Mark Stewart answers thirteen questions in a Booker's Dozen.
MS: I'm reading 8 books. This is something I always do. this is because I get bored easily and my mood is often scattered so I never know what I might 'need' at any given time. I don't really 'read' the books so much as look at the words and get a feel for whatever the situation occurring might be and then use that to imagine how the story might end. If it's a biography I always start exactly in the middle of the book. This avoids all the tedious unnecessary humble beginnings and goes straight to the meat of the matter. After all we are usually more interested in living through these people when they are at the height of their powers and of course we can experience our own tragic declines through theirs first.
TPQ: Best and worst books you have ever read?
MS: The best book I ever read was Les Dawson's Joke Book I really connected with it; he was in his own way a kind of poet who hid his depth well. He was a bit of a Renaissance man, a brilliant musician (he played piano in a Parisian Brothel), writer (he was a journalist and secret poet), actor, comedian. And the 'Cissie and Ada' bits are real classics!
The worst? Taste is a form of personal censorship.
TPQ: Book most cherished as a child?
MS: The book I loved most as a child was called Tiger Beat, not a book as such, it was an American fanzine full of music heart throbs and interviews with the likes of The Monkees and The Mersey Beats etc... I remember my older brother bringing them home from school, he'd done a swopsy with a kid whose father was a sailor who had been in the States and had brought them back for his son. The mags were actually from the late 60's so maybe he picked them up from a junk shop over there. I remember my mum going crazy because my brother bartered his blue adidas track suit top for them! Another was My Book of the Farm my Uncle Reg gave it to me when I had a tooth taken out to cheer me up. It's from the 1940's I think and made me think of bombs and Bristol in the blitz -it also lead to a lifelong fascination (or fetish) with book binding.!!!!
TPQ: Favourite childhood author?
MS: Favourite childhood author was definitely Rosemary Sutcliff: a lot of her books were historical, but they also had lots of mystical overtones, a lot of obscure folklore... this led me as a young teen to check out a lot of books like Man, Myth and Magic which had the great illustrations on them by Austin Spare and books like Strange things are happening-Satanism, Witchcraft, and God by Roger Elwood as a preteen.
TPQ: First book to really own you?
MS: The book that really owned me was called Teenage Runaway by John Benonite I think ... again my brother had it lying around but at first I wasn't interested till one day this lad from school actually ran away ... he was about to be sent to Borstal I seem to remember, anyway he ran away to London ' and somehow became a friend of Francis Bacon. He would go to the Colony rooms (a private drinking gaff I knew in Soho) and that's where I saw him again years later. Ian Board who was running the bar introduced us for some reason (I think we were looking for interesting characters!!!). Maybe for the Pop Group.
TPQ: Favourite male and female author?
MS: That's a hard one...I think I like it best when a book is ghost written by a woman who uses a male non de plume and vice versa ... then a strange displacement of sensibilities happens and a kind of third sex is created... a sex of the imagination.
TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?
MS: Fact or fiction? what's the difference? it's all the same old story rehashed, rebranded, rebooted, re-read, re-lived!
TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?
MS: The last one that made an impression on me was Roger Evans Fifty Bales of Hay which on the surface is an everyday account of the trials and tribulations of 'life on the farm.' But I saw it as a comment on the life of an artist struggling in the world of commerce.
TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?
MS: Nothing really ... doesn't matter if it's complete garbage or deeply offensive to me or back to front or upside down or what font it's in ... I really don't care because it's all just breathing in and repurposing.
TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?
MS: Some kind of human manual coz I don't understand me neither. I need one/it was missing in the box I came in.
MS: That's a hard one...I think I like it best when a book is ghost written by a woman who uses a male non de plume and vice versa ... then a strange displacement of sensibilities happens and a kind of third sex is created... a sex of the imagination.
TPQ: A preference for fact or fiction?
MS: Fact or fiction? what's the difference? it's all the same old story rehashed, rebranded, rebooted, re-read, re-lived!
TPQ: Biography, autobiography or memoir that most impressed you?
MS: The last one that made an impression on me was Roger Evans Fifty Bales of Hay which on the surface is an everyday account of the trials and tribulations of 'life on the farm.' But I saw it as a comment on the life of an artist struggling in the world of commerce.
TPQ: Any author or book you point blank refuse to read?
MS: Nothing really ... doesn't matter if it's complete garbage or deeply offensive to me or back to front or upside down or what font it's in ... I really don't care because it's all just breathing in and repurposing.
TPQ: A book to share with somebody so that they would more fully understand you?
MS: Some kind of human manual coz I don't understand me neither. I need one/it was missing in the box I came in.
TPQ: Last book you gave as a present?
MS: I’d give a book of blank pages with three words written in it (not the one's your thinking!) and say ‘a life to write’.
TPQ: Book you would most like to see turned into a movie?
MS: My life story! currently under production as a graphic novel.
TPQ: A "must read" you intend getting to before you die?
MS: Maldoror - Lautreamont.
⏩ Mark Stewart is a member of the legendary Pop Group (as well as an influential solo artist), Mark Stewart & Nun Gun (1/2 of Algiers), currently promoting the collaborative song 'Stealth Empire' and the companion dub expansion LP available for preorder direct from Algiers.
Thanks for doing this Mark - I think it is the first I have yet read that had nothing in it that I had previously read. Says much for the diversity of literature. A novel approach to biographies!
ReplyDelete"I don't really 'read' the books so much as look at the words and get a feel for whatever the situation occurring might be and then use that to imagine how the story might end": so you never really read a book then?
ReplyDelete