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How Not to Grow Up: A Coming of Age Memoir. Sort of. - Richard Herring
by invisigothh
Richard Herring is exactly the same age as me, and like me he struggles with his weight, and we have both done filthy things to Julia Swahla , admittedly only one of has down this outside our imagination.That's really were our simiiaraties end. This book charts his early days in Cheddar ( they don't actually make cheese there you know ) ... The book deals with Richard stumbling towards 40, and then beyond, and realising that he has yet to grow up. This is done in a non linear way by using such things as marking various events in his life such as fights , masterbation and Emma Kennedy.
There are plenty of laughs and of course Mr Herrings self absorbed character makes a appearance, as well as the bitterness that he is not on the TV ( unlike His erstwhile partner Stewart Lee who is on actual Tv ) . I found the insight in to Richards apparent sadness touching and very similar to my own decent in to fun filled alcohol excess.
On the whole I enjoyed this book throughly, it was of course funny , but also strangely touching , and a excellent read , I guess that you would need to at least like Mr Herring , but maybe not. If you want to get inside the head of the messed up 40 something, then this maybe your way in ....or you could drop me a email ( I am sadly no longer Available Julia )
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Things Snowball - Rich Hall
by ladybracknell
What this book isn't
The first thing you need to know about this book is that it is not really a biography, at least not in the accepted sense of the word. Although mainly written from a personal perspective and in a semi-autobiographical style, none of it or at the very best only a grain of it, is the truth! ...
Anybody picking up 'Things Snowball' for a casual flick through thinking it's an autobiography would be slightly disconcerted to read on the first pages about a childhood visit to his grandparents in Eastern Tennessee who ran "a small mom and pop nuclear plant" and where the young Rich played hunt the cricket with a Geiger counter before being left in charge whilst Granpa and Granma went off to town. If that casual reader still thinks they're reading an autobiography after glancing at those first few lines, they really need to put the book down and find something to read that's more to their taste, possibly something with less subtle humour.
Rich Hall, who he?
Rich Hall, for those who've never come across him is an American-born stand-up comedian and writer, who now divides his time between Britain and the USA. His early career included stints on the American comedy circuit and TV shows including Saturday Live as well as writing for Dave Letterman. On this side of the Atlantic, he's a regular panellist on several British comedy shows such as 'QI' and '8 out of 10 Cats' as well as writing and fronting the BBC4 documentary, 'The Dirty South', which was heavily laced with his own grouchy brand of humour, and in which he refutes the Hollywood idea that the southern states of America are all about rednecks, racism and religion. He's married to a Brit and having lived over here on and off for more than twenty years, he's certainly tuned into the British psyche and our sense of humour. Here's an American who really does understand irony!
What this book is
This book is very funny. It's an eclectic assortment of short stories, essays and articles, none of them more than a few pages long and all delivered in Rich Hall's own inimitable dead pan style which utterly contradicts the sheer bizarre absurdity of his words. Several of these scribblings might be familiar to regular readers of The Scotsman, although those pieces have been added to and honed for this book. The stories cover American and British life in a way you've probably never looked at it before and it's also sharply observational and although sometimes slightly snarky, it's never cruel. Rich Hall has lived away from America long enough to have a less subjective view of his homeland, though his love of it and especially for the southern states is very evident. As he sees it, "America is like a beauty contestant. It's gorgeous, until it opens its mouth."
The subject matter in this collection, excluding his grandparents nuclear power plant, ranges from such diverse matters as tackling a crop of warts on his hand when every folk remedy has failed, and the problems encountered by comic book superhero MerMan when trying to get around on dry land, to the curse of the Kennedys. The Kennedys are as close as America gets to a Royal Family and as Rich points out, 'take away the racketeering, bootlegging, bimbo-wrangling and alcohol, and they are the Royal Family.'
His sharpest wit is used on the good old USA, probably because he feels most comfortable with that culture even after knowing us for more than two decades and maybe he has a foreigner's reticence about knocking his adopted country but Britain doesn't escape entirely. He takes a wry and hilarious look at a previously undiscovered book by Charlotte Brontė about Luddites and woolworkers in Yorkshire. Rich also seems to have quite a problem with the city of Aberdeen for some reason, though he does eventually explain his reasons and offer his apologies, claiming that "Aberdeen is Scotland's right shoulder - the one you lean on." Though he also points out that Scotland's left shoulder is the Western Isles, "Equally lovely, though wetter - the shoulder you cry on."
I probably haven't demonstrated it in this review, but Rich Hall writes beautifully and his love of words results in some wonderfully inventive prose which had me laughing out loud on the one hand, whilst admiring his skills as a writer of the English language with the capability to draw in words the most vivid pictures on the other. His description of some female visitors to Las Vegas is a case in point. His "jiggly-arsed women with permanently toasted tumbleweeds of hair, frizzed out, teased up, bedecked in gold rope, their protoplasmic corpulent manatee-shaped bodies sheathed in lame shell-suits" paints just as vivid a picture of these blowsy women as any Beryl Cook painting could do.
Where Rich possibly got it a bit wrong
In the main, I loved these little anecdotes and observations but there is one particular piece about 9-11 which, for me, completely missed the mark. Maybe I just have a sense of humour failure where 9-11 is concerned but even after 10 years, I feel this is not the subject matter for humour of any kind, emotions are still too raw. I'm sure Rich Hall's intention was to make his point using humour but, to my mind, he failed to do so and this steps beyond the bounds of good taste and somehow besmirches the memory of all those who lost their lives. Sorry, Rich, but you're losing a star for stepping over that line.
Summing it all up
The beauty of this book is that because it's filled with so many snippets, it's possible to dip in and out of the book at any point. There's no need to begin at the beginning and work through to the end as there certainly isn't much in the way of chronological order to it and to be honest, it's not really something you'd want to read too much of at one sitting because you could very well overload on humour and it would lose its effect. Most of the time, the humour works beautifully and isn't all of the same variety. Whilst some pieces merely raised wry smiles and the odd giggle, others had me laughing out loud and, of course, as already said, one piece I read quite stony-faced.
I originally borrowed this book from the library but have since bought a paperback copy which has been lent to several friends, some of whom enjoyed it more than others. It's definitely aimed at those readers with a sense of the ridiculous but it's written with great erudition and tremendous wit.
It's currently available from Amazon for 1p upwards and is also in Kindle format for £4.99.
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