Notes from in Blue Jam

[ooarth]

does anyone else notice similarities between the protagonist of the monologues and Dostoevsky's character of the Underground Man?

on the plus column: total alienation and a prominent dinner party scene with people from his past who are utter cunts.

on the minus column:  the Underground Man is a lot more angry, openly ranting to others, and generally irritable than the numb and woozy Blue Jam man, but then again, antidepressants hadn't been invented yet.

[danyulx]

I haven't read Notes from the Underground yet, so I can't comment myself.

But I'm surprised - this thread seems a good excuse - Samuel Beckett's blatant influence on Morris is never mentioned much, or at all (far more his novels than his plays), especially on the Blue Jam monologues. Read his novel 'Molloy' - the first part is effectively a two-hundred page Blue Jam monlogue. The 'I' characters are near identical, suffering from the same ills and confusions. I read that book after hearing Blue Jam, and I shit you not had Morris' voice in my head half the book reading it to me.. He should do the audio books.

Here's the opening lines -

I am in my mother's room. It's I who live there now. I don't know how I got there. Perhaps in an ambulance, certainly a vehicle of some kind. I was helped. I'd never have got there alone. There's this man who comes every week. Perhaps I got there thanks to him. He says not. He gives me money and takes away the pages. So many pages,so much money. Yes, I work now, a little like I used to, except that I don't know how to work any more. That doesn't matter apparently. What I'd like now is to speak of the things that are left, say my good-byes, finish dying. They don't want that. Yes, there is more than one, apparently. But it's always the same one that comes. You'll do that later, he says. Good. The truth is I haven't much will left. When he comes for the fresh pages he brings back the previous week's. They are marked with signs I don't understand ..

[ooarth]

And I've never read Molloy -- but definitely going to now.  I've only recently discovered Morris, thanks to the retrospective in Los Angeles, and seeing all of his TV work at once (skipped Nathan Barley) has truly done a very pleasurable number on my head. Thanks very much to the folks who run this site which has permitted me to engulf all the radio work.

It's definitely the Blue Jam monologues which have burrowed most deeply into my cranium, there's just something about them that beyond being haunting has also made me want to study them, ferret out influences, absorb similar works.... feel like a dog scratching obsessively around a roast wedged deep in the ground. I'm amazed and grateful to have come across art that makes me this ravenous in the brain area.

Would love to hear theories of other influences/literary echoes of the monologues...

[kielyrobert]

Odd, I had just sent you  (danyulx) a message bout this after noticing another post.
I'm doing a PhD on Samuel Beckett, and I definitely agree there are affinities with the work. Morris's warped character are as devoid of moral as Beckett's are, particularly the sections on fucking the man/woman and also communicating with the mother by hitting her skull.
When I say warped characters, i must add that they are philosophical conundrums as characters. Eg. the similarly inexplicable acts of the protagonist in 'My Wrongs'.
I too would love to hear about more Morris influences, literary or otherwise... On a sidenote, Beckett definitely has influenced Stewart Lee (in particular Lee's elevation of the failed joke - Beckett said to be an artist was to fail as no other dare fail, and Stew does it spectacularly, especially his Café Nero sketch)...
Any further Morris/Beckett correspondences Danyulx?
Apologies for this illwritten post, i've been awake 16 hours.

[Ignatius_S]

Edit - wrong thread

[Ted-Maul]

I'm currently reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky and there's a bit in it where the main protagonist is at a party and one of the guests has decided he is going to kill himself at the party......this is used in a Blue Jam monologue too isn't it?

Prince Myshkin certainly struggles to work out the actions and motives of his friends and the people he meets, which is similar to the monologues.

[Ignatius_S]

...But I'm surprised - this thread seems a good excuse - Samuel Beckett's blatant influence on Morris...

The monologues were co-written with Robert Katz, so I think it might be hard to say it was specifically Morris that was being influenced.

I'm currently reading The Idiot by Dostoevsky and there's a bit in it where the main protagonist is at a party and one of the guests has decided he is going to kill himself at the party......this is used in a Blue Jam monologue too isn't it?...

The Suicide Journalist monologue - which also influence the Richard Geefe columns for The Observer.

[kidsick5000]

The Suicide Journalist monologue - which also influence the Richard Geefe columns for The Observer.

Which were a direct reaction to the 90s fashion for columnists to document their struggles with cancer/M.E./other disease.
Dostoevsky by accident?

[germpipe]

This is a bit off topic, but regarding inspiration from authors I would suggest that there is a strong connection between the stream of conciousness writings of James Joyce and Morris. Also the biographical parallels are interesting too; they were both Jesuits.     

[Depressed Beyond Tables]

Fearful Jesuits.

[0nryo]

I was recently introduced to Dylan Thomas' radio drama (?) ''Under Milk Wood". I see a bit of that in the monologue man's descriptions of the characters he encounters. Also, I think that one can comfortably listen to the ''Crime Reconstruction'' monologue in lieu of reading a good chunk of JG Ballard's oeuvre :P

[germpipe]

You could characterise J.G. Ballard's writing and Morris's work both as postmodern in the broadest sense, which is fitting because post-modernism covers a wide, hazy and fuzzy area.

Both deal with hyper reality which is the effect mass media saturation has on society and psychology.
The parallels between the doctor sketches on jam and Michael Foccualts theories of power and knowledge are palpable.

its almost as if cm's whole oeuvre is a living bag of Bualldriards theories, also a postmodern philosopher.

[oneinchhospital]

I think Gogols diary of a madman influenced the blue jam monologues much more than Notes from Underground. I specifically remember one of the diary entries in the novel being dated as "martober 26th, 2007" or something like that, and in the suicide journalist sketch the narrator says "i thought it might have been Martober" when someone asked him what month it was.

Another literary influence on Morris is P.G. Woodehouse, most of his characters names look as if they could have been in Brass Eye or Nathan Barley. Ogden Ford, Willoughby Braddock, Buck MacGinnis etc.

[Filthy American]

I just ordered the Malone trilogy because of this thread. I had read Beckett's plays and always found them great, but never thought to give his fiction a try.

Are there any contemporary authors that mirror a bit of Blue Jam's sensibilities?

I have some short story ideas kicking around that are heavily influenced by Chris Morris, and especially Blue Jam. I would love to read some more contemporary fare that draws parallels to the twisted comedy in Morris' work. 

[grassbath]

This is a bit off topic, but regarding inspiration from authors I would suggest that there is a strong connection between the stream of conciousness writings of James Joyce and Morris. Also the biographical parallels are interesting too; they were both Jesuits.   

As a big fan of both I would be inclined to agree in some respects. Both are fond of peppering their writing with portmanteaus and strange word hybrids, Joyce usually managing language unconventionally to better capture a sensation or image and Morris to hyperbolise and undermine a serious register.

I reckon their most similar feature is exactly that - a love of parodying and distorting official or authoritative language. Much of Ulysses snubs its nose at the idea of an omniscient narrator in the same way that Morris satirises the anonymous "mass consciousness" register that news reports cultivate. The Aeolus episode particularly, with its arbitrary headlines that alter and interrogate the text, reminds me of classic Morris moments like the "John Fashanu" discrepancy; or the "Wandering Rocks" episode with its pompous and exhaustive account of the viceregal cavalcade, calling to attention absurd and needless detail like a Morris report on a large public event. Both manufacture comedy out of the atmosphere when a trusted and recognizable narrator starts saying things you don't expect them to say, yet maintains a professionalism as if everything is normal. Their mutual upbringing in strict Jesuit boarding schools definitely provides a root for this kind of thing - as kids I bet they were both fascinated and tickled by the idea of the austere preacher suddenly veering off into a surreal diatribe in front of a congregation.

A little more tenuously, Morris' means of keeping prank call victims at the end of his thread - balancing conventionality and absurdity just finely enough that the victim isn't quite sure what they've heard and so holds on and keeps asking questions - reminds me a little of the way Finnegans Wake takes the reader for a ride. What could quite easily be dismissed as unintelligible nonsense seems to resonate with meaning at moments which vary from person to person; not quite enough to validate your understanding completely, but just enough to instigate what feels like a moment of illumination.

[Thomas]

Morris mentions Joyce (I think, could be another Joyce) in this interview, at 17 minutes, so he's familiar with the guy's work.

[grassbath]

Interesting, Thomas, thanks for that. It seems like Morris might have been thinking about the ideas in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man in relation to attitudes to the afterlife in Four Lions.

[Captain Z]

I think Gogols diary of a madman influenced the blue jam monologues much more than Notes from Underground. I specifically remember one of the diary entries in the novel being dated as "martober 26th, 2007" or something like that, and in the suicide journalist sketch the narrator says "i thought it might have been Martober" when someone asked him what month it was.

I read this last night thanks to this thread. There's also a significant part of the diary in which the protagonist believes dogs are talking to him.

[TJ]

Something that rarely gets mentioned in this context is that there was a huge trend for monologues set to ambient backings in indie and dance at the time - notable recent examples from just before Blue Jam came from Pulp, Blur, Belle & Sebastian & Arab Strap, and of course Morris is a huge fan of The KLF and if Build A Fire isn't a lost Blue Jam sketch then I don't know what is. He did confirm to me that this sort of thing had an influence on the structure of the show, along with some other late night/early morning radio shows including Rawlinson End, Out On Blue Six and Radio 2's Ray Moore. No, really.