I am another person, a third person. A subject to be studied and thought about. My life a story now, preserved in print. Do I recognise myself in this mirror? Is it a mirror?
"I tried to hand out copies to family members. No one wanted one. They weren’t enthused by the idea of reading an eight-hundred-page tome, much of which would be set in Bromley. They’d had more than enough Hanif Kureishi for one lifetime."
Actually, worth reading for this fab paragraph alone!
Loved the idea of multiple versions of you “walking” around… in a play, a book, sitting in a chair. In Buddhism when we are enlightened we begin to have the ability to emanate in multiple places simultaneously… just sayin’ maybe you’ve made it!
Scott Walker recorded 'Jesse' in his the latter part of his career when, creatively speaking, he was a hazy figure perpetually on the brink of vanishing in thick fog. You could follow after him if you wished. Bowie made a game attempt on his final album – Blackstar.
It is hard to describe the song and its avant garde operatics. The lyrics, which are a formulated like a collage of cryptic crossword clues, make oblique reference to the maudlin, one-sided conversations that Elvis Presley would conduct with his stillborn twin brother, Jesse, during moments of despair. Through the prism of Walker's artistic muse, the fate of the Presley brothers is made analogous with the Twin Towers on 9/11 – once one fell, it was only a matter of time before the other followed.
My first experience with twins occurred when I moved house at the age of seven and changed schools. I was placed in a class with Chris Dally. His twin brother, Jason, was in the other class in the same year. It was considered a good idea to keep them apart. Together they were an engine for mischief that was far greater than the sum of its parts.
An air of Dennis the Menace surrounded Chris and Jason. They were bad boys in a way that would be regarded as rather quaint in our current social era. One Sunday afternoon Chris and another boy called at my house cradling an armful of rotten fruit.
“You know that derelict house at the top of the road?” he said. “We're going to change the colour of its windows.”
Chris had artistic leanings. When he was nine years old, he wrote a very insightful poem about the dual nature of cats. I still have a copy of it somewhere. One year, he played King Arthur in the school play. I have a memory of him raising a plastic sword that belonged to my brother and shouting out the final line: “Excalibur!” He was heavily into break-dancing and robotics, and the music that would eventually coalesce to form rap and hip hop.
At the age of 11, we both failed our 11 Plus examination. Soon after, the vicissitudes of school catchment areas separated us. I ended up at what was regarded as the marginally better of the two rather violent comprehensive schools in our area.
The last time I saw Chris and Jason was at a school reunion. I expect that we were all 19. I had a long talk with Jason, who I had always been a bit wary of. Chris was at art college. He told me he had been diagnosed with epilepsy. His brother had been by his side when he had experienced his first fit and had helped him through it. A few years later, I heard, through a friend of a friend, that Chris had suffered some kind of cerebral event. He had lost his ability to form new long-term memories and presumably lived perpetually in the present moment. I don't know what happened to him.
Greetings from an overcast, humid Ireland. This is a wonderful essay. I didn’t think these blogs could get any better but they surpass even the previous excellence. You should have been a regular columnist. Well you are now.
I think most of us would feel this way Hanif, horrified at even the thought of hearing someone read aloud about our doings .....I bet it's riveting and I will order it now ! Much love, Jane xxx
It can’t hurt your good self to know that just a few weeks ago I had said biography with that gorgeous photo of you sitting on my trunk here in my big room. And Hanif there it sat with you looking all sultry and intriguing/ occasionally I would consider starting it - it seemed a betrayal just to walk past it after the library staff had ordered it in for me - we spent some time on looking it up too. I renewed it regularly- and I liked it sitting on the trunk. The trunk itself is like my life as a piece of furniture- it was my Aunt’s trunk it had her initials and a travel label but ended up with my mum her sister. Me and my brother used to play getting into the trunk and seeing how long we could stand it - my brother increased the thrill of this game by locking me in it and I had to wait for mum to come home ftom whatever job she was at to unlock the trunk and let me out. Then it lived in various attics until the inevitable house clearance / I had had enough I was emotionally empty having looked at and touched an eternity of stuff all drenched in memories. Someone was up in the loft clearing that and brought the trunk down. My mum had kept every single piece of information photo newspaper just everything and a lot of it was in the trunk. Brought it back home lumped it into my living room and it will be with me until I cannot get back out of wherever I’ve gone. It is me sitting there. So you were briefly adorning the trunk and finally I had to accept Hanif - I could not read it. I love reading your outbursts on here and as you can tell responding / so for a while you lived on my passenger seat in the car and if I had owned the book you would still be there or on my trunk - finally you went back to the library. I’m so happy you mention the book - it really made me smile. Now to round it all off my dad was a twin and he survived but his twin brother did not. My grandad mentions Lesley the dead twin in his sort of autobiography- a few pages about his life. Dad, who was Raymond mentioned it sometimes but my Grandma she never did. Perhaps Lesley waited for a while to possibly return but grandma didn’t have any more children. Strange things. It wouldn’t matter what you wrote and I’m sure Carlo says that to you / we love to just hear from you. You are recalibrated and probably the best version of yourself too. Much love from the nowhere village Maddi ps what about the general election - I am in Sunak land and hoping he will be overthrown xx
You (and Carlo) never disappoint, but I believe this is your best entry yet. Full of humor and introspection and wisdom. Some things to consider for anybody who contemplates writing or being written about biographically. Thanks once again.
Has there ever been a biography of a serial biographer?
A brilliant read.
Reminded me of a mythologist, Martin Shaw, who wrote an unusual book (with a beautiful front cover) called ‘Courting the Wild Twin’. It is based on the legend that we each have a wild twin that we spend our lives seeking in order to find our purpose in life. Perhaps they are writing our life story down for us.
This is a great piece not just about identity but also about the pain/trap of looking back. Next Monday I turn 68. About a year ago I was almost killed by a pulmonary thrombosis and thanks to a skilled vascular surgeon and a humorous hematologist at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, I survived and thrived. It led to a year of looking behind, to my past to personal stories to write while also looking for death that might be lurking anywhere unseen. I’d just released a documentary where my co-Director (Vanessa Yuille) had decided to make it more of an autobiographical movie. An adventure of a reluctant jobbing (not that great) writer reluctantly going on a journey of self discovery, and so on. Recently however, after the dust settled I felt depressed/disappointed and slightly humiliated by it all. Now I’ve decided to embrace both the past AND the future. Who knows what my 70s will bring, but I have decided to enjoy them more than any other decade … If fate will let me. This dispatch of yours has meant a lot to me, THANK You Hanif. Stay strong my friend, I hope to see you again one day ❤️ keep looking in both directions!
Great piece: poignant, thoughtful and funny.
Particularly liked this:
"I tried to hand out copies to family members. No one wanted one. They weren’t enthused by the idea of reading an eight-hundred-page tome, much of which would be set in Bromley. They’d had more than enough Hanif Kureishi for one lifetime."
Actually, worth reading for this fab paragraph alone!
Den, it’s Fun thinking this, as you wrote it!
Loved the idea of multiple versions of you “walking” around… in a play, a book, sitting in a chair. In Buddhism when we are enlightened we begin to have the ability to emanate in multiple places simultaneously… just sayin’ maybe you’ve made it!
Oh my goodness …
… “ Beckenham… Homosexuality… Multiculturism... Nietzsche… Peter O’Toole…Threesomes… Trump… Turgenev… Twain…Twitter…”.
Well done Hanif and Ruvani and thank you.
I enjoyed reading this a lot. That photo on the book's cover is one of my favourites.
Scott Walker recorded 'Jesse' in his the latter part of his career when, creatively speaking, he was a hazy figure perpetually on the brink of vanishing in thick fog. You could follow after him if you wished. Bowie made a game attempt on his final album – Blackstar.
It is hard to describe the song and its avant garde operatics. The lyrics, which are a formulated like a collage of cryptic crossword clues, make oblique reference to the maudlin, one-sided conversations that Elvis Presley would conduct with his stillborn twin brother, Jesse, during moments of despair. Through the prism of Walker's artistic muse, the fate of the Presley brothers is made analogous with the Twin Towers on 9/11 – once one fell, it was only a matter of time before the other followed.
My first experience with twins occurred when I moved house at the age of seven and changed schools. I was placed in a class with Chris Dally. His twin brother, Jason, was in the other class in the same year. It was considered a good idea to keep them apart. Together they were an engine for mischief that was far greater than the sum of its parts.
An air of Dennis the Menace surrounded Chris and Jason. They were bad boys in a way that would be regarded as rather quaint in our current social era. One Sunday afternoon Chris and another boy called at my house cradling an armful of rotten fruit.
“You know that derelict house at the top of the road?” he said. “We're going to change the colour of its windows.”
Chris had artistic leanings. When he was nine years old, he wrote a very insightful poem about the dual nature of cats. I still have a copy of it somewhere. One year, he played King Arthur in the school play. I have a memory of him raising a plastic sword that belonged to my brother and shouting out the final line: “Excalibur!” He was heavily into break-dancing and robotics, and the music that would eventually coalesce to form rap and hip hop.
At the age of 11, we both failed our 11 Plus examination. Soon after, the vicissitudes of school catchment areas separated us. I ended up at what was regarded as the marginally better of the two rather violent comprehensive schools in our area.
The last time I saw Chris and Jason was at a school reunion. I expect that we were all 19. I had a long talk with Jason, who I had always been a bit wary of. Chris was at art college. He told me he had been diagnosed with epilepsy. His brother had been by his side when he had experienced his first fit and had helped him through it. A few years later, I heard, through a friend of a friend, that Chris had suffered some kind of cerebral event. He had lost his ability to form new long-term memories and presumably lived perpetually in the present moment. I don't know what happened to him.
This piece was brilliant, thanks.
You’re making me happy I’m not famous—ahh. Eight hundred pages! Wow!
It are great Hanif! A great man! Much love Nige
Greetings from an overcast, humid Ireland. This is a wonderful essay. I didn’t think these blogs could get any better but they surpass even the previous excellence. You should have been a regular columnist. Well you are now.
So funny! Thought-provoking too. Thank you.
I think most of us would feel this way Hanif, horrified at even the thought of hearing someone read aloud about our doings .....I bet it's riveting and I will order it now ! Much love, Jane xxx
It can’t hurt your good self to know that just a few weeks ago I had said biography with that gorgeous photo of you sitting on my trunk here in my big room. And Hanif there it sat with you looking all sultry and intriguing/ occasionally I would consider starting it - it seemed a betrayal just to walk past it after the library staff had ordered it in for me - we spent some time on looking it up too. I renewed it regularly- and I liked it sitting on the trunk. The trunk itself is like my life as a piece of furniture- it was my Aunt’s trunk it had her initials and a travel label but ended up with my mum her sister. Me and my brother used to play getting into the trunk and seeing how long we could stand it - my brother increased the thrill of this game by locking me in it and I had to wait for mum to come home ftom whatever job she was at to unlock the trunk and let me out. Then it lived in various attics until the inevitable house clearance / I had had enough I was emotionally empty having looked at and touched an eternity of stuff all drenched in memories. Someone was up in the loft clearing that and brought the trunk down. My mum had kept every single piece of information photo newspaper just everything and a lot of it was in the trunk. Brought it back home lumped it into my living room and it will be with me until I cannot get back out of wherever I’ve gone. It is me sitting there. So you were briefly adorning the trunk and finally I had to accept Hanif - I could not read it. I love reading your outbursts on here and as you can tell responding / so for a while you lived on my passenger seat in the car and if I had owned the book you would still be there or on my trunk - finally you went back to the library. I’m so happy you mention the book - it really made me smile. Now to round it all off my dad was a twin and he survived but his twin brother did not. My grandad mentions Lesley the dead twin in his sort of autobiography- a few pages about his life. Dad, who was Raymond mentioned it sometimes but my Grandma she never did. Perhaps Lesley waited for a while to possibly return but grandma didn’t have any more children. Strange things. It wouldn’t matter what you wrote and I’m sure Carlo says that to you / we love to just hear from you. You are recalibrated and probably the best version of yourself too. Much love from the nowhere village Maddi ps what about the general election - I am in Sunak land and hoping he will be overthrown xx
You (and Carlo) never disappoint, but I believe this is your best entry yet. Full of humor and introspection and wisdom. Some things to consider for anybody who contemplates writing or being written about biographically. Thanks once again.
Agreed!
Has there ever been a biography of a serial biographer?
A brilliant read.
Reminded me of a mythologist, Martin Shaw, who wrote an unusual book (with a beautiful front cover) called ‘Courting the Wild Twin’. It is based on the legend that we each have a wild twin that we spend our lives seeking in order to find our purpose in life. Perhaps they are writing our life story down for us.
This is a great piece not just about identity but also about the pain/trap of looking back. Next Monday I turn 68. About a year ago I was almost killed by a pulmonary thrombosis and thanks to a skilled vascular surgeon and a humorous hematologist at Hollywood Presbyterian Hospital, I survived and thrived. It led to a year of looking behind, to my past to personal stories to write while also looking for death that might be lurking anywhere unseen. I’d just released a documentary where my co-Director (Vanessa Yuille) had decided to make it more of an autobiographical movie. An adventure of a reluctant jobbing (not that great) writer reluctantly going on a journey of self discovery, and so on. Recently however, after the dust settled I felt depressed/disappointed and slightly humiliated by it all. Now I’ve decided to embrace both the past AND the future. Who knows what my 70s will bring, but I have decided to enjoy them more than any other decade … If fate will let me. This dispatch of yours has meant a lot to me, THANK You Hanif. Stay strong my friend, I hope to see you again one day ❤️ keep looking in both directions!
A great read, so enjoyed expecially the last torturing paragraph.