Aren't you rather young to be writing your memoirs?

by B.S. Johnson

First edition hard cover, with unclipped dust jacket, both in very good condition. From the collection of Ian Angus, former librarian at King's College, London, and deputy librarian at University College, London. Ownership pencilled to FEP. Light shelf and handling wear, including minor wear to edges and tanning to cover, (green squares to jacket remain bright and vibrant). Tanning noted to endpapers, F&R. Green cloth boards are in fine condition, silver detail to spine. Within, pages are tightly bound, content unmarked. CN

Genres: British Literature, Fiction

140 pages, Hardcover

First published October 22, 1973

About the author

B. S. Johnson (Bryan Stanley Johnson) was an English experimental novelist, poet, literary critic and film-maker.

Johnson was born into a working class family, was evacuated from London during World War II and left school at sixteen to work variously as an accounting clerk, bank junior and clerk at Standard Oil Company. However, he taught himself Latin in the evenings, attended a year's pre-university course at Birkbeck College, and with this preparation, managed to pass the university exam for King's College London.

After he graduated with a 2:2, Johnson wrote a series of increasingly experimental and often acutely personal novels. Travelling People (1963) and Albert Angelo (1964) were relatively conventional (though the latter became famous for the cut-through pages to enable the reader to skip forward), but The Unfortunates (1969) was published in a box with no binding (readers could assemble the book any way they liked) and House Mother Normal (1971) was written in purely chronological order such that the various characters' thoughts and experiences would cross each other and become intertwined, not just page by page, but sentence by sentence. Johnson also made numerous experimental films, published poetry, and wrote reviews, short stories and plays.

A critically acclaimed film adaptation of the last of the novels published while he was alive, Christie Malry's Own Double-Entry (1973) was released in 2000.

At the age of 40, increasingly depressed by his failure to succeed commercially, and beset by family problems, Johnson committed suicide. Johnson was largely unknown to the wider reading public at the time of his death, but has a growing cult following. Jonathan Coe's 2004 biography Like a Fiery Elephant (winner of the 2005 Samuel Johnson prize) has already led to a renewal of interest in Johnson's work.

Reviews

[Nick · Rating 5 out of 5]

B.S. Johnson was really pushing the form of the novel in smart, inventive and unexpected ways. There's a dignity and integrity to his creative writing, in what would otherwise fail, as elaborations or contrivances, in the hands of other lesser scribes. The recognition and success he deserved never came in his lifetime and so his work is limited to a handful of novels, poetry collections and these short stories. The writing, set and defined in sixties era England (mostly London), is distinctive and unique.

His creative approach to narrative structure, typesetting, the printed layout and overall form of a story never compromised the honest, truthful and real approach to writing. This collection of short stories includes an insightful introduction and and invigorating reminder of what great taste B.S. Johnson had. It also makes one sad to hear him talking about his art form and his work knowing he didn't get what he needed from commercial publishing.

The short stories here, for me, serve as more insight and exposure to his creative approach but I think his novels and longer form writing work harder and better for him. I would highly recommend reading his novels Albert Angelo, House Mother Normal & Trawl, collected together in the Omnibus published by Picador.

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Johnson wrote in the 60s and 70s, an English heir to Joyce and Beckett. This small collection of short prose is a very good introduction to his work—though I was actually introduced to it in the 80s via James Marcus, an acquaintance, and read three novels back then—the three published by New Directions: Albert Angelo, House Mother Normal, and Christie Malry’s Own Double-Entry. This collection begins with an introduction that is a wonderfully clear, direct, and entertaining overview of Johnson’s work. He makes the point that he is not an “experimental” writer because he only experiments when current forms fail and what reaches the public isn’t the “experiment” but the successful new form that solved the problem with which he’d been wrestling as a writer. His synopses of his published work made me eager to read the ones I hadn’t and re-read the ones I had, as well as reminding me that I need to read Ulysses and all of Beckett’s prose. The title piece recounts a day of uneventful fishing near a mill that is surrounded by a drama involving poachers, shotguns, cars, but not Johnson, except as a not quite involved or comprehending bystander. “Mean Point of Impact” describes two events separated by centuries: one the building of a medieval cathedral and the other its targeted destruction in World War II. There is also a travel piece about Bournemouth, a funny essay about how Ball’s Pond and Ball’s Pond Road got theirs names, a delightfully random set of selected sentences, including the droll, “One year, suspended.” Which, of course, is and isn’t a sentence. Other selections include: “The continuous process of recognizing that what is possible is not achievable.” And, perhaps my favorite: “A rusty charlatan stated dogmatically that a discussion was an argument in which no one was particularly interested. He was reminded that every good deed is followed by the punishment of God. But, he insisted, one must have a proper regard for the ordinary.” All of the pieces, some stories, though not necessarily fiction, given the introduction, are whelmed with witty wordplay and are at least entertaining and sometimes much more than that: brilliant re-imaginings of form from necessity’s sake. My own problem with what is often described as experimental writing is that it seems more an academic exercise than something that does what Johnson describes for himself: trying to say something that needs to be said (at least by him) in the most effective way possible.

[MJ Nicholls · Rating 2 out of 5]

Aren’t You Rather Young to be Writing Your Memoirs?

Published close to Johnson’s end, this collection ties up the loose ends of his work before his plunge into the afterlife. And it’s painful. The introduction is an illuminating and sardonic overview of his novels and acts as a final artistic statement: a legacy, an epitaph. But the short fiction pieces collected here show up the worst facets of Johnson’s work. All his pieces were semi-autobiographical to a degree, making it hard to separate the voice of his bruised male protagonists from the voice of Johnson. This is the case here, and the voice is condescending and arch: almost displaying outright contempt for Joe Reader. Johnson’s novels work because their dazzling forms are as moving and hilarious as conventional works—he convinces the reader of a way forward for fiction. He adopts the sort of 19thC voice he fought against in these stories, dripping an unpleasant arrogance over moments and people in his life, sniping against those stupid enough to read dime-store novels. The true Johnson was a compassionate, cuddly character, comically honest, so these stories are borne mainly from personal and professional frustration. Plus, unlike his novels, they offer no alternative to the standard short story form. In the final story ‘Everybody Knows Somebody Who’s Dead’ he composes a memoir while sneering at a creative writing textbook, but nowhere in the collection (except the longest piece, which is excellent) does he use original forms. These are embarrassments best left unread. Just as well it’s out of print, then.

Poems:

I ain’t got no call to read no poems, but while I was at the NLS, I thought I’d have a peep at his first poetry collection. These were reasonable little efforts, set to strict metrical forms and not free verse, as you might assume. Johnson was a competent poet, writing about sixties London and the Welsh countryside, though he doesn’t have much of a voice. The best poem was a tribute to his mate Zulfikar Ghose, who co-authored this and wrote a piece about him in this.

[Craig · Rating 4 out of 5]

B.S Johnson reads like the best of two writers I've always been slightly ashamed to say I can appreciate but have never truly loved (or perhaps in common parlance, never quite 'got') - Joyce and Sterne. All the humour and gleeful language-play is present with something more resoundingly down-to-earth that I can't quite put my finger on. His habit of talking directly to you-as-reader seems generous and welcoming, and never too much like pretentious metafiction; a fine line to tread.

I've wanted to read his work for a while now and was worried this lesser known work might not be the best place to start, but I was pleasantly surprised. Needless to say, I'll try and get my grubby little mitts on The Unfortunates and Albert Angelo as soon as possible.

[Mae · Rating 3 out of 5]

7/10

[Josh Sherman · Rating 4 out of 5]

Worth it if you can track it down. The "stories"—if one can call them that—aren't all hits. But more good than bad.