While we’re on the subject of ego and bombast, Morrissey has written a novel, and no one seems very happy about it (except perhaps those critics who got to single out its “most Morrissey lines” for ridicule). From the Guardian: “Do not read this book; do not sully yourself with it, no matter how temptingly brief it seems. All those who shepherded it to print should hang their heads in shame, for it’s hard to imagine anything this bad has been put between covers by anyone other than a vanity publisher.”
You can tell that Jorge Luis Borges never had the pleasure of crossing paths with Morrissey. In an extract from newly translated radio conversations between Borges and the poet Osvaldo Ferrari from the 1980s, he remarks that “one regards Shakespeare as typically English. However, none of the typical characteristics of the English are found in Shakespeare. The English tend to be reserved, reticent, but Shakespeare flows like a great river, he abounds in hyperbole and metaphor—he’s the complete opposite of an English person. . . . It’s as if each country looks for a form of antidote in the author it chooses.”
When is a TV star’s memoir not just a TV star’s memoir? Perhaps when it’s about getting out of Scientology.
Tonight at Pioneer Works, an outdoor launch party for n+1’s new issue.