Sinister: More Nalda Said gushing

[Nick.Dastoor at xxx.uk]

'Nalda Said is attracting great acclaim not because it is a book by the bass
player of Belle & Sebastian, but because it's a fabulous novel'?  Do they mean
in the original sense of 'fabulous'.  Enough carping, I really ought to read it
myself.

Far be it from me to give credence to anything Carsmile Steve says, but Stuart
David leaving has always seemed likely.  He always seems to be dissociating
himself from the whole thing.  Which is fine.  Awkward boy.  Like Jack Nicholson
in 'Five Easy Pieces', except not really at all.  Ailsa Ross thinks he only
writes songs like 'Paper Boat' and 'Winter Wooskie' to take the piss out of
Belle and Thebathtian, but I think that's a wicked thing to suggest.

I would join this tape tree, but I was hoping that the old one might be brought
back to life.  If anyone around the world has either of my two tapes I'd quite
like to know where they are.  Specifically, I'd like to know what the track
listings are.  Also, someone's tape had a lovely ramshackle cover version of
'Don't Worry Baby' by some indie band (Comet Gain?).  I have lost my copy of
this and have had no success finding out what record it appears on.  Can anyone
help?

Here's this then:

Paperback writers

It keeps Michael Stipe up at night and gives Bono a break from the day job. But
Nick Cave got it out of his system years ago. Dave Simpson on pop's love affair
with the novel

The Guardian,  Monday November 22, 1999
It's early evening in Leeds and 200 young people are staring at a guitarist. But
this isn't a gig. There's no lager, no dancing and no music. Stuart David, the
bespectacled bass player from Belle & Sebastian, is reading from a novel. What's
more, he wrote it.
Nalda Said is a work of fiction written by a pop star, and they're all at it.
Not autobiographies full of glossy photos, but actual creative writing. Bono is
preparing his magnum opus; Michael Stipe stays up late working on his; and the
unlikely figure of Royal Trux rocker Neil Hagerty has penned a fantasy yarn
called Victory Chimp. It's not just novels: the poetry compilation Oral features
surprisingly readable prose from the likes of Nicky Wire of Manic Street
Preachers, Robbie Williams, Jarvis Cocker, PJ Harvey, Shane MacGowan and many
more. But it seems that fiction is where it's at.
"Any pop star who decides to take himself seriously wants to write fiction,"
says the literary agent Cat Ledger. "They think writing's cool."
Their role models are the likes of Gil Scott-Heron, Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave,
who have all written acclaimed novels. "Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel
[published in 1988] was a superb book, truly exceptional," says Mark Stanton of
Edinburgh-based publishers Canongate. But can the new wave match it? "I get
scores of manuscripts," says Ledger. "Some of them are astonishingly bad - I
mean unreadable. These are people whose writing career should fit through the
middle of a Polo mint. Naming no names, of course, but as I see from my slush
pile, most of them couldn't even write their own sleevenotes."
Any pop star going into writing has the undoubted advantage of a "name",
something that should ensure that copies are sold. Stuart David sent three
manuscripts unsuccessfully before the publishers IMP became aware that chapters
of Nalda Said were appearing on his own website and became intrigued by the
prospect of a Brit-winning author.
"They said they would probably have published Nalda Said anyway," says David.
"But I don't think they would." The cover blurb makes great play of his
involvement in Belle & Sebastian, "whom Select magazine called the new Smiths".
However, a pop background can work against a pop writer, especially a famous
one. The old adage of "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" is
particularly relevant to pop novelists in often snooty literary circles.
"I think Nick Cave and Richard Hell's novels were very good," muses David Berman
of US rockers Silver Jews, also a published poet. "I'm sure their music careers
have aided them in getting published but did them a disservice when it came to
how the books were actually read. It becomes contextualised as 'moonlighting'."
Which is particularly ironic in Hell's case, as he hardly makes any music at all
nowadays.
So what makes a good pop novelist? Nalda Said is attracting great acclaim not
because it is a book by the bass player of Belle & Sebastian, but because it's a
fabulous novel. The story concerns the nameless son of a jewel thief, brought up
by his aunt Nalda, who convinces the boy that he carries one of his father's
hidden jewels inside his stomach. The fantasy-like narrative details his
subsequent terror of and interaction with society, who he fears will discover
his secret and steal his jewel.
Nalda Said is a stunning insight into reclusion, a sideways glance at
conservatism ("The character has his chance to change and doesn't take it. I
think a lot of people are basically like that," says David) and an allegory of
the way the business world treats art. What it isn't is about pop music. In
fact, there isn't so much as a pop record playing in the background. But Stuart
David has tapped into some very pop qualities - of fantasy and imagination.
The world of pop music exists in an almost parallel universe to everyday
society. The hours are irregular, there are all sorts of unusual characters who
simply wouldn't be able to operate in the "normal" world of employment, and the
whole exists in a kind of surreal bubble based around arrested development and -
particularly - the creation and indulgence of fantasy. But even within this
curious world, the pop musician is an outsider again - a nomad, a more
pronounced fantasist and (by nature as well as profession) an observer. All
qualities that make for good writing.
"I think pop pretty much influenced that character in the book," admits David.
"Even though it was written before I was releasing records, I was living like
that anyway. Quite cut off from normal nine-to-five society."
Novelist Magnus Mills, who himself underwent a gargantuan career shift from bus
driving to a Booker nomination with The Restraint of Beasts, identifies with
what we might call the loneliness of the long-distance pop singer. "As far as
I'm concerned, there's no reason a musician can't write a book, and there's a
chance it might be good, because of the solitary existence," he says. "Bus
driving is a similar parallel universe. I was determined not to waste my time.
Because of the nature of the job, you spend a lot of time either in your cab on
your own or working at funny times. I think solitude and loneliness are very
important to being a good writer."
It has to be said that Stuart David is not a regular pop person. Quietly spoken,
introspective, happily hermetic, and slyly, amiably subversive, he's less likely
to throw a television out of a hotel window than to sit down in front of it to
watch a programme about Rimbaud. His own life should provide a fount of
inspiration. He met his wife, Karn, after they had been pen pals for eight
years. They met once a year for seven, and then "just got married".
Appropriately, Nalda Said is a triumph not of wordplay, but of adventure -
something increasingly denied by a pop scene largely owned by four multinational
companies and increasingly forced into limiting, easily packaged areas.
Like many a great pop song, David's book grew from unlikely beginnings. "One of
my mum's friends once told me about a poem about a dog that ate straw and shat
diamonds," he says, admitting that his hero's fear of the outside world was
partly influenced by biographies of John Lennon, but that any direct pop
influences end there.
For some, the crossover is easy. David enjoys fiction because he was always
interested in reading and has studied creative writing. David Berman of Silver
Jews finds song writing easier than prose, but says it's "much harder to write a
great song". The KLF's Bill Drummond (whose new book 45 is out shortly)
considers himself "an artist who happens to have done some pop music".
But perhaps - as Magnus Mills suggests - there is a certain type of pop persona
that lends itself to fiction. "I'd read a book by Jimmy Page," says Mills. "I
mean, I'd imagine Julian Cope would probably write a novel [he has actually
written three works of non-fiction]. Ian Dury, Lou Reed, Paul Weller... You can
almost tell the types. I can't imagine anyone from Boyzone doing a book. That
would be ghostwritten by Jeffrey Archer."
Still, that doesn't mean we should stop hoping for literary excursions from the
likes of Martine McCutcheon, Gomez, Goldie and Celine Dion. At least it would
stop them making those bloody awful records.
? Nalda Said by Stuart David is published by IMP, price £7.99. Extracts can be
read at www.treehouse.clara.net/nalda.htm
Oral, edited by Sarah-Jane Lovett, is published by Sceptre, price £6.99.


Nick xx


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