TO
THROW AWAY UNOPENED –
VIV ALBERTINE
As is my wont, after reading a book I tend to write down a few
thoughts and reflections on it though it's purely for my own benefit,
I might add; it being a bit like visiting somewhere and taking a
photograph of that place. It's never a review or a critique of the
book as such but rather a lot of doodling, really. A blurry snapshot
taken on an old Box Brownie.
Having jotted down my reflections (which is usually in a notepad as I
gaze blankly out of the train window at the sea on my daily commute)
I sometimes then google the book I've just read to see what other
people have said about it – on Goodreads, Guardian Review, etc. A
lot of these writers, book reviewers and critics, however – they're
not very good, are they? Do half of them even read the book they're
reviewing or do they just skim through it, I wonder? Have they even
read the same book as me I sometimes even ask?
After reading Viv Albertine's debut book, Clothes, Music, Boys,
one of the things I noted was that in as much as the book is about
the Slits and Viv's life post-Slits, it's also very much about her
mother. In fact, it was Viv's mother, I wrote, who was the true
heroine of the book and that she deserved to be honoured in some way
for her services not only to Punk Rock but to creativity, art, and
womankind. 'Thank you, Mrs Albertine, for giving the world your
daughter', I wrote 'We salute you'.
I lay no claim to having any special insight into these things. My
perception is in no way unique. So this being the case, how come
no-one else seemed to pick up on this and give it a mention? How come
no-one else deemed it relevant to mention that the underlying theme
of Clothes, Music, Boys, isn't Punk Rock or the author's personal
demons but Viv Albertine's mum?
And so to Viv's second book, To Throw Away Unopened, where in
a lot of the online interviews with Viv in which she discusses it,
she tells us how she started writing it as a work of fiction about an
angry, middle-aged woman with murderous thoughts, before changing
course after realising that actually Viv was writing about herself.
Why not just go the whole hog, Viv told herself, and be honest about
the matter and write about herself in the most truthful and open way
as possible?
And indeed, Viv is extremely open and truthful in what she writes –
at times startlingly so. The thing is, however, To Throw Away
Unopened isn't really about Viv but like her last book it's about her
mum again. I say this with the caveat of it being about Viv as well
but only in the sense of the impact Viv's mum has had upon her and in
particular, the impact of her mum's death.
It was from the arena of Punk Rock that Viv sprang during her time in
the Slits and it was seeing the Sex Pistols and Johnny Rotten in
particular that gave her the impetus to pick up a guitar in the first
place. Both Viv and John went to to become iconic figures and because
they're from this same cultural gene pool it's interesting to compare
how they dealt with the same experience as in the death of parents –
an experience, of course, that we've all faced or are all going to
face at some point in our lives.
Following the death of his mother, John recorded Death Disco with
Public Image Ltd, a song that subsequently enjoyed good radio play
and engendered appearances on all the relevant television music
programmes at that time. 'Final in a fade, seen it in your eyes.
Words cannot express', John lamented to the tune of Swan Lake.
Death Disco was John's mother's epitaph. To Throw Away Unopened is
Viv's mum's epitaph.
In his song Public Image, the debut single from Public Image Ltd,
John declares that there are 'two sides to every story', and
again there is an unspoken link here with Viv's book. Having been
thrown to the wolves during his time with the Sex Pistols and his
personal identity blasted and mis-represented by Malcolm McLaren and
a thousand-and-one journalists, John was asserting his own truth and
his own actual identity, starting simply by using his own surname -
Lydon - rather than Rotten. 'I'm not the same as when I began',
John informs us 'I will not be treated as property'.
In To Throw Away Unopened, Viv is relentless in her search for the
truth about her parents and the reasons as to how she's ended up as
the person she is. There is absolutely nothing that Viv is unwilling
to write about. There are no secrets to conceal and no opinions to
withold. Ever forward she ploughs through the details of her family
background, her family life, her relationships, her sex life, her
bodily functions, her darkest thoughts, her parent's private diaries
even.
At times what Viv writes is disturbing and upsetting, particularly
when going through the diaries of her parents and when at her
mother's deathbed. There is no stone left unturned to get at the
truth and to be truthful, and it's this that makes Viv's book so
powerful. The fatal flaw in it, however, is that through no fault of
her own Viv ends up not with the truth but with a version of the
truth. Her version.
As John Lydon declared, there are 'two sides to every story' –
and on occasion even a million. Truth is semantic. Whether there is
but one Universal Truth or not is a question the greatest of
philosophers have mulled over since time began. In regards to the
lives we live, there is no one single truth – in my opinion. The
world and life itself is fragmented, fractured and multi-faceted.
It's a hall of mirrors. It's never simply black or white, or a
question of right or wrong, or of Left or Right but rather it's in
blazing, psychedelic technicolour and all rules are already broken.
There are no rules. Life is essentially anarchist by its very nature.
The world is a free-for-all.
In the final paragraph on the very last page of To Throw Away
Unopened, Viv writes three very simple words that after all the
spilling of guts, the pulling of skeletons from closets, and the
standing naked before the world slips by almost unnoticed: 'Truth
is splintered'.
This is the open-ended truth that Viv arrives at and what a relief it
comes as. This is the lesson that Viv has learned and the lesson Viv
departs to the reader. It is the lesson Viv's mum has passed on to
her daughter. There is nothing more really to say or to add to it,
leaving only the reader with the clear realisation that To Throw Away
Unopened is a very good book indeed. Powerful, disturbing,
fascinating, and emotional with flashes of anecdotal incidents that
are not only humorous but inspirational to boot – calling herself
Mrs Fuck Bollocks, throwing drinks over men who annoy, and ejecting
'posh twats' from bus seats. It begs the question, however: What
might Viv write about next for her third book? It's almost too scary
to think about.
John Serpico
