OVERHEARD IN HARRIS & HOOLE...
(An occasional feature)
27th December 2023
Myself , Mary Winterbourne, Ducky Duckworth, Sebastian D'Orsai and Tony of the Big Saloon got together this morning in Harris & Hoole. The following conversation could be overheard:
Mary Winterbourne: Gene any news yet on how Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's is selling?
Gene: No Mary, I don't suppose this information will be available for some months yet. Anyhow my ambitions for Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's are modest. One never knows how a new literary form may be received. I've got to say that I really don't mind whether it sells just a few hundred copies in Uxbridge or goes to number one on the New York Times best seller list.
Mary Winterbourne: Gene let's once again all raise our cappuccinos. Here's to Gene. Here's to Uxbridge. Here's to Granny Barkes.
Tony of the Big Saloon: And perhaps Justin Welby will 'joyfully' join us in our celebration. Tee! Hee! Hee!
Ducky Duckworth: I see that the Canting Old Phony has been sticking his oar in.
Gene: He is still of course not admitting defeat over his lies about it not being published. No change there. Anyone else would be dignified enough to say, 'Fair Dinkum', I got it wrong.
Still he says he is buying a copy from Amazon and will review it.
And by the way, he is going to return his copy of the book and get a refund once he has read and reviewed it.
All: My God! How mean can you get? The spirit of Ebenezer Scrooge is alive and well and living on Tyneside.
Ducky Duckworth: And you can bet his review will be a hatchet job.
Sebastian D'Orsai: Undoubtedly!
Mary Winterbourne: Well, who knows? Let's not underestimate Detterling. Perhaps his review will be generous?
Ducky Duckworth: His review generous!!! Oh! look Mary. What's that up in the sky? Oh! yes. It's a whole squadron of pigs flying over Uxbridge.
Tony of the Big Saloon: What about Detterling's memoirs? Any news of publication?
Gene: He says his memoirs will be published posthumously. He doesn't wish to offend certain people while he is alive.
All: What a lily-livered, yellow-bellied bottlejob!
Tony of the Big Saloon: He doesn't wish to offend people! Gene you were never afraid of offending people!!!
(Loud laughter from all)
"Detterling, you have been well and truly stuffed".
ReplyDeleteCome off it.
"Now about your review, please remember to be fair and honest."
I thought I would use as a strapline your blurb to the effect that
"Gene Vincent is a novelist and essayist whose writing has drawn comparison with James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway."
Given that you have never published a novel or an essay, and hence have never been reviewed, these claims will be measured against the literary quality of "Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths", perhaps starting with the fact that you had to pay the publishers to see it in print.
Glad to see though, that the book can be returned within thirty days of purchase. It won't take me more than a couple of hours to read it and another couple to review it, so I will get my fiver back less than a week after I have spent it.
"A bad review in the early days of its publication can have disastrous consequences for a book."
So which do you want, Gene? a fair review or a good one?
“Solomon’s Portico”, “The Man who heard Jenny Lind sing”, “Heartbreak at Hillingdon High”, “The Psalms” - all of them non existent books you claim to have published.
“Gene Vincent is a novelist and essayist whose writing has drawn comparisons with James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway”.
No, he isn’t and no it hasn’t - more preposterous bombast and ridiculous lies.
The “provenance” of Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths was an inept imitation of an obviously half-understood and probably mostly unread Finnegan’s Wake” dating back twelve years and never more than 2500 words long. If your claims that it was a “ground breaking novel” were met with derision then, in view of your track record as narcissistic liar, fraud and humbug, you have only yourself to thank.
Not “proven lies”, but entirely reasonable suppositions at least partially borne out by the fact that Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths seems to be a cobbled together scissors and paste job consisting largely of out of copyright photographs. As to that, we shall see when I get around to reading it.
And if you seriously imagine that I would put a single penny in the pocket of a duplicitous, bigoted bastard like you, the you must have one more screw loose than I thought.
And that reminds me Detterling, where do you intend to publish this review? Just so I can read it.
DeleteGENE
"I really don't mind whether it sells just a few hundred copies in Uxbridge or goes to number one on the New York Times best seller list."
ReplyDeleteHow modest and humble Gene.
Sebastian D'Orsai
Oh, for fuck's sake, Gene, grow up.
DeleteJust thought of some opening sentences for my review.
ReplyDelete“It is anatomically impossible to kiss one’s own arse. The previously unpublished “Mr Gene Vincent” has apparently performed this feat without breaking sweat. What else are we to make of his claim that his writing has “drawn comparison with James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway?”
Au contraire my work has been published. I have had excerpts from my novels (with the exception of Solomon's Portico which I destroyed) published. As well as on this blog I have had selections from my novels and other writings published on the TES website, in the Uxbridge Gazette, in the Catholic Times, in the Universe etc. I also distributed various works in progress among my friends. From those who read my work came comparisons with the writing of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh.
ReplyDeleteGENE
Gene, stop embarrassing yourself.
DeleteEven judged as bollocks this is bollocks.
Tony of the Big Saloon: What about Detterling's memoirs? Any news of publication?
ReplyDeleteGene: He says his memoirs will be published posthumously. He doesn't wish to offend certain people while he is alive.
All: What a lily-livered, yellow-bellied bottlejob!
Tony of the Big Saloon: He doesn't wish to offend people! Gene you were never afraid of offending people!!!
(Loud laughter from all)
“It is anatomically impossible to kiss one’s own arse. The previously unpublished “Mr Gene Vincent” has apparently performed this feat without breaking sweat. What else are we to make of his claim that his writing has “drawn comparison with James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway?”
DeleteMy big regret is that the likes of Bernard Levin, Cyril Connolly or Clive James are not around to review 'Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's'.
ReplyDeleteGENE
Same here - their demolition of your performance would have been a much better read than the book itself.
ReplyDeleteJust as I thought Gene. The old effer is planning to do a hatchet job on your book. No sense of justice or fair play. He doesn't care what harm he causes. No conscience.
ReplyDeleteDucky Duckworth
Balls, Gene:
Delete"As well as on this blog I have had selections from my novels and other writings published on the TES website"
PUBLISHED ON THE TES WEBSITE??? you mean you used to inflict your dreadful maunderings on TES Opinion - that is not publication in the sense that someone paid you to write.
"I also distributed various works in progress among my friends. From those who read my work came comparisons with the writing of James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh."
Again, giving half-arsed first chapters of novels that never went beyond those first chapters to your mates is nor publication - nor are their opinions any kind of guide, given that Gary, Sebastian, Mary, Ducky and Tony are all you in any case, given their kind awareness of the mental fragility inflicted on you by your narcissism. Not one of them would have the nerve to say [for example] that "compared to James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway, Gene Vincent's writing is crap even judged as crap".
"in the Uxbridge Gazette, in the Catholic Times, in the Universe etc."
Give us the dates and titles of these publications: no, thought not.
"The old effer is planning to do a hatchet job on your book. No sense of justice or fair play. He doesn't care what harm he causes. No conscience."
Don't prate at me about justice, fair play, doing harm and having no conscience, Gene: I take no lectures from an unscrupulous bastard like you.
I will review your book fairly according to the standards you have set yourself by claiming that your writing has drawn comparison with James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway.
By this I mean the James Joyce of Dubliners, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man and Ulysses, the Evelyn Waugh of Scoop, Brideshead Revisited, A Handful of Dust, Sword of Honour, Put out more Flags, Scoop and Decline and Fall, and the Ernest Hemingway of A Farewell To Arms, The Sun also Rises, A Moveable Feast, [the best work of a writer in my view very over-rated] but not of the execrable The Old Man and the Sea or Across the River and into the Trees.
If "Granny Barkes fell in Woolworths" stands comparison with those works, then good for you - and I will say so. If it doesn't, why should I be polite to a conceited illiterate?
"...claiming that your writing has drawn comparison with James Joyce, Evelyn Waugh and Ernest Hemingway."
ReplyDeleteYes it has drawn such comparisons - my earlier writing and in particular, my, as yet untitled, 'lockdown novel'. Many feel the writing style in this novel echoes Brideshead Revisited. But there are no comparisons to be found in the work of anyone anywhere with 'Granny Barkes Fell in Woolworth's'.
Granny Barkes is a new literary format, a new literary genre. Something totally original and unique. Forget James Joyce, Ernest Hemingway and Evelyn Waugh.
GENE