Absolute Beginners - Colin Macinnes

 

I seem to think that this 1959 British novel was mentioned in a Bowie book and, as it is about the early Mods (more or less), it sounded interesting to me and upon discovering that our library carried it, I grabbed it to see what it's all about.

What it is about is a teenage freelance photographer who dabbles in light porn to specific clients, but who is interested in hip jazz (Ella, Billie, etc.) and has an interesting group of friends. As an early/pre-Mod, he and his pals are interested in clothes'n'music, some dabble in drugs, there's plenty of sex, and Macinnes basically tries to outline the lives that these youngsters - newly labeled teenagers at the time - are living in London.

The narrator speaks in then-current hipster jive and has deep conversations about life, love, politics, philosophy, race and much more with his various friends - fellow teens, queens, lesbians, and others of various races and sexes. He's quite descriptive of the various aspects and areas of the city at the time and of the inhabitants thereof and every conversation  is deep and deeply felt by all involved, even if the subject matter may not be quite as deep as they make it out to be.

There is not a whole lot of plot - a few things happen here'n'there - a love interest, some work, and especially some racial tensions and fighting - and it seems like the main point of the book is to allow the main character to pontificate with his soliloquies. Of course, there are a few events around the conversations and then we get a very vague and somewhat odd (definitely unexpected) and unfulfilling ending.

I would have thought that I would have dug this one from the description and the subject matter, but it did not really connect with me. Such is life!