Sally loves Linus and Charlie Brown has a crush on the unseen, unnamed and utterly unattainable Little Redhaired Girl. But perhaps the saddest unrequited love stories from the comic is that which ran in late June 1972. It was the series of strips where the usually self-confident Peppermint Patty came face-to-face with the Little Redhaired Girl with the intention of thumping her and then something surprising happened: Here we have a usually self-confident girl, who is funny, unashamedly herself and talented at sports reduced to tears by the realisation of who she is not and never can be. I really feel for her in this series of comic strips. She knows that Charlie Brown can never love her, when he is so hung up over a girl who represents a supposedly ideal feminine beauty. Fortunately Linus, the most spiritual member of the Pean
Read more

Charlie Brown, Lucy Van Pelt and the Football

Image
One of the longest, and arguably, most infuriating, running gags in Charles Schulz's otherwise brilliant Peanuts comic strip, is where Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown and then pulls it away at the last minute, causing Charlie Brown to fall flat on his back. A typical strip looks like this: Source: Go Comics The gag is one of the darker themes in the strip. It works on the concept that every year, Lucy promises to hold a football for Charlie Brown. Every year, Charlie Brown is initially filled with doubt but is eventually pushed on by a kind of optimism that perhaps, this time, Lucy might just let him kick it after all. As a metaphor for life, it is pretty simple. It talks of the moments when we choose to put our trust in people who have let us down only to be taken by surprise when they let us down, again. Lucy is, arguably, one of the crueller characters in the comic. Described as crabby by the other characters, she is often selfish, takes delight in wilfully hu
Read more

Phrases and Idioms: Tickets on Himself

To have tickets on himself: (Australian slang.) To be conceited or vain. To have an overinflated opinion of oneself.  He's got tickets on himself if he thinks that any woman would fall for that. I was thinking about this particular bit of Australian slang the other day, after my boss said, "He's got tickets on himself," to describe the actions of a particular individual. At the time, I smiled, knowing exactly what the boss meant. Later on, I started to ponder on this unusual phrase and wondered where it might have come from. A search on google helped me find the definition, but that was about all. There are no references to it being used in pop culture or literature (if you find one, let me know,) and at the time of writing this post, Tickets on Himself was not listed on Urban Dictionary. (I tried to add it, but the fuckers rejected my definition. They probably think I have tickets on myself or something for trying to add a relatively common piece of A
Read more