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March 28, 2024, 10:04:13 AM

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John Niven

Started by mr beepbap, March 24, 2018, 10:07:12 AM

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mr beepbap

Have started on his books recently and am enjoying but am increasingly asking myself is this guy just Irvine Welsh-lite?
Started on Kill Your Friends,  I really enjoyed it but did remind me a lot of Filth a lot more than American Psycho which everything online compares it to. SPOILER - not sure I bought into him as a killer but overall really liked it and interesting perspective on the 90s music business.

Next up The Amateurs, about an amateur golfer and his brother an '  amateur' gangster / criminal. The golfer gets hit on the head and wakes up with a world class golf swing-but oh no - its given him tourettes and the urge to wank off in public! Meanwhile the chavvy brother gets out of his depth in a connected plot with Scottish gangsters and a sleazy affair. There's a bit where he's in the pub summed up as discussing whose going to get battered etc which definitely rang a begbie  sounding bell. Again though overall enjoyed.

Now 100 pages into The Second Coming where jesus comes back, and guess what- he's a pot smoking slacker  etc And guess which author gets a namecheck in the book?

When I read Kill... I was excited to find a new writer who had a bit of a back catalogue I could smash through but am thinking shall I just get my early Irvine Welsh's out instead?

Sebastian Cobb

He's a bit similar to Welsh I guess but I enjoyed Kill Your Friends a lot more than quite a few of Welsh's offerings.

I like how one of the artists is almost certainly supposed to be Goldie.

Glebe

It was great when that streaker ran behind him at the Oscars in olden times.

iamcoop

I thought Kill Your Friends was hugely entertaining and burned through it in the best part of a day. However having seen the synopsis for a couple of his other books I've had no urge to check them out at all. Seems like a bit of a rehash of having a narcissistic nasty cunt main character that seems like it would get boring pretty quickly. Are any of them actually worth spending money on?

sweeper

I enjoyed both Kill Your Friends and Second Coming, but Straight White Male is excellent, far superior. Do pick that one up if you like his style.

mr beepbap

I also smashed through Kill in a weekend , picking it up every chance I had,  am finding 2nd Coming very put-downable though. Will have a crack at Straight White Male

Sebastian Cobb

I also smashed Kill Your Friends in a couple of nights. One of my pals whose judgement is usually reliable reckons Second Coming is good.

Mark Steels Stockbroker

I killed all my friends over a weekend but I found reading John Niven's books tiresome.

Jockice

I've only read Kill Your Friends and enjoyed it not so much for the murderous bits but the rants about the music business, which as someone who once was on the edge of it have the ring of truth. In fact I'm convinced that the bit about the new band signed up and subsequently dropped is about a group that a mate of mine was in. It's SO accurate, even down to the 4/10 review in the NME.

Rizla

The only good bit in Kill your friends is the long list of bands that were signed in 97, cos about 5 of my mates are in there. Other than that it's utter wanky wank, Welsh lite, with some american psycho chucked in.

Welsh is fucking rank an all though - I'm quite obsessed with "Skagboys" (its one of the only books on my phone for some reason) and how shockingly bad it is. To imagine him sat at his writing nook in his miami beachhouse, with a map of leith on the table, going "right, right, it's 1984, it's leith, what would AH be daein?". Being the ultimate renaissance man with an unlimited income apparently. Cos that's what Renton is in the book. Honestly I've been meaning to start a thread about it but I can't be fucked the day, cos there's sunshine oan leith and I'm awa' tae see the hibees play ya cunt ye.

Jockice

Quote from: Rizla on April 21, 2018, 10:42:50 AM
The only good bit in Kill your friends is the long list of bands that were signed in 97, cos about 5 of my mates are in there. Other than that it's utter wanky wank, Welsh lite, with some american psycho chucked in.

Welsh is fucking rank an all though - I'm quite obsessed with "Skagboys" (its one of the only books on my phone for some reason) and how shockingly bad it is. To imagine him sat at his writing nook in his miami beachhouse, with a map of leith on the table, going "right, right, it's 1984, it's leith, what would AH be daein?". Being the ultimate renaissance man with an unlimited income apparently. Cos that's what Renton is in the book. Honestly I've been meaning to start a thread about it but I can't be fucked the day, cos there's sunshine oan leith and I'm awa' tae see the hibees play ya cunt ye.

Fucking doss prick.

Rizla

Quote from: Jockice on April 21, 2018, 11:02:07 AM
Fucking doss prick.
Indeed. In the 20+ years I've lived (or "steyed") in Leith, I have never once heard the word "doss". He made it up, I reckon. He'll probably be in Robbie's the now gettin a lash oan for the game, I'll fuckin well ask the cunt.

iamcoop

For anyone that missed this (and it completely passed me by considering I really enjoyed Kill Your Friends) the follow up is being published later this year.

https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/1114859/kill-em-all/

I was hoping it would focus on the whole Napster/downfall of the industry thing of the early 00's but apparently it's set in the Trump and Brexit world of 2017 and according to Niven will be 'more grotesque' than KYF which doesn't bode well for me.

Pebble_Mill

Quote from: sweeper on March 26, 2018, 04:00:10 PM
I enjoyed both Kill Your Friends and Second Coming, but Straight White Male is excellent, far superior. Do pick that one up if you like his style.

Agreed. SWM has some genuinely moving moments and stands quite apart from his other work.

Pepotamo1985

Quote from: mr beepbap on March 24, 2018, 10:07:12 AM
Have started on his books recently and am enjoying but am increasingly asking myself is this guy just Irvine Welsh-lite?

He's Irvine Welsh lite, Martin Amis lite and Bret Easton Ellis lite. And probably a few other authors lite too. He's exceptionally derivative and while his books are entertaining and very readable, the sense what he's doing/saying at any point been done far better many times over by other writers is inescapable.

This said, Niven is one of those carbohydrate writers who motivated me to toughen the fuck up and actually sit down to write my own book, so from a purely personal perspective I give him much credit. Truly superb fiction is inspiring but intimidating - it may make you want to leap onto Microsoft Word, but the pervasive cognisance what you're producing is nowhere near as good as their work will almost inevitably consign your efforts to the Recycle Bin. An author as obviously unoriginal yet somehow still successful as Niven is conversely a kick up the arse to all us aspiring cats of letters.


Sebastian Cobb

Niven's only really welsh lite if you deliberately ignore most of the pedestrian books welsh has written.