I’m afraid I struggled with A Sound Mind. Paul Morley says some interesting things and makes some valid points, but oh dear – he does go on. And on. And on.
The subtitle of the book gives a clear idea of the content. It’s the story of how Morley began to develop an interest in and then a love for classical music, having been a rock critic for decades. There are some interesting observations, especially as I (like many others, I suspect) have made a similar move toward classical music as I have aged. He is very acute, too, on things like the universal, instant accessibility of huge amounts of music and how it means that we probably value it less than when an album was a significant investment of pocket money. But…
All of this is almost submerged in a deluge of self-referential verbiage. Quite early on, Morley actually talks about rock critics’ “compulsion to use too many words,” but apparently without any self-awareness, because it certainly applies here. He makes the error of assuming that all his readers are as fascinated as he is by every nuance of the development of his emotional and intellectual response to classical music. I’m afraid that this reader wasn’t and this, along with some clumsy and almost incomprehensible semi-metaphorical ramblings about plane journeys and the like made the whole thing very hard going for me. (And if I read one more sentence with endless lists of “from Haydn to Bowie, from Webern to [insert name of obscure band]….” I will not be responsible for my actions. OK, Paul, we get it – you’ve listened to a lot of music.)
At well over 600 pages, I suspect that this would have been a much better book if it had been half the length. There are quite a lot of interesting and penetrating observations here, but finding them is a real effort. I think the book is summed up for me in this little quote: “...the prog-rock concept album, with its own bloated, self-involved aesthetic that needed urgent, almost therapeutic puncturing by punk rock”. He is, as so often, absolutely right, but can’t seem to see that his own book is just as bloated and self-involved and needs urgent, almost therapeutic puncturing by a good, strong editor. I can’t really recommend it.
(My thanks to Bloomsbury for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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