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A review by kingabee
Last Orders by Graham Swift
3.0
This was easily the least exciting Booker Prize winner I’ve ever read.
You know that other London all us new hipster Londoners never get to know? Even though we all live together, on the same streets, we are divided by our pubs. There are the new hipster pubs with craft beer and a cosmopolitan atmosphere, and then right next to them, there is an old man pub. The Weatherspoon’s kind of affair with a tatty carpet and a clientele that has known each other for decades.
If I ever end up in a pub like that, it’s by mistake or by some unforeseen circumstances. I’m ashamed to admit that I have little curiosity about the people there and usually just feel uncomfortable and want to leave. Those pubs are like little towns, every newcomer is an event in itself, though I’m sure the hostility is entirely imagined by me and due to my unchecked social anxiety. *
* I know there are many people that disagree with me entirely on this point and for some reason maintain that old man pubs are actually the best. This is irrelevant to this review.
“Last Orders” is an old man pub novel. And is just as thrilling. I’m told it is a tribute/remake/rip-off of As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. I can’t comment on that as I haven’t read any Faulkner at all but I feel Faulkner has to be better than this.
Other than being a pub novel, it’s a road trip novel with a group of friends driving to Margate to scatter the ashes of their late friend as per his last wish.
There is some plot, secrets are revealed, some sort of emotions are felt but everything really tastes like stale beer. Or like the idea of holidaying in Margate. My life has been so far more exciting than the stories of the characters and it’s not like there is anything quaint about them either. It’s a bunch of sad old men who look back on their lives, weighing their regrets and realising they too will die soon. They are also indistinguishable and it’s not helped by the fact that there is, for example, a Vic and a Vince.
(That is all not to say you can’t write an amazing book about a boring person, but for that I’d like to direct you to ‘This is How’ by MJ Hyland.)
I think the problem is actually not that they are boring but that they are not authentic. They are still like those figures I see when I quickly peek inside an old mans pub, some characters from a British sitcom from the 80s that’s all old London slang and zero substance. I didn’t buy the whole Sarf London vernacular – it feels forced. This is how I would make them talk (and I clearly know fuck all about South London vernacular despite living in Camberwell for three whole years).
There is also a film. Maybe it’s better.
You know that other London all us new hipster Londoners never get to know? Even though we all live together, on the same streets, we are divided by our pubs. There are the new hipster pubs with craft beer and a cosmopolitan atmosphere, and then right next to them, there is an old man pub. The Weatherspoon’s kind of affair with a tatty carpet and a clientele that has known each other for decades.
If I ever end up in a pub like that, it’s by mistake or by some unforeseen circumstances. I’m ashamed to admit that I have little curiosity about the people there and usually just feel uncomfortable and want to leave. Those pubs are like little towns, every newcomer is an event in itself, though I’m sure the hostility is entirely imagined by me and due to my unchecked social anxiety. *
* I know there are many people that disagree with me entirely on this point and for some reason maintain that old man pubs are actually the best. This is irrelevant to this review.
“Last Orders” is an old man pub novel. And is just as thrilling. I’m told it is a tribute/remake/rip-off of As I Lay Dying by Faulkner. I can’t comment on that as I haven’t read any Faulkner at all but I feel Faulkner has to be better than this.
Other than being a pub novel, it’s a road trip novel with a group of friends driving to Margate to scatter the ashes of their late friend as per his last wish.
There is some plot, secrets are revealed, some sort of emotions are felt but everything really tastes like stale beer. Or like the idea of holidaying in Margate. My life has been so far more exciting than the stories of the characters and it’s not like there is anything quaint about them either. It’s a bunch of sad old men who look back on their lives, weighing their regrets and realising they too will die soon. They are also indistinguishable and it’s not helped by the fact that there is, for example, a Vic and a Vince.
(That is all not to say you can’t write an amazing book about a boring person, but for that I’d like to direct you to ‘This is How’ by MJ Hyland.)
I think the problem is actually not that they are boring but that they are not authentic. They are still like those figures I see when I quickly peek inside an old mans pub, some characters from a British sitcom from the 80s that’s all old London slang and zero substance. I didn’t buy the whole Sarf London vernacular – it feels forced. This is how I would make them talk (and I clearly know fuck all about South London vernacular despite living in Camberwell for three whole years).
There is also a film. Maybe it’s better.