Eldon My Prefect Cousin

A Short Biography of Paul Hamilton
Main
ISBN: 978-0-571-28312-5
Verlag: Faber & Faber
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 160 Seiten

Eliot, Heaney, Auden, Larkin, Plath. Faber & Faber are famous the world over for publishing the works of the giants of poetry. And now with My Prefect Cousin they are proud to introduce to you the poems of cult poet Paul Hamilton. Paul who? A reasonable question. Hamilton, once described by the Poetic Literary Review as 'a diabolical libertarian', has remained firmly under the public radar ever since he first started writing poetry in the early nineties. But now it is time for him to receive the recognition he deserves. Hamilton's cousin, Kevin Eldon, stand up comedian and stalwart of numerous television and radio comedies over the last twenty years, presents a fascinating insight into the life, work and times of a poet who stands in a class all of his own. My Prefect Cousin charts the roller coaster ride of a life dedicated to verse; the emotional highs, the murky depths, with personal contributions from Hamilton that are often characterised by a brutal honesty that is not for the faint hearted. Or indeed the weak stomached. My Prefect Cousin also contains for the very first time on the printed page 'Shadows of Reflections', the anthology of poetry Hamilton has failed for so long to find a publisher for. Until now.

Kevin Eldon started his career as a character based stand-up comic and has since collaborated with many of the top names in British comedy. His BBC Two television show, It's Kevin, was broadcast in 2013 to great acclaim, building on the success of his Radio 4 show, Kevin Eldon Will See You Now. Some of the comedies he has been involved with include Big Train, Jam, I'm Alan Partridge, Hunderby, The IT Crowd, Hot Fuzz, Four Lions and Martin Scorsese's Hugo.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Eldon, Kevin

Leseproben

RECEIVING THE BRIEF

When my agent contacted me in early 2011 to inform me that the publishers Faber & Faber were interested in having me in for ‘a little chat’, I felt a rush of tingling excitement. This was indeed a very pleasant surprise. An avid reader since childhood, I was one of those many people who had always idly speculated to themselves that probably, when they had the time and ‘a really good idea’, they would at some point clear their desk, roll up their sleeves and Write A Book.

I had been enjoying something of a surge of interest from all kinds of quarters following a fairly successful run of my first-ever one-man show at the Edinburgh Festival the previous summer. And now, it seemed, an actual publisher – Faber & Faber, no less, brokers of such literary luminaries as T. S. Eliot, Kazuo Ishiguro, Seamus Heaney and Ted Hughes – had obviously caught wind of how good I was with words and languagey stuff and all that kind of hoo-ha and decided, ‘This Eldon chap must be snapped up.’

Flattered as I was, after the initial thrill more sober thoughts began to occur. What did I have to offer this esteemed institution exactly? Nothing definitive, as far as I could see. A showbiz autobiography didn’t seem a realistic option: I hadn’t appeared regularly on any panel shows, I had no connection with reality TV, nor had I ever been a topless model. And anyway, at fifty years of age I was far too old for the celeb autobiography game. As we all know, if you’re beyond thirty you’re way over the hill as far as that particular branch of modern culture is concerned. On top of all that, surely I was ineligible anyway due to my ability to write fairly coherent sentences in English all by myself?

I turned my thoughts to the possibility of writing a biography about someone else. I have long been a fan of the popular Liverpool pop combo the Beatles. Could I perhaps write about them? Ah, but what, in an already oversubscribed market, could I bring to the table that was fresh and new? True, I had once talked to a taxi driver who, in September of 1963, had fallen into conversation with John Lennon in the canteen of Teddington Lock studios. He had told Lennon that his girlfriend was a Scouser. On hearing this, Lennon had turned to the other Beatles and remarked, ‘Hear that, lads? He’s nicked one of our birds!’

It’s a fascinating story, gritty, witty and charming, but could I eke an entire book out of it? My gloomy conclusion was that I could not.

And that left The Novel. Had I a novel in me? Over the years I’d occasionally put half a mind to the task, but I’d never got much further than the vaguest of notions:

• There’s this man. During the novel he changes in some way.

• A ghost story, but with some really weird bits in it.

• Something about alienation in a fragmented world.

Quite independently of any fully formed contexts, every now and then I’d come up with a couple of fairly promising opening lines:

• Benji’s face belonged on a totem pole.

• There’s something about an octopus that brings out the mother in me.

• ‘Stand quite still,’ breathed Inspector Barnes, ‘or lie quite still – for ever.’

Sadly, though, these few scraps were the sum total of my pitiful attempts to become the next Dickens.

It really did not look good. And yet, I reasoned, faint heart never wrote good book. It was time to apply a bit of the old positive thinking: chin up, steady the Buffs, and all that! Wasn’t this in fact a glorious challenge? Hadn’t it been Faber & Faber who had approached me in the first place? And now that I was being sought after, courted even, who knew what creative portals this attention would unlock?

Thus I felt my resolve harden. Or at least become a little less jelly-like.

I had never met a literary publisher before, but I had a very set idea. What had I expected? A bluff, slightly eccentric bluestocking in her mid-sixties, that’s what. And, on being shown into Fanny Stott’s office, on the third floor of the Faber & Faber building in Bloomsbury, I did indeed find my hand being heartily wrung by a slightly eccentric, urbanely exuberant bluestocking in her mid-sixties.

Fanny was charming and very upbeat. She had ‘heard great things’. I don’t know what great things she had heard exactly, or even if they pertained to me, but I grinned, nodded and mumbled vaguely acquiescent half-phrases, hoping that my reactions were more or less appropriate. After what I suppose was a conventional period of genial chitchat, she got down to business.

There was, apparently, currently something of a buzz about me. But not, she toothily informed me, quite enough of a buzz to set the hive a-trembling. However, she went on, I did constitute half a buzz which, if joined up with another half a buzz, could amount to an entire buzz that would set the bee-keepers a-scurrying. And everyone, simply loves honey, don’t they!

She paused here, regarding me with a lopsided grin and eyebrows raised to nearly above her head. This was awkward. I was clearly expected to offer some sort of retort, but in fact I had absolutely no idea what she was banging on about. Just nodding slightly and giggling feebly was, I felt sure, not going to move things on. I prayed desperately for some clarification. And then it came. Four syllables. One name.

‘Paul Hamilton,’ she said.

Paul Hamilton. Poet. Unpublished. Unpublished poet and, incidentally, my cousin. I couldn’t really grasp the thrust of Fanny’s plan. What was the interest here? I mean, Paul Hamilton? Who? That would be the reaction of most people to whom you might mention his name. So why was he suddenly a topic for discussion regarding the subject of a book? I knew for a fact that Paul had been trying for years, with an unflagging lack of success, to get his poetry published with any and every publisher he could point his mouse at, including Faber & Faber, and had been very vocal in his frustration at their refusal to appreciate his art. I certainly understood their reservations. Paul’s poetry (like all poetry, of course) creates a very subjective reaction. And (like all poetry, of course) not always an entirely positive one.

Fanny, however, was all fired up.

‘The moment I found out you and he are related to each other I thought, “Now an intriguing possibility.” The thing is, Kevin, I really do feel that we at Faber & Faber are highly unlikely to ever publish Paul Hamilton’s poetry. But, that said, we would very much like to publish Paul Hamilton.’ She leaned back as if all was now clear.

I regarded her from across the desk, mouth half open, my eyebrows raised even higher than hers. If that were possible.

She leaned forward again.

‘I’ve only talked to him on a couple of occasions. At poetry readings. Oh, and he sort of barged in here once, demanding to be seen. But I’ve been to see him perform quite a few times, and you’ve got to admit, he’s extraordinary, isn’t he? Just extraordinary!’

I gurgled a non-committal. I had been to see him on two occasions, and although there was no doubting the sheer intensity of the man and his verse, it was all just a little bit too earnest for my palate. Fanny rose and sauntered over to the window, seemingly oblivious to my incomprehension.

‘There’s something about that level of self-belief,’ she said, peering distractedly at the London traffic below. ‘Fascinating, don’t you think? Oh, and of course he’s hilarious! I shake like a blancmange every time he opens his mouth!’

I found this hard to take in. With Paul’s intensity comes a very dry seriousness, albeit dampened by occasional sprinklings of a certain whimsy. Personally, I had never, to my knowledge, been rendered helpless with laughter.

Fanny returned to her battered swivel chair.

‘Think of it, Kevin. A man with an unbreakable confidence in his artistic worth who has, year in, year out, met with a total lack of commercial success and recognition. It’s a wonderful example of faith in oneself. Of limitless tenacity.’ Here she paused, eyes twinkling. ‘Or, some scallywags might say, utter self-delusion.’

‘Oh, I don’t think he’d be too keen to be associated with the notion of self-delusion,’ I said.

‘Exactly!’ she snapped, slapping the desk resoundingly with the palm of her hand. ‘Thing is, you’ve known him all your life. You have unique access, as it were. On a number of levels. So,’ she trilled, lighting what I can only describe as a small cheroot, ‘here’s the deal: on the one hand, there’s you with your small but dedicated fan base from all your comedy malarkey; and, on the other, there’s the phenomenon of Mr Hamilton with his little ditties and fascinating idiosyncrasies. Now, separately, to be brutally honest, there’s little there that we would be exactly champing at the bit to put out. But yoke ’em together and … bingo! Hmm? Hmm?’

So there you go. That’s more or less how the whole thing kicked off.

Walking out of the building two hours later that February afternoon, all of my fears and misgivings had been...