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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
BS Johson's infamous book-in-a-box is, if remembered at all, notorious for its presentation rather than its content. The "book" consists of a first and last section plus 25 other chapters, each one coming as a self-contained "pamphlet", that can be read in any order the reader likes. The subject matter concerns a journalist's day covering a football match in Nottingham, remembering previous times spent in the city with a lover now gone and a friend now dead. The innovative format permits Johnson to echo the random thought processes of his protagonist--the associations and reminiscences bubbling up in no fixed order as he walks through the city, watches and reports on the match and returns home afterwards.
However, it is the quality of the writing and the affecting, deeply personal narrative that should be stressed, and is so often forgotten, when discussing Johnson's most moving work. Jonathan Coe's informative introduction explains the origins of this (semi-)autobiographical work and situates it as a forerunner to hugely successful books by the likes of Ruth Picardie and John Diamond. Certainly this conveys what an emotionally engaged book The Unfortunates is, and is a useful rejoinder to the barely veiled negativism of the charge of being avant-garde, but it doesn't place Johnson alongside the peers with whom he should be judged. Johnson is a writer in the league of Beckett and William S Burroughs, an experimentalist but one whose humanity, and sheer skill, shine through. The Unfortunates, the book he wrote as a response to his friend Tony Tillinghast's death, on the back of a promise to him to "get it all down, mate," is a wonderfully honest book about friendship and loss. That it comes in a box should not blind us to the fact that as a writer Johnson was peerless and as a novel this is truly first-rate. --Mark Thwaite
Product Description
One of the lost classics of the 1960s – and a legendary experiment in form – is here reissued for the first time in thirty years
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
22 of 22 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is a right odd book - it comes in a box and consists of 27 loose leaf sections which, apart from the first and last sections, the reader is encouraged to read in a random order. The story begins when the narrator steps off the train in an unidentified East Midlands City on his way to an assignment to report upon the City V. United match. He begins to recognise the city and, upon searching his memory, reminisces about how his old friend Tony had once lived here. What follows (in an entirely random order) is a heart-rending tale about his friend's battle against cancer. The narrator's respect for Tony and his battle is apparent thoughout the book, yet his honesty about his own selfishness in his attitude to Tony's slowly fading life is, at times horrifying - largely because we can probably see a part of ourselves in the character traits he displays. This is one of my favorite books partly because of the way it portrays a city that I have known and loved, but primarily because it is so human
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
So, is this timely reprint produced in a box of loose sections like the original? I hope so. This is Johnson's infamous 'random' novel; the first and last sections are specified, the other twenty-odd can be read in any order.
But, more than just an experiment for the sake of it, this is a very fine novel indeed, the form arising organically from the subject matter.
Johnson's subject is bereavement, time and loss. The narrator, a football reporter, is sent to the city where his friend once lived. His friend is now dead from cancer. The book's form echoes the random workings of memory, as, through interior monologue, a story of regret and immense sadness is slowly unpeeled. Perhaps the random form is also an attempt to defy the finality and linearity of time?
Ironically, at the end of this day of painful recollections, the (public) result is a succinct report of a very dull football match.
Johnson's ear for language is spot on as ever. Highly evocative, the book is never sentimental, yet always poignant. And somehow it also manages to avoid being depressing.
This is my second favourite novel of all time (after Alasdair Gray's 'Lanark') - highly recommended.
Mike Alexander,
Brighton
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Books which monkey around with the reader's affections and attention - by all sorts of people, from Sterne to Italo Calvino - infuriate and inspire in equal measures. Johnson's novel is an example of a book of this type that actually delivers an emotional punch. What's more, the interactive format (which allows the reader to shuffle all sections save the first and last into an order of his or her choosing) says something genuinely profound about the way our minds work: it's strange how we construct linear story even when the elements of story are crazily jumbled. Johnson's is a brilliant yet also deeply human novel, and it would be a fitting tribute to this fine but neglected writer if Picador were to enhance the initiative they've taken in reissuing the title in harback by issuing a paperback (or should that be "paper bag"?) version.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Kaleidoscopic Literature
So that's why I liked The Unfortunates.
And unlike so many books I've read, It can be a different book, again, and again. Read more
And unlike so many books I've read, It can be a different book, again, and again. Read more
Published 5 months ago by Captain Tryps
Had me tied up in Notts...
This is indeed a box containing 25 unbound chapters that you are encouraged to read in any order - so long as they are braced within a designated first and last chapter. Read more
Published 11 months ago by Sporus
Remarkable
Firstly, a warning: Don't try to read this book on the bus or the train - you will get some very strange looks indeed. Read more
Published on 14 May 2009 by Peter Lee
Very true to itself......
Reading this 'novel' was an experience for me, being the first BS Johnson book I have read. Read more
Published on 7 Nov 2005
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