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A review by barry_x
Out of the Ordinary: True Tales of Everyday Craziness by Jon Ronson
2.0
I received this as a Christmas present and I really don't understand why. Actually, I don't really understand the reason for the book.
The book is a collection of journalism from The Guardian's Jon Ronson. I only really know of him from being Frank Sidebottom's keyboard player in the 80's. (Incidentally, there is a nice piece on Sidey. I still miss Sidey since his death four years ago).
The book allegedly focusses on tales of 'everyday craziness'. Most of the book is his journalism and diary entries where my overwhelming emotion and thought is 'middle-class wanker' for pretty much everything he says. I'm simply not interested in his D-list hack life and his suburbia values. His accounts of his son actually portray his little boy as a particularly unpleasant child which I'm sure is not the intention. The blurb on the back describes the book as funny, witty and thought provoking. It's none of those and actually quite uninteresting. That said, it's a quick read because he has an easy writing style - as befits his career as a journalist. I just find his privileged life boring - I suspect the accusation of Guardian readers as left wing middle class professionals is justified based on the content of this book.
The second section of the book has a couple of pieces on Stanley Kubrick and a Christian group that altruistically want to donate kidneys. They are so-so.
What is an excellent piece is his year spent in contact with the former pop mogul and paedophile Jonathan King. What is interesting reading this piece today is in the context of Operation Yewtree in Britain right now where a number of high profile celebrity paedophiles and sex offenders are facing justice (this book is about ten years old now). What's somewhat prophetic is how King and his cohorts saw themselves as individuals having consensual sex with teenage boys, being victimised by a homophobic media and establishment rather than the paedophile ring they were. There is even justification that 'we were all at it back in the day' (as a postscript former DJ and colleague of King Chris Denning was interviewed for the story with various protestations of innocence - in 2014 he received 18 years for historical sex offences against children as young as 9). It's a good piece which looks into the mind of an 'untouchable' celebrity, the bubble they lived in and how investigation into historical sex offences isn't black and white. A particularly good piece bearing in mind how many of that set have been convicted since.
The book is a collection of journalism from The Guardian's Jon Ronson. I only really know of him from being Frank Sidebottom's keyboard player in the 80's. (Incidentally, there is a nice piece on Sidey. I still miss Sidey since his death four years ago).
The book allegedly focusses on tales of 'everyday craziness'. Most of the book is his journalism and diary entries where my overwhelming emotion and thought is 'middle-class wanker' for pretty much everything he says. I'm simply not interested in his D-list hack life and his suburbia values. His accounts of his son actually portray his little boy as a particularly unpleasant child which I'm sure is not the intention. The blurb on the back describes the book as funny, witty and thought provoking. It's none of those and actually quite uninteresting. That said, it's a quick read because he has an easy writing style - as befits his career as a journalist. I just find his privileged life boring - I suspect the accusation of Guardian readers as left wing middle class professionals is justified based on the content of this book.
The second section of the book has a couple of pieces on Stanley Kubrick and a Christian group that altruistically want to donate kidneys. They are so-so.
What is an excellent piece is his year spent in contact with the former pop mogul and paedophile Jonathan King. What is interesting reading this piece today is in the context of Operation Yewtree in Britain right now where a number of high profile celebrity paedophiles and sex offenders are facing justice (this book is about ten years old now). What's somewhat prophetic is how King and his cohorts saw themselves as individuals having consensual sex with teenage boys, being victimised by a homophobic media and establishment rather than the paedophile ring they were. There is even justification that 'we were all at it back in the day' (as a postscript former DJ and colleague of King Chris Denning was interviewed for the story with various protestations of innocence - in 2014 he received 18 years for historical sex offences against children as young as 9). It's a good piece which looks into the mind of an 'untouchable' celebrity, the bubble they lived in and how investigation into historical sex offences isn't black and white. A particularly good piece bearing in mind how many of that set have been convicted since.