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UNTRAINED_PENMAN

                                           May 15 & Nov 2, 2016             
                                       Rev:      April 12, 2022             
                                                                            
Reading Ian Penman's piece on Patti Smith ("Ways to                         
be Pretentious" in the London Review of Books) was                          
about as enjoyable and enlightening as chatting with                        
an internet troll.                                                          
                                                                            
Someone might mention to him that the era                                   
when a snarky British music journalist had                                  
some relevance has probably ended                                           
                                                                            
Other authors don't seem to get this kind of           (There was an article
dismissive, shallow review: "Of course, Aldous         about Huxley in the  
Huxley only wrote one book anyone's heard of,          same issue of LRB.)  
and hardly anyone actually reads it."                                       
                                                                            
Patti Smith certainly overreaches at times,                                 
but then if she played in safe she wouldn't                                 
be Patti Smith, and would not be someone who                                
has produced works as brilliant as "Gone                                    
Again" (which Penman appears to have confused                               
with "Gung Ho").                                                            
                                                                            
In any case, "M Train" is very much a document of a                         
life of rock star excess, but the joke is that                              
Patti Smith's style of excess is remarkably subdued--                       
                                                                            
   E.g. when her favorite barista moves to a new                            
   job on coney island, she buys an old shack of                            
   a house out there, to be near his coffee                                 
                                                                            
She has to keep working to finance these things, but                        
she can pursue her whims at will; she can even go off                       
on a celebrity grave tour of the world with a copy of                       
"The Wind-Up Bird Chronicles" in hand.                                      
                                                                            
Penman misses the point that binging on British                             
detective shows is not Patti Smith being regular folks,    Note: look up the
but rather indulging another strange whim-- she was        shows she's      
playing hooky, and had flown off to London and was         interested in--  
hiding out in a hotel solely because she liked a local     check the years? 
TV channel.  (She doesn't make it clear if she didn't                       
want to bother with the modern world of DVDs and such,                      
or if perhaps she just liked the idea of watching                           
British TV in England.)                                                     
                                                                            
Yes, being Patti Smith means that other                                      
odd celebrities-- sometimes very odd--                                      
approach her, and provide unusual          Penman suggests she's making a    
invitations and opportunities.  She's      lot of this up. I see in her     
free to follow her M(ental) Train where    PBS interview she insists that    
she likes.  Her fans are unlikely to       the story of meeting Bobby           
begrudge her this, and it's hard to see    Fischer was "absolutely true",     
why her detractors would bother --         and they stayed in touch over the   
                                           years as he requested she track  
  Penman's envious attacks on her          down obscure books about history     
  (trying to invoke some spectre           for him.                             
  of class war on the privileged?)                                              
  can't help but fall flat.                                                     
                                                                                
                                                                                
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