Naughty boys in nasty schools
Sep. 17th, 2010 10:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaLast night I finished reading Black Swan Green by David Mitchell. Or, as I consistently think of him, "no, not that David Mitchell". Black Swan Green was actually a birthday present from ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
spindlemere last year, but a housemove got in the way and caused it to hide for a while.
The book is written from the point of view of a thirteen year old boy, in the early 80s. It's also written in the language of a kid of the early 80s which, despite my having been only six in the year the book was set, was still the language of the playground when I went to school.
Starting to read it is a bit of a culture shock. You can't, he writes, do this because it'll make you look gay. You shouldn't do that because it'll make you look a total spaz. For all I know, kids may still think that doing your homework is gay, but the world I live in mostly regards "gay" and "spaz" as words which aren't acceptable to fling about as generic insults. Reading it causes a series of minor mental flinches.
Remarkably soon, though, I found myself settling down into the world of thickos and duh-brains, and didn't bat an eyelid at the use of "skill" as an adjective. Being permitted to slither back to adolescent language is something of a guilty pleasure, actually. It's language appropriate to the era, which means it's somehow ok to laugh at the fact that wearing a woolly hat is gay.
Very occasionally - usually when I'm concentrating on something else - obsolete junior school phrases work their way into my sentences. The ones I regard as obsolete are usually either offensive or (as you might say) would make me look like a spacker in this day and age. Relaxing into that environment was surprisingly enjoyable; I have yet to decide whether I should regard this as a bad thing. If I unexpectedly start calling people gaylords or bumboys, you will let me know, won't you?
I'm curious, though, as to whether the author deliberately made the proprietor of the corner shop Welsh (well, his name is Rhydd, nationality unspecified) to avoid tackling what a bunch of teenagers in the 80s would have called an Asian. Possibly he just didn't want to pander to the cliché - fallen into by most things set in the 80s - that all corner shops are run by Asians.
One of the bits of blurb on the cover of the book says that the Times thought the book was "luminously beautiful". Which strikes me as total nonsense. The writing is fantastic, and the narrator does have flashes of really beautiful language. The book, on the whole, though, is grubby. Grubby and angry and awkward in the way that being a teenager is - Mr Mitchell is brilliantly convincing writing as a thirteen year old. He's caught the way social complexities in school life are way more involved, and important, and even life-threatening than an adult can possibly understand. The narrator's use of language changes subtly in different situations; it's very cleverly done. I'd defend the writing against all comers, but "luminously beautiful" it ain't.
Anyway, it's a book well worth reading. I commend it to you.
spindlemere last year, but a housemove got in the way and caused it to hide for a while.The book is written from the point of view of a thirteen year old boy, in the early 80s. It's also written in the language of a kid of the early 80s which, despite my having been only six in the year the book was set, was still the language of the playground when I went to school.
Starting to read it is a bit of a culture shock. You can't, he writes, do this because it'll make you look gay. You shouldn't do that because it'll make you look a total spaz. For all I know, kids may still think that doing your homework is gay, but the world I live in mostly regards "gay" and "spaz" as words which aren't acceptable to fling about as generic insults. Reading it causes a series of minor mental flinches.
Remarkably soon, though, I found myself settling down into the world of thickos and duh-brains, and didn't bat an eyelid at the use of "skill" as an adjective. Being permitted to slither back to adolescent language is something of a guilty pleasure, actually. It's language appropriate to the era, which means it's somehow ok to laugh at the fact that wearing a woolly hat is gay.
Very occasionally - usually when I'm concentrating on something else - obsolete junior school phrases work their way into my sentences. The ones I regard as obsolete are usually either offensive or (as you might say) would make me look like a spacker in this day and age. Relaxing into that environment was surprisingly enjoyable; I have yet to decide whether I should regard this as a bad thing. If I unexpectedly start calling people gaylords or bumboys, you will let me know, won't you?
I'm curious, though, as to whether the author deliberately made the proprietor of the corner shop Welsh (well, his name is Rhydd, nationality unspecified) to avoid tackling what a bunch of teenagers in the 80s would have called an Asian. Possibly he just didn't want to pander to the cliché - fallen into by most things set in the 80s - that all corner shops are run by Asians.
One of the bits of blurb on the cover of the book says that the Times thought the book was "luminously beautiful". Which strikes me as total nonsense. The writing is fantastic, and the narrator does have flashes of really beautiful language. The book, on the whole, though, is grubby. Grubby and angry and awkward in the way that being a teenager is - Mr Mitchell is brilliantly convincing writing as a thirteen year old. He's caught the way social complexities in school life are way more involved, and important, and even life-threatening than an adult can possibly understand. The narrator's use of language changes subtly in different situations; it's very cleverly done. I'd defend the writing against all comers, but "luminously beautiful" it ain't.
Anyway, it's a book well worth reading. I commend it to you.
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no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:23 am (UTC)I would, because even at the time the canonical usage was "skillful". Usage example: "Hey, check out my skillful new trainers!"
(Rather less canonical was the local use of the word "bone-ish" as the opposite of "skillful". I'm not sure anyone even had any ideas about what it might mean except that it wasn't good.)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:32 am (UTC)Not where I went to school; your new trainers would have been skill (in Bournemouth in the early 1980s).
Right up to the point where it turned out that skill was a bum disease, at any rate.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 04:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:54 am (UTC)From observation of younger persons in the late 90s, I can report that anything good in Darlington c. 1998 was "minted". If it was very good, it was "double minted".
I remember thinking good grief, I bet we sounded this ridiculous a decade ago :)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:59 am (UTC):)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:07 am (UTC)Was usualy the way it went. Though to be honest with 3/4 chanels there was little on and i was usualy off running though fields, building damns and forts. Only later did i get an Atari VCS and later a C64, but even then we played out round the village !
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:12 am (UTC)I'm not actually clear... we just didn't have one. It wasn't like it was a big issue. I don't remember particularly getting the piss taken for not having one, either - which, with hindsight, surprises me.
We do all read a lot of books, though. And when we did get a telly I rarely remembered to watch it (something I've never quite grown out of).
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:33 am (UTC)I'm trying to think what the opposite of "skill" was. Nothing springs to mind, though I think you're right that bone-ish wasn't widespread!
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:34 am (UTC)"Have you seen those trainers? They're dead molly."
Or possibly "raggy".
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:00 am (UTC)ace was another one, though depending on when it was good, or bad (a crap effort)
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:41 am (UTC)The kids in the book use "epic" to describe something superlatively good, but that's not one I remember much. I think of that as being a much more recent thing, either to describe something protracted, or in the context of "epic fail".
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:48 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 10:58 am (UTC)I also think of the slang use of epic as fairly recent - university+, I'd say, whereas 'skill' was a common thing down our way too in my mid schooldays. Not at my school, you understand - public girls' school, we didn't say skill. But after I encountered the Adams, we used skill ironically all the time (along with 'top'), referencing the common slang usage from our youth.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:00 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:05 am (UTC)You did perhaps, but I bet Adam meant it. ;-)
Here's a potential way to date "epic": Do you remember when "dude" entered widespread use? Both terms come from US surf culture, so are likely to have seen adoption roughly simultaneously.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:11 am (UTC)Nah, ironic references to cultural crap are really one of his strong points.
> Do you remember when "dude" entered widespread use?
Dude came to my lot much earlier than epic, because I had a not-cousin who loved the word. We called him 'Dudey David', because his use of the word was so unusual. I guess I was about 14 at the time.
It's possible that my feel for epic is distorted by virtue of being a roleplayer. I don't remember it being used in my childhood *ever*. I associate it with rp stuff - your epic fails and the like.
no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-09-17 12:36 pm (UTC)