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"The Pageant of His Bleeding Heart" - by Gavin Hopps finally in view

posted by davidt on Tuesday January 27 2009, @11:00AM
goinghome writes:
Amazon is running a special offer on the long-awaited book about Morrissey written by Gavin Hopps, to be published 1st February 2009.

Morrissey: The Pageant of His Bleeding Heart (Hardcover) by Gavin Hopps

Product Description
Morrissey is arguably the greatest disturbance popular music has ever known. Even more than the choreographed carelessness of punk and the hyperbolic gestures of glam rock and the New Romantics, Morrissey's early bookish ineptitude, his celebration of the ordinary, and his subversive endorsement of celibacy, abstinence and rock 'n' roll revolutionised the world of British pop. As an increasingly pugnacious solo artist, he consistently adopts the outsider's perspective and dares us to confront genuinely uncomfortable subjects. In his brilliant and original book, Gavin Hopps examines the work of this compelling performer, whose intelligence, humour, suffering and awkwardness have fascinated audiences around the world for the last 25 years. Hopps traces the trajectory of Morrissey's career - from its beginning in the early 80s with the Smiths to the release of his latest album, "Ringleader of the Tormentors" - and outlines the contours and contradictions of the singer's elusive persona. The book illuminates Morrissey's coyness (how can he remain a mystery when he tells us too much?) , his dramatised melancholy (surely more of a radical existential protest than the gimmick some believe it to be) and his complex attitudes towards loneliness and alienation, as well as his intriguing sense of the religious. In the course of this penetrating study of Morrissey's oeuvre, Hopps offers close readings of individual lyrics and illuminating comparisons with a range of literary figures - such as Lord Byron, Mary Shelley, George Eliot, Christina Rossetti, Oscar Wilde, Samuel Beckett, Paul Celan and Philip Larkin. "Morrissey: The Pageant of His Bleeding Heart", at once erudite and accessible, argues convincingly for Morrissey's inclusion in the pantheon of literary greats.

About the Author
Gavin Hopps is Research Councils UK Academic Fellow in the School of Divinity at St. Mary's College, the University of St. Andrews, UK.

Product details
• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group Ltd. (1 Feb 2009)
• Language English
• ISBN-10: 082641866X
• ISBN-13: 978-0826418661

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"The Pageant of His Bleeding Heart" - by Gavin Hopps finally in view | Top | 23 comments | Search Discussion
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  • Unless you're going to mute the music and put the lyric sheets of his albums side by side with Larkin, Auden, Yeats, Shelley, etc., there's really no point in arguing that he's a "literary great", is there? To argue that is to disrespect pop music as an art form in its own right. Morrissey is a pop singer influenced by books. That's all. Oscar Wilde once touched his heart. So did Cilla Black and Dick Davalos. Let's move on.
    Anonymous -- Tuesday January 27 2009, @11:09AM (#319545)
  • What on Earth does THAT mean?
    Anonymous -- Tuesday January 27 2009, @01:01PM (#319556)
  • Mr Hopps appears to be an ideal candidate for the University of Limerick seminar on the music of The Smiths and Morrissey?
    goinghome -- Tuesday January 27 2009, @01:11PM (#319559)
    (User #12673 Info)
  • I bet there will be a Morrissey statue erected somewhere when he snuffs it. A perfect pilgrimage for his *devoted* fans! Myself included.
    Anonymous -- Tuesday January 27 2009, @01:21PM (#319564)
  • There could be something in this -- so far M has only had mediocre hacks (rogan, brown, etc) and wannabe social commentators (simpson)writing about him. Done well there could be some value and pleasure in looking at his work from a broader, historical perspective. I'm most encouraged by the fact that it's a great title!!!
    Anonymous -- Tuesday January 27 2009, @01:38PM (#319567)
    • Re:Great title by Jamie (Score:1) Wednesday January 28 2009, @03:56PM
      • Re:Great title by rattlemybones (Score:0) Thursday January 29 2009, @03:11AM
      • Re:Great title by Anonymous (Score:0) Thursday January 29 2009, @03:58PM

  • A Living Sign (Score:2, Interesting)

    I was involved in a major fashion exhibition here in NYC a short while ago. I did a few interviews for the catalog and a lecture as well.

    While Morrissey was only tangential to the focus of the event, I managed to squeeze him in as one of the latest in a long line of literary/artistic luminaries going all the way back to the 16th century. He is an official member of the Cult of Melancholy and a true Man of Sensibility.

    Honestly, we're lucky to have him; he's a flawed human being (as are we all), but he is a remarkable, timeless artist.
    Anaesthesine -- Wednesday January 28 2009, @08:52AM (#319635)
    (User #14203 Info)
    If Moz did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him.
  • This seems to be a book that does more justice in portraying a human being he is than the indeciphrable angel/demon Mark Simpson made him into. It is very hard to keep a description about an unusual person compelling and fascinating and still keep it in the realm of the mortals, and not the one of Greek gods, without exhacerbating.

    When the book talks about how Morrissey plays with his own drama, and turns his art into "existential protest", I feel that it got things right for a change.

    When Simpson tries to make a point about Morrissey's unbiding, intrinsic violent character by writing "it's a mystery that anyone could ever mistake him for an unallyed pacifist, as some of his drippier fans have", he does not convince me that Morrissey has what he makes it seem the "rybris" (the erotic/belligerent) of a Greek warrior. Why does one need to seem so, when what they actually do is protest, practice outspokeness? And the opposite never seemed quite accurate either: Morrissey is not a pacifist, he just advocates, in a outspoken and composed way, the things he loves and loathes.

    I am reticent about this book when it seems another one of those who will summarize him as being a "pugnacious solo artist" - because when I think of "pugnacious", a Mike Tyson doped with crack pops into my mind. It's like creating a Japanese monster, really.

    I say all this because what I mostly admire in Morrissey is his ability to hit back with humor and no dirty, vulgar words. Which is something much easier to practice than to preach.
    Mrs. Woolf -- Wednesday January 28 2009, @10:58AM (#319642)
    (User #14157 Info)
  • Funny that any sign of intelligent appreciation creates hostility amongst a community supposedly devoted to an artist valued for his intelligence.
    Finally a book that M himself might like?
    Anonymous -- Wednesday January 28 2009, @05:22PM (#319663)
  • First good cover at least (like The Smiths color washes of stars)
    Anonymous -- Thursday January 29 2009, @04:22PM (#319736)

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