A Necessary Review Of Morrissey's Mind-Bendingly Bad Novel, List Of The Lost - Balls.ie

Preface:
On the most recent edition of The Reducer, we branched out beyond our football remit to encompass List of the Lost, Morrissey's shockingly putrid novel. (Yes, that Morrissey). Co-host Seamas O'Reilly enjoys a lonely reign as a kind of Morrissey Fiction Laureate, having previously written a review of the novel that was longer than his college dissertation. With his benevolent permission, we are reproducing that review in full below. The review was first published in October 2015 on his personal website Shocko.info.

Excerpt:
"In common with every other gangly, box-limbed dork with a library card, my adolescence was defined by these kinds of notions. This time of my life was underscored by a steady click-track of mortifying pretension, and memories of all this pomposity and sexual frustration kept flooding back as I read Morrissey’s List of the Lost. Firstly, because the book is about a group of teenage friends but also, sadly, because this novel is so cosmically off-putting and pretentious that even my fifteen-year-old self would have balked at its contents.

Like everyone else, I read the reviews and thought, at the very least, this would be an interesting read. This was not the case. But I should admit that some of the mentions it received were so savage, I half-thought there had been a healthy degree of needless exaggeration. It was with this small hope that I read the one review that wasn’t fully negative. It was on the back of the book."

A 47 minute podcast discussing it is also included - here's a direct link:
Episode 20 - Morrissey's Novel, List of the Lost.
https://traffic.libsyn.com/secure/force-cdn/highwinds/reducer/morrissey_final_.mp3

A very long deconstruction/article of LOTL and similar audio of said:
https://www.balls.ie/the-reducer/morrissey-novel-390800

Not sure why this appeared today after almost 3 years since release though?
Regards,
FWD.

 

[Anonymous]

Connie Lingus. I can only think he's confused these clunking 'puns' with hilarious wordplay because the band laugh dutifully when he drops them into conversation after a pint of vodka.

One of the saddest things I've ever seen was the way Damon laughed, dutifully indeed, when Morrissey started jumping for joy in the padded cell, I mean elevator, on Morrissey day. It should have been brief, but that's the thing with mental patients, they never know when to stop. And you can see the laughter slowwwly freeze on the employee's lips as he realizes Morrissey isn't going to stop, and that he's chained to an actual madman...Although hopefully not by holy matrimony... #freeDiesel

Oh, I think Morrissey writes his puns especially for drunk Mexican people. #foreignermoney . If he could, he'd mime them. #themdumbnonnativespeakers

 

[Anonymous]

List of the Lost has an average five (5) star rating on Ebay and plenty of five (5) star ratings on GoodReads.com.

I don't know what people are talking about.

#iHeartMOZ

not quite sure what he means with 'near-unreadable', i found it partly difficult to read as i'm not a native english speaker and had to look up quite a lot of words, but enjoyed reading it twice.
here is one of the best essays i've ever read, by Jonathan Franzen, about what is perceived as "hard-to-read" literature and how he as a writer deals with the anger of readers who believe there is a universal obligation for writers to produce "an easy read".
http://adilegian.com/FranzenGaddis.htm

 

[Anonymous]

I know. And there are worse: Judy Garbage, Wilma Dickfit and Connie Lingus. I can only think he's confused these clunking 'puns' with hilarious wordplay because the band laugh dutifully when he drops them into conversation after a pint of vodka.

Chesty Normous =
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chesty_Morgan

 

[Anonymous]

I think Ezra and Eliza are inspired by Ezra Pound and Elizabeth Bishop. It's also fitting because Bishop was a poet from Boston.

 

[Anonymous]

 

[Eldritch]

If there is one thing we learn from this piece: dont drink liquor and write.
What a catastrophe

That is indeed List Of The Lost in a nutshell.

 

[Eldritch]

I think Ezra and Eliza are inspired by Ezra Pound and Elizabeth Bishop. It's also fitting because Bishop was a poet from Boston.

Yes, yes, that has been pointed out many times in the reviews -- but what does it actually mean? Why Morrissey has named an athlete and his girlfriend in the mid-seventies after Ezra Pound? What does he want to say with that? An allusion should mean something in order to be something else than just random.

 

[King Leer]

F’in hell if the “Excerpt” paragraph doesn’t read like the novel itself.

 

[caramel sea salt]

Tempted to read it now

 

[Anonymous]

Tempted to read it now

Knock yourself out mdear.

The great man himself compares it to the classic Graham Greene novel Brighton Rock; talk about grandiosity. He also put in in the gothic novel genre.

an English genre of fiction popular in the 18th to early 19th centuries, characterized by an atmosphere of mystery and horror and having a pseudo-medieval setting.

Oh...

 

[Anonymous]

An allusion should mean something in order to be something else than just random.

Well, after a quick google, looks like that Boston Bishop chick was a lesbian, so I think he might be trying to tell us something about his sexuality and his "girlfriends".
Something nobody could have suspected.

Like, they wrote poems about orphaned kittens together.
Intense stuff. A grand passion that happens only once in a lifetime.

The book wasn't very exciting to start with, but each unveiled reference makes it worse. For Heaven's sake stop this thread before someone brings up the Julia/Boston connection!
Damn.

 

[Deleted member 25370]

I have read Gaddis and Gass and I love David Foster Wallace, all difficult but ultimately rewarding authors, but List Of The Lost is often "almost confrontially meaningless" like O'Reilly brilliantly put it. Glad that you liked the book, but ask yourself, would you ever got past the second page if it wasn't written by Morrissey.

yes i would, unlike so many others who obviously did not even try to get past the second page because it was written by morrissey.
interesting what you say about the expectation of being rewarded for buying the novel and the hard work of reading it. have you read the franzen essay? i think you would like it.

 

[Deleted member 25370]

But Lanterns, the reason it's hard to read is not because it's erudite, but because it's really terrible writing: linguistically, grammatically, the plot, characters, dialogue and narrative - they are all nonsensical. The review is poking fun but it does also take it apart quite factually and it explains, much better than I could, exactly why it's so bad. I know there's such a thing as subjectivity but there's also such a thing as the consensus view. Glad you enjoyed it though, it's pretty impressive that you read it at all as a non-native speaker, never mind twice.

it's not 'erudition' in literature that franzen points at in his essay about difficult literature but rather its breaching of what he calls the "contract model" between writer and reader, i.e. mainly the writer refusing to offer the reader a "pleasurable experience" and also being an 'asshole' for not satisfying the reader's desire for connection.
"nonsensical" is a strong word and also ill-chosen, imho. i doesnt make sense here, as your list of the above-mentioned literary terms make sense in the novel. the dialogue, for example, i would describe, with the limited word power i possess, as "skewed" or "awkward". i know that your highly praised o'reilley uses the word "nonsensical" in his review, but let me say, that a reviewer of literature who obviously is not even able to acknowledge the difference between writer and narrator and whose vocabulary obviously lacks precision, in my eyes quickly loses his professional credibility.

i came to the temporary conclusion that morrissey, the writer of a "penguin modern classic", with his second literary endeavor 'list of the lost', is, among other things, giving conventions, expectations and the lazy "consensus view" the finger, shoving it into their arse and then publish this gesture as a penguin novel

in a nutshell:
whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. (m. twain)

 

[Joy]

Of course it's unreadable. Why do you think they had to cancel the audiobook?

I have an ex-roommate who produces audio books for Random House (he did Hillary Clinton's bio & Queer Eye). Part of his job was to rewrite books to make them more readable. That's what "abridged" for him means.

General horrid sales of the novel was probably a bigger motivational factor in not wanting to invest in an audio book and have a bigger debt.

 

[ACTON]

I got the 'List of the Lost' book from my library and wasn't physically able to read it. My eyes worked, my brain worked (or as well as it ever does!), but the connection between my eyes and brain was shredded with paper cuts as I tried to read a few pages. I tried. I wanted to like the book. I ignored the reviews and kept an open mind. Until I tried to read it. I tried and I failed. The low life has lost its appeal and I'm tired of walking these streets to a room with its cupboards bare.

 

[Anonymous]

I found the novel to be a fun interesting read. Morrisseys always has trouble with image and expectations of him and when he didn’t give people the David copper field like novel that people expected they got frustrated. I find a lot of people’s reactions similar to the sex scenes criticism. The sex scenes got a lot of flack because they weren’t sexy and that’s what people expect out of a sex scene but were they really supposed to be

 

[Joy]

mainly, it’s bad because it is genuinely near-unreadable. In real terms. In every sense.'

I read it. It was awkward but not unreadable. Its sloppy and trying to be literary in a Moby Dick sort of way. It was full of allusions and subtext in a way Samuel Beckett would love. It lacked plot and realism, though, while overdosing on homoerotica.
It lacks cohesive structure and "common grammatically correct" sentences "approved by auto-correct suggestion programs on Word". But, it was very readable. I didn't see any non-English words. I understood it all, though sometimes I had to re-read a sentence. I also sometimes have to re-read a sentence in other books, including my Doctor Who novels that are one step above kids books. That doesn't mean they are un-readable.
What is unreadable? Jack Kerouac is unreadable in some of his poems where he made up words and was so drunk he couldn't put words together that formed meaning.
I don't understand what people mean by unreadable. I think this is more reflective of the readers and the state of 2018 literature than the book.
I mean, we say Moz here is unreadable, YET Shakespeare or Chaucer by these same critics would be counted as readable. Both wrote in olde English, a defunct language with words no longer in existence and meanings completely different! But, is Shakespeare easier to read? But, who calls Shakespeare unreadable? Nobody. But, how many of you say it's easier to read and are being honest? These critics would likely say Shakespeare is easier and make up an weak reasoning on how he is art but Moz isn't and thus its different, but words are words and Moz could be art if we declared him that. I've seen people call F.S. Fitzgerald unreadable. He's not. He's a hack of his time and writes in a style of early 20th century literature destroyed decades ago as being too literary, florid. While would these critics say On The Road is unreadable, even though the closing paragraphs of "don't you know God is Pooh Bear" is absolutely as meaningless or full of meaning as Morrissey's book? Yet, On The Road is considered one of the most influential books.
I think not the problem it is unreadable. I think the problem is that contemporary literature considers short, sweet, direct, perfectly constructed sentences good literature and anything pre-Hemingway as old and difficult. While if you read enough short sweet sentences then to read Moby Dick is impossible and Moby Dick becomes unreadable. I think if you read enough sentences that leave nothing to the imagination, then reading a book that asks for an investment is a chore.

I think the problem also is that those reading the book will use any excuse in the book to knock Moz down one more peg. Personally, I would love to talk to him about the creation of the book. I think that would be an interesting interview. I've got a music blog. I'd be happy to facilitate.

I've been wanting to vent this for awhile!

 

[ZOOM FROM GLOOM]

.



An Unnecessary Review Of Morrissey's...




'Nothing to declare but my jeans'

- Morrissey

 

[Peppermint]

it's not 'erudition' in literature that franzen points at in his essay about difficult literature but rather its breaching of what he calls the "contract model" between writer and reader, i.e. mainly the writer refusing to offer the reader a "pleasurable experience" and also being an 'asshole' for not satisfying the reader's desire for connection.
"nonsensical" is a strong word and also ill-chosen, imho. i doesnt make sense here, as your list of the above-mentioned literary terms make sense in the novel. the dialogue, for example, i would describe, with the limited word power i possess, as "skewed" or "awkward". i know that your highly praised o'reilley uses the word "nonsensical" in his review, but let me say, that a reviewer of literature who obviously is not even able to acknowledge the difference between writer and narrator and whose vocabulary obviously lacks precision, in my eyes quickly loses his professional credibility.

i came to the temporary conclusion that morrissey, the writer of a "penguin modern classic", with his second literary endeavor 'list of the lost', is giving conventions, expectations and the lazy "consensus view" the finger, shoving it into its arse and then publish this gesture as a penguin novel.

in a nutshell:
whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect. (m. twain)

I used the word nonsensical to mean something that doesn't make sense. There are many, many sentences in List of the Lost which simply do not make grammatical or even logical sense, because Morrissey has chosen to disregard the conventional arrangement of words to convey a meaning in favour of just slapping random words against each other for effect. You might get away with that in a song lyric, but in the longer format of a novel, it's fairly critical that your reader can follow what you're talking about otherwise they won't bother to read it. You may argue that this is simply the reader holding the writer hostage to a straightjacketed 'contract model', but if the writer actually wants to be read, there are basic communication rules to observe.

Sean O'Reilly points out this line as a particularly good example:
'The hair flicks of the gathered women leant in and leaned forwards and then threw their heads back as they laughed.'

This sentence describes the hair flicks of the women - not the women themselves - as having the ability to 'lean in' (independent of their owners) - and throw back their heads - ie the hair flicks now also have their own heads. It's utter nonsense, and a good illustration of why we have grammatical rules in the first place.

If Morrissey wants to go off piste and write in this stream-of-consciousness, grammar-free, splatter-painting style, he has every right but he can't complain when people say, 'What the f*** is he talking about'?

That's just the grammar and the syntax taken care of. I haven't touched on the nonsensical plot, the characters which all talk like Morrissey because they are not really characters at all, the implausible dialogue ('I do not like you so go away'), the shoe-horning of Morrissey's own hobbyhorses into 1970s Boston, where everybody is apparently obsessed with the British Royal Family, the meat industry, judges and Margaret Thatcher (who had yet to come to power)...

But we are not going to agree on this because you have a strong view about it. That's fine - so do I! Although I will say I admire the fact that you can argue about it cogently in another language, which I couldn't begin to do.

 

[Peppermint]

I read it. It was awkward but not unreadable. Its sloppy and trying to be literary in a Moby Dick sort of way. It was full of allusions and subtext in a way Samuel Beckett would love. It lacked plot and realism, though, while overdosing on homoerotica.
It lacks cohesive structure and "common grammatically correct" sentences "approved by auto-correct suggestion programs on Word". But, it was very readable. I didn't see any non-English words. I understood it all, though sometimes I had to re-read a sentence. I also sometimes have to re-read a sentence in other books, including my Doctor Who novels that are one step above kids books. That doesn't mean they are un-readable.
What is unreadable? Jack Kerouac is unreadable in some of his poems where he made up words and was so drunk he couldn't put words together that formed meaning.
I don't understand what people mean by unreadable. I think this is more reflective of the readers and the state of 2018 literature than the book.
I mean, we say Moz here is unreadable, YET Shakespeare or Chaucer by these same critics would be counted as readable. Both wrote in olde English, a defunct language with words no longer in existence and meanings completely different! But, is Shakespeare easier to read? But, who calls Shakespeare unreadable? Nobody. But, how many of you say it's easier to read and are being honest? These critics would likely say Shakespeare is easier and make up an weak reasoning on how he is art but Moz isn't and thus its different, but words are words and Moz could be art if we declared him that. I've seen people call F.S. Fitzgerald unreadable. He's not. He's a hack of his time and writes in a style of early 20th century literature destroyed decades ago as being too literary, florid. While would these critics say On The Road is unreadable, even though the closing paragraphs of "don't you know God is Pooh Bear" is absolutely as meaningless or full of meaning as Morrissey's book? Yet, On The Road is considered one of the most influential books.
I think not the problem it is unreadable. I think the problem is that contemporary literature considers short, sweet, direct, perfectly constructed sentences good literature and anything pre-Hemingway as old and difficult. While if you read enough short sweet sentences then to read Moby Dick is impossible and Moby Dick becomes unreadable. I think if you read enough sentences that leave nothing to the imagination, then reading a book that asks for an investment is a chore.

I think the problem also is that those reading the book will use any excuse in the book to knock Moz down one more peg. Personally, I would love to talk to him about the creation of the book. I think that would be an interesting interview. I've got a music blog. I'd be happy to facilitate.

I've been wanting to vent this for awhile!

I've just replied to Lanterns at length about the meaning of 'nonsensical', so I'm not inclined to drone on about the definition of 'unreadable' Suffice to say, in this context I would say it means densely-compacted, overwritten sentences with mangled syntax and incorrect grammar so the thread of logic is at times impossible to follow. But if you enjoyed it, great.

Personally, I really enjoyed Autobiography and would have been delighted if this book had been good, but it really, really isn't.