The Ruins

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The author makes good use of the latest ways of communicating via the Internet, with episodes of trolling from Brandon along with SoundCloud and texts. I have to admit that a lot of this was quite alien to me and at times I felt that the story became a little too heavy. And I really did not need all that information about music and the music industry. Yes, it's key to the story, but a little goes a long way, no matter how much the author knows. We like the same things. We started the band because we both like theatrical, emotional, violent music and that hasn’t changed.

England on Fire: A Visual Journey through Albion's Psychic Landscape". Watkins Publishing . Retrieved 27 May 2022. In the interview for Peek-A-Boo magazine, Mat Osman told us about his writing experience and his musical influences, about the upcoming record of Suede and his work as journalist, about the breakup of Suede and the band’s reunion.The character of Adam reminds me a bit of the character of Andrew in Something to Live For– they are both loners, both building their own fantasy worlds at home and both in love with an unattainable woman. The Ruins is a much darker and heavier book than Something to Live For though. There is also a section of The Ruins which reminds me of The Goldfinch, which is always a good things, as The Goldfinch is one of my favourite books ever. If you are interested in music, there is plenty of insight into the music industry.

Two very different twin brothers. Brandon is a failed musician, Adam is a geeky, shut-in model maker. I love the band and I’m proud of the records but I wanted to do something that stood or fell on me alone. What’s it about? Lanyado, Benji (19 November 2008). "Le Cool: an eccentric's guide to London". The Guardian . Retrieved 12 November 2020.Armstrong, Stephen (26 February 2007). "London scene is full of Es". The Guardian . Retrieved 3 November 2014.

A very dense novel covering quite a bit of themes: family, relationships, siblings, narcissism, the music industry in its magnificence but its dark side too and much more. I must admit the music bits were a bit of a blur for me, as I never studied music. But the story can be enjoyed regardless of one's music knowledge and obviously many of the artists are googleable :D But I shouldn’t sulk. I can only recommend this book to anyone who, like me, is daydreaming about concerts, an exciting life, London and a beautiful story that makes you laugh out loud at times. An ideal Desert Island Disk Ful StopIt was slow going due to its depth and density. At times it was frustrating as I have a long list of books I need to read and tight deadlines. But it was not unsatisfactory, quite the contrary as in this day and age it's rather hard to find authors who really work to deliver a solid book to their readers. Anderson grew up in Hayward’s Heath on the grubby fringes of the Home Counties. As a teenager he clashed with his eccentric taxi-driving father (who would parade around their council house dressed as Lawrence of Arabia, air-conducting his favourite composers) and adored his beautiful, artistic mother. He brilliantly evokes the seventies, the suffocating discomfort of a very English kind of poverty and the burning need for escape that it breeds. Anderson charts the shabby romance of creativity as he travelled the tube in search of inspiration, fuelled by Marmite and nicotine, and Suede’s rise from rehearsals in bedrooms, squats and pubs. And he catalogues the intense relationships that make and break bands as well as the devastating loss of his mother. As a founding member of the legendary British alt-pop band Suede, Mat Osman is truly in his element with this astonishing debut. His firsthand familiarity with the sweeps and dips of the British music scene informs his tale of reticent Adam and his twin, Brandon, who struggled with the ignobility of having been a musical also-ran. When Brandon is gunned down in London, Adam pairs up with Brandon’s widow to find answers. The novel isn’t about music per se, more the dark side of emotion and ego gratification, of which the music business is just one bloated tendril. Though of course it is music that expresses the whole spectrum of our feelings, so often better than we can put into words. While Osman poetically points this out in the novel, we never get the sense that this is a musician writing about music. The tone is just right, the flow so well, that the spot-on-ness simply resonates. Which is as it should be. There’s plenty of musical references however, and the fact that Adam has led a hermit-like existence allows for explanations both to him and the reader who might not be aware of their importance to the plot. Details both cool and funny – a healthy dose of both – pepper the prose. A Clan Of Xymox-clad youth makes a comment about Buffy. At Claridge’s, Brandon meets a rapper called New Money. And speaking of Bowie, the way in which the book’s denouement is brought about will be appreciated by any music fan.

We meet in the wings of Bristol’s O2 Academy, at the tail end of Suede’s latest UK tour. Osman is imposingly tall and the room is comically small, but this is the world that he knows; his home for the next 90 minutes. The Ghost Theatre, he explains, was partly written on the road. “Touring is absolutely brilliant for writing. People always say: ‘How do you find the time to do both?’ But I don’t start work until nine at night – the rest of the day I’m sitting in the hotel or in places like this. What else am I going to do but write?” I always thought music seemed the pinnacle of human existence. But as I get older, books become more important We did. There’s a lot of self-doubt in being a first-time writer, so having someone to commiserate with was great.Her faith makes her a fugitive, one of the outcasts of London, like those who form the revolutionary theatre troupe that lies at the centre of this novel. Shay falls for a young man called Nonesuch; “a name made of stone and glass”, Osman writes – a phrase with a nice ring but which, on second reading, made me wonder: why stone and glass? The danger with fine prose is that there can be more sound than substance, and occasionally Osman gets carried away with the power of his own voice. The novel as a whole is a picaresque romance, as Nonesuch and Shay put on their plays, elude their enemies and revel in or revile the textures of Elizabethan London. The flaw is that its hectic pace never really allows anything to settle, any character to take root. The Aviscultan belief system, for instance, doesn’t seem fully built into a cosmology that the reader can invest in.