Not so long ago, I had the pleasure of reading One on One: 101 True Encounters by Craig
Brown. According to the puff-pieces on the cover, a lot of people have some
very nice things to say about his latest book. Whether or not this is because
these reviewers fear that if they’re mean to him in print he might choose to
send them up in Private Eye, for
which he writes the spoof ‘diary’ column, is not for me to speculate.
Brown may be best known as a satirist but he’s playing this one with a straight bat. The premise is startlingly simple: Take two people who have only met in passing and write about said meeting in exactly 1001 words. Then have one of those people meet someone else, have this someone else meet up with another person, and so forth – until the 101st encounter, when the last person meets up with the first, thus completing the circle. The result is (perhaps inevitably) good in parts, and overall it works.
There are some very good vignettes here, such as the murder of Rasputin, the Queen’s visit to the dying Duke of Windsor, Terence Stamp giving some unconventional advice to a humourless Ted Heath, the Beatles meeting Elvis (they’re star-struck, he’s jealous of their success) and Howard Hawks getting so confused by the plot of The Big Sleep while adapting it for the movie that he contacts Raymond Chandler for some assistance, only to find that the man who wrote the book doesn't know who killed the chauffeur either.
Some people come across as two-faced to say the least, the best example being Noel Coward, who compliments the Beatles to Paul McCartney's face while privately thinking they're a bunch of ‘bad-mannered little shits’.
And there are some intriguing what-ifs, the top two of those being John Scott-Ellis running over (but not injuring) an up-and-coming politician by the name of Adolf Hitler, and Harry Houdini being asked (but declining) to go to Russia to unmask Rasputin as a fake.
All in all, this is an entertaining book that casts interesting views on a range of people and can be read either in one go or by dipping into it at any chapter of the reader’s choosing.
Brown may be best known as a satirist but he’s playing this one with a straight bat. The premise is startlingly simple: Take two people who have only met in passing and write about said meeting in exactly 1001 words. Then have one of those people meet someone else, have this someone else meet up with another person, and so forth – until the 101st encounter, when the last person meets up with the first, thus completing the circle. The result is (perhaps inevitably) good in parts, and overall it works.
There are some very good vignettes here, such as the murder of Rasputin, the Queen’s visit to the dying Duke of Windsor, Terence Stamp giving some unconventional advice to a humourless Ted Heath, the Beatles meeting Elvis (they’re star-struck, he’s jealous of their success) and Howard Hawks getting so confused by the plot of The Big Sleep while adapting it for the movie that he contacts Raymond Chandler for some assistance, only to find that the man who wrote the book doesn't know who killed the chauffeur either.
Some people come across as two-faced to say the least, the best example being Noel Coward, who compliments the Beatles to Paul McCartney's face while privately thinking they're a bunch of ‘bad-mannered little shits’.
And there are some intriguing what-ifs, the top two of those being John Scott-Ellis running over (but not injuring) an up-and-coming politician by the name of Adolf Hitler, and Harry Houdini being asked (but declining) to go to Russia to unmask Rasputin as a fake.
All in all, this is an entertaining book that casts interesting views on a range of people and can be read either in one go or by dipping into it at any chapter of the reader’s choosing.
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