Today I was rewarded with a reminder of why I stay the course on my self-induced challenge to read each and every title on the English professorial crowd-sourced list of 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. I had to visit CommonwealthCatalog.org to locate a copy of a 1960 edition of Absolute Beginners from the Middlebury College library. It took me just a few couch sits to finish the book and now I wonder why such a creative expression of teenage longing and discovery is out of print.
It’s true that Colin MacInnes’ work is time-stamped; it recreates the day to day rambles of a 19 year old jazz-loving, scene-seeking guy living in a less appreciated neighborhood of London in the summer leading to the 1958 Nottingham race riots. The language - spades, poofs, coloureds - is both outdated and offensive, but the themes are unfortunately still relevant today. The protagonist is hip to the individuality and worth of all “cats”. He navigates between childhood friends in the white “Teddy” gangs and new immigrant neighbors while keeping his morality intact.
This book captures the emerging role of the teenager in post-WWII society, even before the well-documented cultural changes of the 60’s. In 1958, this kid thinks the glory years of the authentic teenager are on their way out and are being replaced by “absolute beginners” and their hanger-ons. He writes
“the kids discovered that, for the first time since centuries of kingdom-come, they’d money, which hitherto had always been denied to us at the best time in life to use it, namely when you’re young and strong, also before the newspapers and the telly got hold of this teenage fable and prostituted it as conscripts seem to do to everything they touch...it had real savage splendour in the days when..our world was to be our world, the one we wanted and not standing on the doorstep of somebody else’s waiting for honey”
I’m not the first one struck by the continued relevance of this novel. David Bowie wrote original music for a 1986 film based on the book. Critics weren’t kind to the movie but David Bowie’s song Absolute Beginners was a hit. I’d say any book endorsed by an original cat like David Bowie is worth a read - if you can find it.