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hieronymusbotched's review against another edition
3.0
This book is buku bonkers, deranged to the point that it's almost magic realism. Probably the most niche satire I've ever read - basically declaws the literary world and then wears the nails on each finger to make shadow puppets on the wall. Genuinely laugh-out-loud funny at times.
For all that, it doesn't stir much emotion, which keeps it from the stuff of legend, even if Francis Plug will undoubtedly live on as a creeping social nightmare in the annex of readers' minds.
For all that, it doesn't stir much emotion, which keeps it from the stuff of legend, even if Francis Plug will undoubtedly live on as a creeping social nightmare in the annex of readers' minds.
thebobsphere's review
3.0
Although it is a cliché, as a person who enjoys reading, I do like books about the book world. Be it a memoir about reading or a novel about the importance of books. In the case of Francis Plug, the subject matter is something I obsess over every year: The Booker
The plot consists of gardener/wannabe author Francis Plug, who decides that he wants to write a guide on how authors should behave in public. Francis reasons that the types of authors who have to keep up public appearances constantly are Booker winners. Thus, he decides to approach each living winner (the exception being Keri Hulme due to the fact that they are reclusive) get the book signed and observe the author’s behaviour.
The problem with this idea is that Francis is an alcoholic and before each meeting he drinks a lot, which results in him saying something rude and inappropriate to the author and this happens with each encounter. Most of the time the authors will make fun or praise Francis’ surname.
One could say that the book is a bit repetitive but thankfully the book works as a satire on many topics: The book and prize industry, and the treatment of writers in various locations from bookstores to festivals and it is definitely a commentary on social class . However the book is also a little love letter to London as there are descriptions of the stations and various buildings Francis bumbles through.
In the music business, anything that is bizarre such as problems with sound or constant line up changes, are called Spinal Tap moments, named after the 1984 film . I think we can now call similar mishaps at book signings Francis Plug moments (fun fact last week I met the author Irvine Welsh and I just couldn’t say anything except nod but when I met Patricia Duncker ten years ago I babbled for 10 minutes due to all the wine I drank). Paul Ewen’s satire may portray an exaggerated picture but to be honest it’s closer to reality than one may think.
The plot consists of gardener/wannabe author Francis Plug, who decides that he wants to write a guide on how authors should behave in public. Francis reasons that the types of authors who have to keep up public appearances constantly are Booker winners. Thus, he decides to approach each living winner (the exception being Keri Hulme due to the fact that they are reclusive) get the book signed and observe the author’s behaviour.
The problem with this idea is that Francis is an alcoholic and before each meeting he drinks a lot, which results in him saying something rude and inappropriate to the author and this happens with each encounter. Most of the time the authors will make fun or praise Francis’ surname.
One could say that the book is a bit repetitive but thankfully the book works as a satire on many topics: The book and prize industry, and the treatment of writers in various locations from bookstores to festivals and it is definitely a commentary on social class . However the book is also a little love letter to London as there are descriptions of the stations and various buildings Francis bumbles through.
In the music business, anything that is bizarre such as problems with sound or constant line up changes, are called Spinal Tap moments, named after the 1984 film . I think we can now call similar mishaps at book signings Francis Plug moments (fun fact last week I met the author Irvine Welsh and I just couldn’t say anything except nod but when I met Patricia Duncker ten years ago I babbled for 10 minutes due to all the wine I drank). Paul Ewen’s satire may portray an exaggerated picture but to be honest it’s closer to reality than one may think.
shrutigeorge's review against another edition
3.0
Great concept and beautiful peek into the fast deteriorating mind of a delusional alcoholic. I wish he had kept some of the tightness of the first few chapers because the shtick got old towards the end of the book... And I just wanted it to end by the time I got to Coetzee. Francis was relatable in the beginning and then just got super strange (except the quips on Naipaul. I think THAT was on target)
The book could have been so much more.
The book could have been so much more.
mugren's review against another edition
1.0
An alcoholic asshole goes to author events to abuse the free wine table and to get a book signed. In no way is any of it funny. If you've read one chapter, you've read them all.
thebookmenagerie's review against another edition
5.0
One of the funniest books I have ever read. Also one of the saddest books I have ever read. How to be a Public Author is a book that all writers and readers need to read.
shimmer's review against another edition
5.0
This may be the funniest book I've ever read; I certainly can't think of another that had me stopping so often to laugh. It's a catalog of narrator Francis Plug's attendance at readings and lectures by Booker Prize winners, and those invariably wine-soaked misadventures are absurd and hilarious. But the novel is much more than "just" funny as it punctures the bubbles of pretension and illusion that insulate the cult of the "literary author" (the chapters recounting Francis' visit to the Hay festival do this with particular verve). Francis' behavior, while shocking, is also the kind of thing we used to expect from literary people, from writers and would be writers, and the gap between the placid gentility of the events he attends and the wild (Wilde, even) interruption he repeatedly brings made me wonder when literature and its celebration became so safely professionalized, and how the danger and excitement were all wrung out.
I'm not generally prone to novels about novelists and such "inside baseball" reading, funny or not, but the depth of How To Be A Public Author comes from the desperation of Francis Plug to enter into this insulated world, in all his drunken, delusional, chaotic glory. That desperation is painfully familiar to me as a someone who has himself spent years trying to break into the bubble, simultaneously mocking and daydreaming of being feted at the kinds of events Francis renders ridiculous. And that overblown, defining desire of an outsider to become an insider is likely to make any reader cringe in recognition, whether from the world of writing or elsewhere. So yes, this is a novel about a writer and familiarity with the world of readings and prizes and contemporary authors will go a long way, but I suspect this book could be just as hilarious and provocative for a reader who knew nothing about all of that.
I'm not generally prone to novels about novelists and such "inside baseball" reading, funny or not, but the depth of How To Be A Public Author comes from the desperation of Francis Plug to enter into this insulated world, in all his drunken, delusional, chaotic glory. That desperation is painfully familiar to me as a someone who has himself spent years trying to break into the bubble, simultaneously mocking and daydreaming of being feted at the kinds of events Francis renders ridiculous. And that overblown, defining desire of an outsider to become an insider is likely to make any reader cringe in recognition, whether from the world of writing or elsewhere. So yes, this is a novel about a writer and familiarity with the world of readings and prizes and contemporary authors will go a long way, but I suspect this book could be just as hilarious and provocative for a reader who knew nothing about all of that.
chaotic_wholesome's review
challenging
medium-paced
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
alexclare's review
3.0
Interesting premise and I began this book thinking it was quirky but ended it feeling as if I was laughing at someone mentally ill.
arirang's review
2.0
What motivates the event author participant? What makes them seek out the quivering human flesh, blood and bone marrow of the author? The fiction author in particular? Surely they, the audience , have the prerequisite imaginative skills necessary to follow the author's invented work in the first place, and yet they seek to crush their flight of fancy by exposing themselves to the factory machinery as it were. They have to follow Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse back to the changing rooms and smell the sweat from the red-face puppeteers.
As someone who on the one hand attends to such events, yet on the other fully supports the Ferrante view that a book, once published, has no need of its author, that is a very interesting question.
But for Francis Plug, the "author" of this book but actually a fictional creation of the real author Paul Ewen, the answer is: to get free wine of greater value than the entrance price, disrupt the proceedings and to point out to the authors all the rude bits of their books. E.g. to Ben Okri:
I liked that bit in The Famished Road where Madame Koto is moving a table in her bar and she farts.
Plug is the Dennis Pennis of the book world, and the book follows his encounters with a spectrum of Booker Prize winners as he visits their readings in search of a personalised dedication on his (or rather his employer's) collection of first editions. The choice of Booker prize winners is particularly apposite given that one of the prize's rules actually requires the publisher to make best efforts to ensure the author takes part in various publicity events; a requirement double-winner JM Coetzee notably refused to fulfil.
Except I suspect Plug's encounters didn't actually take place, at least in the form described. The book does come with copies of the title pages signed by the authors 'to Francis Plug' and Paul Ewen may well have gone to the readings 'in character' but I doubt he caused the chaos he described. Which leaves this as if Paul Kaye, rather than actually, in character as Dennis Pennis, making witty quips to film celebrities (to Demi Moore: 'Are there any circumstances, if it wasn't gratuitous and it was tastefully done, would consider keeping your clothes on in a movie' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdW9fEF9kPo) had simply written a fictional book as if he had.
Francis Plug: How To Be A Public Author actually has some interesting character sketches of the different authors featured, demonstrates a real knowledge of the authors' books (in takes that to be able to dig out all the parts dealing with alcohol or bodily functions) and some laugh-out-loud humour.
The problem is that. to make a novel, it is all rather padded out with fart and poo jokes, rather wearing tales of Plug's drunkeness, a side story about his inept gardening career and some wearing and gratuitous banker bashing.
An opportunity missed.
As someone who on the one hand attends to such events, yet on the other fully supports the Ferrante view that a book, once published, has no need of its author, that is a very interesting question.
But for Francis Plug, the "author" of this book but actually a fictional creation of the real author Paul Ewen, the answer is: to get free wine of greater value than the entrance price, disrupt the proceedings and to point out to the authors all the rude bits of their books. E.g. to Ben Okri:
I liked that bit in The Famished Road where Madame Koto is moving a table in her bar and she farts.
Plug is the Dennis Pennis of the book world, and the book follows his encounters with a spectrum of Booker Prize winners as he visits their readings in search of a personalised dedication on his (or rather his employer's) collection of first editions. The choice of Booker prize winners is particularly apposite given that one of the prize's rules actually requires the publisher to make best efforts to ensure the author takes part in various publicity events; a requirement double-winner JM Coetzee notably refused to fulfil.
Except I suspect Plug's encounters didn't actually take place, at least in the form described. The book does come with copies of the title pages signed by the authors 'to Francis Plug' and Paul Ewen may well have gone to the readings 'in character' but I doubt he caused the chaos he described. Which leaves this as if Paul Kaye, rather than actually, in character as Dennis Pennis, making witty quips to film celebrities (to Demi Moore: 'Are there any circumstances, if it wasn't gratuitous and it was tastefully done, would consider keeping your clothes on in a movie' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rdW9fEF9kPo) had simply written a fictional book as if he had.
Francis Plug: How To Be A Public Author actually has some interesting character sketches of the different authors featured, demonstrates a real knowledge of the authors' books (in takes that to be able to dig out all the parts dealing with alcohol or bodily functions) and some laugh-out-loud humour.
The problem is that. to make a novel, it is all rather padded out with fart and poo jokes, rather wearing tales of Plug's drunkeness, a side story about his inept gardening career and some wearing and gratuitous banker bashing.
An opportunity missed.