The Age of Anxiety by Pete Townshend - SPOILERS!!

Discussion in 'Music Corner' started by zeppo1, Nov 16, 2019.

  1. zeppo1

    zeppo1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    South
    Starting a thread in the Music forums about Pete's new book.

    Rationale for starting a thread here rather than in General Discussions: The Age of Anxiety is apparently part of a larger project that will include possibly an art installation, musical and solo album from Pete. Hopefully, when (if?) that material is released the discussion can continue here, trying to figure out what Pete was on about.

    OK, so I just finished it and was interested to hear what others thought of it. While I'm trying to stick to more of Pete's intent in what he was saying, and not my own opinion of the book as a whole, I will say I was most interested in the characters of Ray and Walter and all that creative madness stuff. I thought this was going to be the main thrust of the book - the mystical creation of music, where it comes from, and the price one has to pay for it. I thought we were going explore the price of tapping into a great creative force in order to get great art and seeing if it was worth it.

    I think that is part of what he might have been going for? I really do no understand the kind of left turn it takes midway with it's concern for 'who's ****ing who.' It seemed to dissolve into some kind of English mannered soap opera.

    In the end what started for me as a great parable about creativity, ended with a kind of tacked on moral of "Forgive these beautiful crazy bitches. they may be nuts, but in the end what they do is for our own good and the good of all humanity" It left me with a weird aftertaste that Pete himself is trying to justify his partner's crazy behavior. I know he was trying to get at more --- the whole falling in love with the one you love's daughter (daughter by another man) bit with Maud and Floss and probably Walter and the roadie---but besides a kind of being in love more with a spirit than an individual person, I can't seem to figure this out. It seems like there are at least two separate stories that are tied together awkwardly.

    I will most likely read it again someday and am really interested to hear the music that comes from all this.

    Any one else read it?
     
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  2. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I think the fact that you (I assume) refer to the Paul/Nik character as "Ray" speaks to the fact that Pete is staying pretty close to home in this novel. We have a rock star who becomes a recluse and goes a bit mad, and then tries to pass on his special insight to another generation. We have an unholy quartet (rather than trinity) of band members who don't always understand each other and/or get along. So yes, a lot of "Endless Wire", with a bit of a twist on the "Lifehouse"/"GridLife" audience-artist connection. I absolutely agree with you that the novel takes a disappointing turn, pretty much from the moment of Floss's arrival. The series of coincidences that solve the "mysteries" are telegraphed from a mile away, and the central thrust (the thin line between artistry and madness) mostly falls off to the side, replaced by soap opera that isn't all that compelling.

    Perhaps there should be a spoiler warning in the thread title for those who want to read the novel "cold"?
     
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  3. zeppo1

    zeppo1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    South
    Yike. Just messaged a mod to ask to add "Spoiler" in the title. You wouldn't think this would be that kind of book, but I was pissed when I read
    about the rape
    before I read it in this article. Actually this article make me think I want Pete's work to be different than he wants it to be. He says here
    “This isn’t about celebrities or powerful men having sex with younger women,” he says. “It’s about rape, at least that’s one of the strands, and the insinuation of rape. It’s about the possibility of it when people are at a wedding, they take drugs, they get smashed and they have sex. Who is responsible if both people are smashed?”

    Ha! I did not even realize I referred to Paul/Nik as Ray. I was just watching Psychoderelict a few weeks back. I guess I do look at this as one big continuum. I thought we would finally get to the bottom of this Lifehouse"/"GridLife" one note stuff with Paul/Nik and Walter. More interesting by far than soap opera. I think I felt the same way when I read Pete's bio. Really interesting at the start --- hearing music and all the craziness he feels, the creative stuff--- then a bunch of anecdotes about how drunk/drugged he was from the middle to end.
    Indeed!

    sidenote: Just saw an interview where in talking about selling the film rights, Pete has Roger in mind to play Paul/Nik.
     
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  4. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I hadn't read the Rolling Stone interview ... and I'm awfully glad I didn't before I read the book! Talk about a spoiler! That particular subplot did absolutely nothing for me - it was just a distraction from the more interesting plot line

    as was all the "who put who up for adoption" nonsense, which was all so obvious. I also felt like it was Pete's way of making certain that the audience wouldn't sympathize with the Louis character, who has some autobiographical elements.

    Like you, I wanted more about the creative process.

    Considering what we know of Pete's childhood abuse, it's interesting that his "powerful" female character kills her sexually abusive father.
     
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  5. gregorya

    gregorya I approve of this message

    Perhaps the working title for the complete project is "Wifehouse"... ;)
     
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  6. zeppo1

    zeppo1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    South
  7. mrjinks

    mrjinks Optimistically Challenged

    Location:
    Boise, ID.

    Doesn’t sound like this is very good...

    I saw an offer for a signed book and was tempted, since I don’t think Pete will stop by to sign any LPs/CDs in my collection, but you guys have me second guessing.
     
  8. RayS

    RayS A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Slower

    Location:
    Out of My Element
    I don’t know that someone who is not a fan of Townshend’s music would get a whole heck of a lot out of reading this book. As a big fan of Townshend’s lyrics and his concept pieces, I’m happy to have read the book as it provides a bit of further insight into the themes that have been running through his work for 50 years. For someone just wanting to read a well-crafted work of fiction, this isn’t it, IMO.
     
  9. mrjinks

    mrjinks Optimistically Challenged

    Location:
    Boise, ID.
    Well, though I may not join together on Who/Townshend threads, I have 90+% of his work. I just don’t know if buying a potentially underwhelming signed book for $50 is worth it!

    Thanks for chiming in though, Max!
     
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  10. zeppo1

    zeppo1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    South
    I agree with RayS, if you are into Townshend's work, you will get something out of it. The first half, mostly.

    It's frustrating how it veers off halfway through into a melodramatic soap opera. You get the impression that if he stuck with 'the madness of creativity' themes, it would have been fantastic. The ideas of just what constituents music and where it comes from are fascinating, and I thought that was to be the main thrust of it all.

    I think when Pete does fiction, he has trouble focusing and here has tacked on stuff to fit his idea of what makes a 'proper' novel. But I'm glad I read it, and got so much out of the first half I will most likely re-read in the future.
     
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  11. zeppo1

    zeppo1 Forum Resident Thread Starter

    Location:
    South
    I wish he would have stayed away from the stuff he talks about here:

     
  12. Elliottmarx

    Elliottmarx Always in the mood for Burt Bacharach

    Location:
    Los Angeles
    Frankly, I found the book to be a little tedious; certainly joyless.
    Having access to spirituality is portrayed as a burden.
    Not having access to spirituality is also portrayed as burdensome.
    I did like that everyone's access to spirituality - whether through drugs, divinity, madness
    was treated equal.
    While I didn't feel that it worked as a novel, I am interested in seeing how it plays out in other narrative forms.
     
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  13. Jet Age Eric

    Jet Age Eric Forum Resident

    Location:
    SIlver Spring, MD
    Finished it last night. It is inconceivable to me that anyone edited it. I really liked Horse's Neck and Pete is my favorite artist, so I was predisposed to enjoy this but the book reads like a first draft. -E
     
  14. JerryGarciaIsGod

    JerryGarciaIsGod Active Member

    Location:
    Scotland
    I am waiting for the paperback that is due out on the 1st OCT. Anyone got any other opinions of the book? I am a big Townshend fan and loved his autobio.
     
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  15. pocketcalculator

    pocketcalculator Forum Resident

    Location:
    New York City
    I haven't read this book, and based on the comments above, don't plan to, but I do notice some similarities to Pete's memoir, Who I Am. I read it hoping to get more insight into the members of the Who and how they created their music, and instead got a lot of detail about groupies, affairs, and Pete moaning about the problems he caused himself. Viz Elliotmarx's comment above, it doesn't seem like he enjoyed living any of it. For someone who is capable of writing songs of great compassion and insight, the degree of obliviousness in his prose as to whether it will interest anyone less self-absorbed than Pete is pretty striking. Maybe it's that when he puts those concerns into songs, the listener doesn't feel it as self-absorption because they are hearing the song in their own voice, or as a character's voice, rather than being stuck in a recital of uninteresting events. And/or maybe that's just the power of the music that Pete makes.
     
  16. peteham

    peteham Senior Member

    Location:
    Simcoe County
    Having been gifted this a couple of years ago, I finally got around to reading it. It’s hard to disagree with you - it does feel like an early draft, right down to the character of Nik suffering from leukaemia on page 146, to then be dying of colon and stomach cancer 40 pages later.
    In any case, I found the book to be disappointing - precious, strangely bland and often quite hackneyed. To be fair, I had just finished John Fante’s ‘Ask The Dust’ and Olga Tokarczuk’s ‘Drive Your Plow Over The Bones Of the Dead’, which I found both to be superb. My absolute affection for Pete as an artist though, remains undiminished.
     
    Last edited: Nov 20, 2021
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  17. Brian Doherty

    Brian Doherty Forum Resident

    Location:
    Los Angeles CA
    Just...awkward. Thematically, plot, character, incident, prose, the breaks to recreate the sounds Walter was creating.....just a really strange uncompelling mess of things for a mind and writer who has been as incisive and powerful as Pete as a songwriter to produce. Exactly what it was he wanted to get across about music, creativity, women, lust, family, all a bit unclear and not a lot of fun or vividness on the way through the murk.

    I agree it was clearly barely edited. The random paragraphs of physical description of characters who are there for just one graf....the buildup of Louis profession at the start which becomes strangely irrelevant quickly.....I honestly began losing track of which seductive witchy woman was daughter or lover to who and in what order after awhile....his daughter just disappears from the scene halfway through.....not much to love.

    While not thrilled at the idea of any future concept lp being based on this, I can be assured I'll find THAT more interesting than the book.

    Except obviously for "Hero Ground Zero" are any other released songs by Pete known to be part of this song cycle/concept/whatever? I could imagine "She Rocked My World" maybe?
     
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  18. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    I have had this for ages - or since it was released but it seemed overwhelming or not engaging those moments I opened the book, but now, I am into it. I see 23 chapters. Kind of like a double album ;). Or 3 books. Perhaps a triple album ;).

    I have read bits and pieces only so far and so far agree with much of what I have read up-thread here. I wonder if it wouldn't be too much a burden in the thread if I post here my impressions of the book, chapter by chapter, as I read it? I am not really looking for a clear story as such, but moments of clarity or instances of poetry. Language. Ideas. In paragraphs, pages, chapters, that catch my fancy or ear, and might seem adaptable to lyrics, songs, music also. If I can do that perhaps it will be of some small use or modest service.

    Perhaps the book could have started with the postscript? Reminds me some of Tea and Theatre .

    FWIW I am always searching for clues and looking for connections in music, art, and fiction. Imagined or real. That is part of what makes Townshend's work fascinating to me.Parts of this book likely may be no different. It's 1st paragraph may as well echo, for me, a fictional alternate view of Roger Daltrey as Tommy. The 2nd paragraph a very loosely albeit differently sketched distant glimpse into I Am Secure. A line in a sentence in the 3rd paragraph taken nearly direct from BOR. And perhaps also a shadow of a story that has evolved into this The Age of Anxiety? Time to have a look and see and find out I suppose.
     
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  19. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    This afternoon I thought I had something of merit to say about this book. Instead this afternoon seems like eons ago now. So, to be brief, fwiw. These are some of my impressions so far...

    I like it. I am more than halfway through Book 1 of 3. About 60 pages or so in. It's an opera ain't it. I found it kind of funny or I gave the reader a pat on the back as after finishing paragraph 2 on page 63 the cumulative effect of the novel dawned or dimmed on me and I thought to myself, this is an opera. Then I read the 1st line of the next paragraph - And so the opera can begin. Well, I felt kind of rich there for a moment.

    At first I was enjoying the mix and blend of narrative with dialogue. Also, the writing style. It seemed short and brief and to the point. Short sentences or ones that didn't meander or wander as much as I anticipated. Then, more narrative.

    My first impressions from the start and more apparent to me, in my own limited scope, is I kept recalling the tone of the narrative as something I've read before. Perhaps in different character but I was having flashbacks to The Fall by Albert Camus. Then I was thinking a bit of John Banville. And Paul Auster. Mind me fwiw I felt there are paragraphs or pages in the book so far that seem rather dashed off, maybe haphazardly so. But I had to focus to keep the characters known to me and I've started to enjoy their emerging story.

    Perhaps it's greatest strength so far is in its pacing and momentum. It's odd I feel that way as I have also felt paragraphs and pages to also be tedious, uneventful, repetitious, but I am enjoying this book up to this point.

    If someone else wrote this novel, I have no idea what I'd think of it, despite trying to be a 'discerning' or 'unbiased' reader.
     
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  20. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    On the verge of finishing Book 1 about 1oo pages in. Posting again after having read it too long ago (some hours ago ;)) to be more specific about my impressions. Enjoying the large cast of characters and how they are interwoven. Back to much more dialogue now, mixed with short narrative. The language, story, kinda rings true for me so far. I expected something more lyrical and flowing so to speak. This is more exacting. There are detailed descriptions, of both the visual and psychological, plus the observational asides and 'insights' of and from the narrator. The soundscapes are so far rather a rare occurrence in explicit terms or words. When they do appear that's when some of that reaching for more poetic language emerges. When that happens, I am reminded sometimes of those 'chapters' in Calvino's Invisible Cities. There have been moments - paragraphs, sentences, a few twists - that have made me take pause and consider. A few of those lines or passages need context, others do not. One of the simple phrases, repeated twice in the same paragraph, needs context, to make an impression imo, but it was this simple phrase - "young teenagers" (I don't even know if I have the phrase right) that brought me back to 13, 14, 15 as opposed to 17, 18, 19, and it made me take notice of myself. There have been other lines, phrases, paragraphs that have done similarly. One final thought for now is I like that the story has an equal or larger focus on 'young people' and those 'adults' who are caught up in their world, as such.
     
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  21. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Is it possible to agree mostly or somewhat with the criticisms above and yet still find the book has merit and worth reading. Afraid to add a question mark! :). I have found it, so far, thusly? so. I have found it at times to be humorless and tedious (as mentioned above) but to a smaller degree I suppose. I have 'gotten' a lot or something out of this book (up to about page 160) for myself.

    Unfortunately for me and fortunately for you too ;):) I never seem to be able to post here about my reading of the sections I've read until hours or days later and whatever insight I thought I had to share is generally diminished or missing. I wrote a few words down last week that I thought were applicable to what the characters and story were conveying, as I interpreted it.

    Insecurities, vulnerabilities, foibles, peculiarities, wayward, groupies, incestuous (figuratively), impulsive, intimate, rash, mercurial.

    I enjoyed the maze. I have enjoyed the somewhat original? idea of the narrator being a godfather and to one of the main characters and what this means to the narrator. I've enjoyed the stories of the women. Each seem to have their own identity. I have been moved by some of the soundscape descriptions (page 161) and other short passages in the text.

    I've enjoyed the characters of Louis, Walter, and Crow.

    I can't say I have a lot riding on what happens with the outcome of the book and yet as I write that I am reminded that one of the things the book has reminded me of is in fact or fiction that my mere reading of the book requires effort, concentration, and a commitment in doing so, and in some small way, feeds my own creative impulses and desires.

    I do believe from personal experience fwiw and part of what the book focuses on is that creativity can be a burden and one need the tools to manifest such creativity and I also like the mentoring angle the godfather takes on whether out of love or pride or selfishness or ego. Like I say, I have 'gotten' a lot or some things out of reading this book and I don't know how the story will end, but really, its constituent parts up until now have given me enough.
     
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  22. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    Some music? One of Hero Ground Zero's own tunes? Every band should record a song with their name as part of the chorus and as the song title ;). Who Are You ;).

    RayS you have stressed in a few of your posts how this song and the book are entwined. Thanks for posting the connection.

    On an album where I like Roger's vocals, I feel like fwiw he could have done better on this one? imo. The song and especially the music in it makes more sense to me while reading the book.

    Going to try to find a good concert take online...with good sound ;)

     
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  23. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    I think this one has more life to it imo. Roger is pushing his voice more here and his articulation is clearer imo and his tone is more resonant. I enjoyed this.

     
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  24. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    I have been intrigued with this book. Almost finished reading it.

    More Age of Anxiety soundtrack? Crow gets the music for the chorus, Walter the lyrics, and the Hansons'(?) the verses and shimmering, pulsating musical outro? Sounds like a collaboration between Walter's Stand and the Hero Ground Zero band! ;):).

     
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  25. dee

    dee Senior Member

    Location:
    ft. lauderdale, fl
    I didn't know Dingwall's (where Walter's band played?) was the name of a real club and in Camden?

    Yeah I wen down the rabbit-hole...

    Highway To Hell: The Life & Times Of AC/DC Legend Bon Scott: on Monday evening, February 18, 1980, Bon phoned Silver Smith to invite her along to see a band at Dingwalls in Camden, north London. Silver declined, but said she had a friend – Alistair (sometimes spelled Alasdair) Kinnear – who would be delighted to accompany him. In the end, Bon and Kinnear ended up at the Music Machine, a venue just down the road from Dingwalls at the bottom end of Camden High Street, near Mornington Crescent Tube station.

    What Really Happened On The Night Bon Scott Died?
     
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