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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
Review
It's 30 years since The Unfortunates was first published, and this is its first UK reprint. The novel, whose first edition has become a much sought-after collector's item, by writer, broadcaster and film maker Johnson (1933-1973) is famous because it comes in a box in loose sections. Those labelled first and last are separated by 25 separately bound chapters - some only a paragraph long, some running to eight or 12 pages - which can be read in any order. The random order was chosen by Johnson as a metaphor for the random nature of cancer. The Unfortunates tells of a Saturday on which Johnson travelled to a provincial city to report on a football match only to discover that it is the city in which he first met his friend Tony, who died of cancer at the age of 29. In the couse of the day, as Johnson has lunch, attends the match, writes his report, goes for a drink, then takes the train home, he remembers Tony, and himself as he was when he knew Tony, the progress of Tony's illness, and the parallel progress of his own life. Occasional flashes of humour enliven the grim subject matter. The introduction by Coe, who is currently working on Johnson's biography, describes Johnson's work as 'experimental' (a term Johnson strongly disliked), and puts it into context. Unlike most novelists labelled 'experimental', Johnson is not in any way a difficult writer. He has a chatty, informal style, and at his best has a dark, playful humour which recalls, some would say derives from, the work of Laurence Sterne, whose comic masterpiece Tristram Shandy he greatly admired. If you enjoyed Tristram Shandy, and admire the work of Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, Johnson's other guiding lights, then you will like The Unfortunates. (Kirkus UK)
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65% buy the item featured on this page: The Unfortunates |
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