Bits of me are falling apart: Dark Thoughts From The Middle Years
Physically, he is fraying at the edges. Bits of him are fa One morning in August , William Leith wakes up and realises that something is wrong. Bits of him are falling apart. But then again, so is everything else - the economy, the environment, the very fabric of society. With his trademark darkly humorous mix of personal story and social commentary, Leith attempts to answer the question: Or is it just him? He examines the ageing process in humans, and in everything else as well, from the universe to the banking system. And he comes to realise that, even if he can't solve the problems of the world, at least he has a thorough understanding of failure.
Paperback , pages. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. May 07, Joe Mahoney rated it really liked it.
I would debate the author's assertion that in his mid-forties he's old I'm in my fifties and don't quite feel old yet but perhaps he's led a rougher life than I have. All told, an entertaining read, filled with all sorts of interesting little tidbits of information.
Bits of me are falling apart
A little on the bleak side considering its subject matter, but I enjoyed this honest, personal, and frequently amusing book. May 01, Christopher Nye rated it it was amazing. I just reread this 3 years after reading it the first time, and now at the same age as Leith was then. While I enjoyed it the first time, I absolutely loved it this time. It's frequently hilarious and genuinely interesting on topics as diverse as James Dean's last thoughts or how Samoans found Easter Island, or how Nelson climbed up a ship with only one arm, to the banking crisis, to house prices, to the aging process and the basic stuff about how and why we are here There are more quotable l I just reread this 3 years after reading it the first time, and now at the same age as Leith was then.
There are more quotable lines that any book I've read recently my girlfriend is sick of me quoting them and it has the best lack-of-money anecdotes I've ever read. It also covers the feelings of being a middle-aged father to an only child beautifully and movingly. I love this book Sep 13, Ukgardenfiend rated it liked it. An interesting book - possibly more for the 'boys' than the 'girls' as they may empathise more.
That said, very interesting collection of random thoughts well written into a rather short story of his day or his current - rather depressing life. You could argue that a; he deserves to fall apart after the life he has led b; that he really should go to a doctor as the bits that are falling apart could be serious - but c; he is a coward, and d; perhaps his health is so bad that he is going to die you An interesting book - possibly more for the 'boys' than the 'girls' as they may empathise more. At least in other parts of the world, Steel moans, the left "comes to grief because they're shot, imprisoned or exiled".
He can no longer avoid the fact that the left is in denial. When Steel doubts the SWP claim that the party has 10, members, he's told: Time to cancel the subs.
About Bits of me are falling apart
Time, too, to recognise that his bad marriage can no longer be sustained. Unlike Leith, Steel does some serious rethinking, and does not just suffer loss. He wonders, against his former SWP judgment, if small-scale, personal dissent against the local McDonald's or Tesco doesn't have more effect than he'd thought.
If the organisation and networks of the old left were grafted on to the new popular forms of opposition, there might still be hope for a new socialism in which the young can participate. Both men are writing in and of their late 40s, complaining about finding themselves stuck in the human condition, suddenly aware that, quite possibly, there's less time to come than there has been already.
For my money, Mark Steel whines better. It used to be that men went all weak-kneed and mortality-conscious in their 30s, but it takes longer to grow up these days. Just imagine how those of us in our 60s are feeling, and man up, guys. Society books Mark Steel reviews. For the next pages we accompany him on the journey to the house where his ex-family lives.
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This makes it sound like a long journey, but in fact they live only a mile or two from one another. Walking it - which is what he does - would take even the hefty Leith of his last book, The Hungry Years, less than an hour.
See a Problem?
During that walk, though, Leith's mind drifts off into so many rambling but pointed reveries that the book begins to read like an Odyssey. What starts out as a mid-life misery memoir gradually turns into a stream-of-consciousness stumble through the state of the nation. The stumble is never less than entertaining, though I am not convinced that the parallels Leith draws between his own decline and what he sees as the deterioration of the wider world stack up. While I have no doubt he is right to believe that the result of the dash for economic growth is a lot less happiness, I'm not sure it makes sense to compare the ageing process to the havoc the credit crunch is wreaking.
Unless we are sure that Marx was right when he talked about capitalism's propensity for self-destruction, and unless we are sure we are watching that self-destruction take place right now, wouldn't we do well to believe that the economy will be growing again a few years from now? On the other hand, it's certain that over those same few years you and I and Leith will have moved even closer to the boneyard.
Could it be that Leith - like Martin Amis, whose seductively repetitive prose style his own shamelessly apes - is trying to aggrandise his problems by suggesting they are microcosms of some larger malaise? This is a book about a man coming to terms with the realisation that he will never convince more than a few people of the wisdom of his heartfelt ideological beliefs, over which he has clumsily draped the story of the bust-up of another not-quite marriage. Maybe I'm wrong and Steel did want to write about his private life. But while the bulk of his book - which documents his dawning awareness that, in the age of New Labour, socialism is a busted flush - bubbles over with amused fury, it rapidly loses pressure whenever he starts griping about having to find himself a bachelor pad.
A solipsist like Leith can perhaps be forgiven for believing man is the measure of all things.