Because, no matter how hard I try, I just can't help imaging my teacher speaking into a microphone, watched by a tiny, pissed off-looking nurse and a horde of men in straitjackets with shaved heads. But, however, there's still another guy except from The Real Slim Shady who I'd like to stand up: Paul Murray.A few years ago, I read something in a magazine about Murray's second (and latest) book Skippy dies. As a kind of morbid teenager obsessed with anything that had to do with honorable Sir Grim Reaper, I asked my parents if I could have it for christmas, and Daniel "Skippy" Juster and the bunch of weirdos he calls friends soon also became my friends.
What's most exciting about Murray is how he manages to make his characters so incredibly realistic. The way they fuck up, fall in love, try to get through life somehow, their feelings, their charmingly sick sense of humor - it's wonderful, it's marvellous, and it's incredibly authentic, so authentic that it is hard to believe that all this was written by a 35 year-old bookseller and not a lanky young boy worried about spots and wether his parents will find about about the sticks secrets hidden in his browsing history. I've never been a teenage boy, but if so, I certainly would have had conversations like this one where a student is asked something in history class:
'(...)Mario?''What?' Mario Bianchi's head snaps up from whatever he is attending to, probably his phone, under the desk. 'Oh, it was . . . it was – ow, stop – sir, Dennis is feeling my leg! Stop feeling me, feeler!''Stop feeling his leg, Dennis.''I wasn't, sir!' Dennis Hoey, all wounded innocence. (...)
'Yes, Mario?''Uh . . .' Mario prevaricates. 'Well, Italy . . .''Italy was in charge of the catering,' Niall Henaghan suggests.'Hey,' Mario warns.'Sir, Mario calls his wang Il Duce,' says Dennis.'Sir!''Dennis.''But he does – you do, I've heard you. "Time to rise, Duce," you say. "Your people await you, Duce."''At least I have a wang, and am not a boy with . . . Instead of a wang, he has just a blank piece of . . .''I feel we're straying off the point here,' Howard intervenes.
This is such a great literary tribute to all the little teenage dirtbags out there.
And in the end, they will all rise and stand up - just like the real Paul Murray.
#FrankNewman #PaulMurray #Skippydies #therealslimshady
