“The literature world, and the art world […]some of it is bollocks,” says Blindboy Boatclub on an early episode of his podcast. He’s discussing the reception of his first book and what it will be like to write a second.
“Some of the reviews I got from the literary critics, they were agenda driven […]But I’m quite happy to antagonise that system […]and I will continue to rattle cages of the literary world.”
Both of Blindboy’s short story collections present themselves as shakers of the literary world. They’re irreverent and mad. They use a hyper-colloquial register (Blindboy’s voice, even on the page, is easily recognisable). And they twist and turn through wacky, original narratives. The first was a best-seller and reader favourite. The second looks poised for much the same. But – and forgive me if I’m being elitist – I just don’t get it.
The tales in Boulevard Wren and Other Stories range from cannibalism in famine-struck Ireland, to time-travel using a tweed jacket, to a boy in Trabolgan finding sex tapes of all the “Ma”s in his area. There’s certainly talent latent. In “Maura” there is tenderness to the portrayal of a young graphic designer suffering with anxiety: “You need to relax. Your life is drifting sideways, and you feel nothing you do has any meaning.”
Beer and cheese
In “Gruyère in the Desmond” the depiction of male loneliness and attempts at connection via a beer and cheese night is sweet and insightful: “There’s a blackness that comes over men. It’s a dark fright. And you can’t look straight at it […]But you know it when you feel it first thing in the morning and you just can’t figure out what the point of being alive is.”
When Blindboy goes after the truth of things: the subtle dramas, he thrives. But too often these stories drift and sway. They dispense with the conventions of form in favour of outlandishness. One minute we’re digging into the nuance of a character’s struggle, the next we’re trying to get our heads around the idea that her Airbnb host is “a hand-painted animated duck”.
There is, no doubt, something performative going on. A story can do and be whatever it wants, this collection seems to be saying. Descriptions are vivid and icky – the likes that would make your granny gawp. In “Jo Lee”: “The top of the kidney is placed in her mouth. She begins to suck […]The ejaculation of saliva from under the tongue. […]her mouth fills with a sharp burst of piss and iron.” A nod to Joyce? Gratuitous bilge? Both? Challenge me, the author seems to be saying. Criticise me. Well, on that I will see him eye to eye.
For, doing whatever you want on the page might seem like giving two fingers to the literary world, but it might also be giving two fingers to the reader. Outlandishness and looseness of form isn’t always helpful. Readers like story. Writing a good, tight one is hard.
Here’s Blindboy, earlier in that same podcast: “I don’t do a massive amount of reading because I’m just far too f**king busy […]As regards giving hours and hours of my time to a novel, I just don’t have that anymore. I’m just too busy.” Now, most people are too busy to read. But to then write one, nay, two books, seems absurd and pointless.
Showing up to training
Maybe I’m bolstering a certain literary snobbery by saying that. I hope not. I’m not in the business of gatekeeping. But I do believe in showing up to training; putting in the hours.
Besides, it’s worth questioning which side of the elitist fence “the bagged one” really stands on. For all his protestations about the “impenetrable” literary world, two collections in two years is not bad. Perhaps he really has rattled some literary cages. Or perhaps there’s something else at play.
“Buy it for your nephew”, was his advice to the audience of the Late Late recently. Many will. The nephews of the world: those surly inscrutable males, are often the ones he represents so well and so authentically when he speaks in public. As a podcaster, Blindboy has honed his craft. As a fiction writer he could do with more practice.
Until then, if you’re looking for the real shakers of the literary world, maybe try Nicole Flattery, try Melatu Uche Okorie, try Lucy Sweeney Byrne, try Ian Maleney. And in the end, if you’re too busy to get to Blindboy Boatclub, I’m sure he’ll understand.
