Not a pop star biography, this is a loving philosophical investigation into the underpinnings of David Bowie’s many personas and why he has exerted a practically lifelong fascination over the author. Predictably my favorite elements of this book were the parts where the author talked about his own life and what individual Bowie songs meant to him. Like you would expect, Critchley covers gender, sexuality, creating identities, and dystopias. But what was different from everything else I’ve read about Bowie was the material about narrative identities and how Bowie “breaks superficial conventions between authenticity and truth.” Critchley explains how David Bowie uses utterly constructed, self-conscious fakery to be original and convey deep emotional truth, with just one example being an anecdote about how Robert Fripp watched Bowie trying to generate exactly the right emotion in his voice, playing the loop and trying different things over and over.

 

This same dynamic was unconsciously illustrated in a description of how David Bowie didn’t attend his brother Terry’s funeral after his death by suicide, because he didn’t want to turn it into a media circus. Critchley says, “The note on Bowie’s bouquet was extremely poignant: ‘You’ve seen more things than we can imagine, but all these moments will be lost—like tears washed away by the rain.’” My reaction to this was, yeah, it’s extremely poignant, especially if you’re a fan of the movie Blade Runner, since Bowie’s note is an unabashed rephrasing of Rutger Hauer’s character’s dying speech at the end, minus the bit about space travel. Always a pose to tell a true thing. Also, it’s worth noting that I had to look up what year Blade Runner came out and make sure it was first, because Bowie is such an influential icon that I thought it wasn’t out of the question that the screenplay writers were copying Bowie instead of the other way around.

 

What other book is this like? Every other book about David Bowie, but thankfully not too much so. Okay, it was also kind of like Uncommon: An Essay on Pulp by Own Hatherley

 

Theme Song? “The Secret Life of Arabia”

Historical fiction sometimes needs to justify itself as I know from my own meagre attempts. Is it right to take historical facts and 'popularise' them? This is not an argument I want to have here - I already believe strongly in historical fiction. Firstly 'facts' in historical terms are often no such thing - mostly we don't know the 'facts'and they are usually moderated by the victors of the time who see history as propoganda rather than an effort to fully record the events as they truly happened. But for me, the true power of historical fiction is the ability of the writer to create a real person or persons with whom the reader can identify and thereby relate much more effectively to the period in question than would otherwise be possible. It needs to be done carefully and thoughtfully and is often a difficult task.Robert Fripp knows his stuff. Not only does he understand the subject matter, the life and times of probably and/or arguably depending on your view the most powerful woman in history, Eleanor of Aquitaine, but he adds further difficulty to his efforts by choosing to write it from her own perspective, as she dictates her life story to a female scribe for posteriety. To attempt to speak AS the historical character is bold, to interpret her own thoughts, desires, passions and weaknesses, difficult and to do all that as a man, some might consider foolhardy!But Robert Fripp pulls this off, in my view brilliantly, and I congratulate him not just for his bravery but for producing a book that left me knowing much more about this incredible woman, warts and all, than I knew before.Job done. I now know more about this amazing woman than I knew before and would ever have discovered from a simple history book - which frankly I would probably not have read anyway.Robert Fripp has proved my argument for historical fiction and written a great book into the bargain.I highly recommend it.