I’ve been cheating on Jack Kerouac with Michael Lewis. I’m not proud, but there it is. I’ve drawn myself into a web of deceit and I’m finding it hard to admit that the one I thought I’d be in lip-smacking, googly-eyed love with – the one that ticks all the boxes on my must-have list – is actually just ticking me off.
Look at them, sitting by the bed, one ravaged and tea-stained the other prim and straight-paged. Just look at them! Oh it verily breaks my heart. Though really I'm just keen on writing verily. Verily, verily, verily, verily, life is but a dream.
Anyway, a classic tale of the beat generation sounded dreamy – a must read. Bohemian road-tripping… swoon! But it didn’t start well. It seemed to lack direction. And so I took a break. Just for a little while, to collect my thoughts. It wasn’t the book – it was me.
As I brooded, waited and hoped, someone I think especially well of set me up. I’m (often) polite and it was hard to refuse. I agreed to a blind book date. Just a quick skim of a couple of chapters and I’d be back with Jack.
What I’d forgotten, when I picked up The Big Short was how irresistible good story telling can be. No matter that the book’s topic is the financial crisis. No matter that after 200 pages I still couldn’t explain the nature of a credit-default swap (my fault, not Michael’s). It’s a page-turning read. Michael Lewis knows how to write a story, he knows how to make a subject eejits like me think boring, intriguing. His story has structure, compelling characters a beginning, middle and an end. And I loved it. Against my better judgement I was wild about it. And now of course, like many good things – like all things that just can’t last forever, it’s over.
So I’m On the Road again. Back with Jack. It’s getting better. There are flashes of brilliance. But its lack of structure is doing my head in. He’s not, alas, the storyteller I’d hoped for.
