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The current reading material in chéz Hegemoné (oh, the pretensions) includes "Herzog" by Saul Bellow, "The History Man" by Malcolm Bradbury and several Thomas Pynchon and Philip Roth novels. This, combined with the recent viewing of both series of "A Very Peculiar Practice" and the recent reading of "Wonder Boys" by Chabon ("Shhhhhhhhaboooon!") brings the reader to ask the question:-

How badly do campus satires date?

Now all of the above are satires, of one form or another, of academia, of post-academia, or of academics. And all of them creak, to some degree or another. The Pynchon and Roth books have a certain vigour about them, a post-60s freewheelin' freeflowin' freefallin' rambunctiousness which allows the dated element of the subject to be glossed over. In this po-mo post-milliennium post-irony post 9/11 world, they still feel of a different world, completely, and the "satire" element is dead. But they manage to last to some degree (this is also helped in Pynchon's case by the very bagginess of his narrative - all human life is contained therein).

"Wonder Boys" has dated the least but given it's not yet a decade old, you wouldn't have expected it to. It's quite difficult to read after seeing the film first - one finds it impossible not to picture Grady Tripp as Mr M Douglas, despite him not physically resembling the character in any way.

"Herzog" is about an academic. It's supposedly Bellow's classic. One can see the lineage from it to Roth and Pynchon but Bellow is a pallid version of those two gentleman. There is no fire, no energy. I can find little or nothing worthy of admiration in it, despite the odd phrase of beauty or interest. I cannot see - to be honest - why precisely Martin Amis, Malcolm Bradbury et al venerate(d) the old codger.

Which leads us on to "The History Man" by the late departed Mr Bradbury. This was, apparently, in it's day a sensation, a vastly comic (which, we can agree, is different to satirical) but also savagely satirical piece of work. One only has to read the recommendations on it's cover, from Auberon Waugh to Kingsley Amis to Martin Amis to Uncle Tom Cobbley and all to realise the respect in which this book was held. I've virtually finished it. It's a nothing of a book. Seriously. It may have had the power to move mountains at some point in the past, all thunder and lightning, but now it's more a wet fart.

"A Very Peculiar Practice" - mainly watched in a frenzy of nostalgia for my alma mater - held some power still because it showed the battle between academia and managerialism, and also because of the character of Jock McCannon, all alcoholic scottish King Lear posing. Again, however, it's toothless.

One has to wonder, really, looking at my list of the above novels and films, about that initial question, about the ageing. Is this something inherent to satire, or is it something which affects all culture? (I have noticed, in the past, how 90% - to grab a completely random made up figure - of all comedy ages badly. In some cases, to the point of complete unfunniness. If you don't believe me, listen to the comedy stylings of "The Goons", the funniest thing since the Black Death)

But the campus "comedy" or "comic" novel dates worst of all. Of all the examples of the genre I can recall, perhaps only "Porterhouse Blue" is over 20 years old and still has an impact, and even this is lessened with age.

Conclusion: Creative Writing Lecturers, pick a new fucking subject. Please.

Openings

I have no intention of ever posting anything about my day here. About my life. Aside from, maybe, the thoughts that emerged in it.

Today I have mainly been thinking of the conversation with my compadre on Saturday.

"What, precisely, would it be like to be a school contemporary of Barack Obama?".

Now, seriously here, when you are in school with people, you can make the odd excuse for people being a little more successful than you. Hey, they are, y'know, a different class, the well off swine. They work harder. They might be a little better at the whole exams/schoolwork thing. They are lucky. Better looking. Suck up to teacher. Yadda yadda yadda.

All completely reasonable excuses in the teenage mind, I would say. Maybe you can hold on to a few of them till adulthood. Maybe, if you are the kind of person who believes everything is an excuse for something, you can hold on to that for years to come.

But, there's a point, surely. There's a point where you stop and think "oh. hang on". I'd say that point has now officially happened for the high school contemporaries of Mr O. I mean, yeah, he's not exactly stupid, and he seems the type who worked hard. But he's the FUCKING PRESIDENT OF THE USA. And you sell aluminium. In Des Moines. Not very successfully.

I wonder if anyone has done a study of these individuals. I wonder how high the suicide rate amongst them is now.

(Idea: newspaper article, you know, one of them Sunday Supplement jobbies. With pictures of maybe two dozen of his school contemporaries and a little potted history of their life post growing up with "Barry")

I suppose you could always try to marshal a defence about how he's not very good at it (at present, I would say, the jury is out. Foreign Policy is a yay, Domestic is a bit more patchy) but really, thats just sour grapes isn't it? That's like being in school with Brad Pitt and saying "yeah but Benjamin Button was a bit shit wasn't it?" (which, again, it was).

It's a given, really, that most of us in the world are in the middle. We aren't the guy from school who ends up on "Crimewatch" for molesting pigs. But we aren't the guy who ends up President of the USA either. What must really grind is being the one in school who everyone THOUGHT would be a success and ended up in the middle. Whilst the quiet guy from the back of the class ended up Bill Gates. Or Barack. Or Brad. Or, jesus, even being David Hasselhoff is more of an achievement than most of us muster.

Conclusion: The ambition gland should be surgically removed if you aren't half way there by 25, for your own mental health.