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Свирка

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Радикалните организации в "свирка", бъкащи от скинари, пънкове, фанатици и манипулатори, имат повече или по-малко преки прототипи.
те до един са напълно уверени в своята правота, а в подобен свят единствените допирни точки са сексът и насилието... Появата на доскоро изчезналия лидер на анархистите - Стив Драмънд, насред градската улична война и размирици в Лондон, прави нещата убийствено лични...

First published January 1, 1996

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About the author

Stewart Home

95 books288 followers
Stewart Home (born London 1963) is an English writer, satirist and artist. He is best known for novels such as the non-narrative "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (2002), his re-imagining of the 1960s in "Tainted Love" (2005), and more recent books such as "She's My Witch" (2020) that use pulp and avant-garde tropes to parody conventional literature.

Home's unusual approach to writing is reflected in the readings he gives from his novels: he recites from memory, utilises ventriloquism, stands on his head and declaims his work and even shreds his own books.

Home's first book "The Assault on Culture: Utopian Currents from Lettrisme to Class War" (Aporia Press and Unpopular Books, London, 1988) is an underground art history sketching continuations of dadist and surrealist influences on post-World War II fringe radical art.

Home's first novel "Pure Mania" was published 1989 (Polygon Books), and details a violent neo-punk subculture. Unmistakenly postmodern but nfluenced by surrealism and the nouveau roman, it pushes the appropriation of pulp tropes and use of repetition found within historical avant-garde fiction to such an extreme that some critics mistook it for a piece of low-brow writing.

Home continued in much the same vein with his next four novels, starting with "Defiant Pose" (Peter Owen, 1991) and continuing with "Red London" (AK Press 1994), "Blow Job" (published in 1997 but written in 1994) and Slow Death (Serpent's Tail 1996).

All Home’s early fiction collages in large amounts of prose from a wide variety of sources – and while it is often close in spirit to the work of ‘postmodern extremists’ such as Kathy Acker, the appropriated material is much more heavily reworked than in the latter’s books.

The novels Home wrote after the mid-nineties featured less subcultural material than his earlier books and focus more obviously on issues of form and aesthetics. Home’s sixth novel "Come Before Christ And Murder Love" (Serpent's Tail 1997) featured a schizophrenic narrator whose personality changed every time he had an orgasm. This was the first novel Home wrote in the first person, and much of the fiction he wrote after this utilised the device of an unreliable first-person narrator.

"Cunt" (Do Not Press 1999) is a postmodern take on the picaresque novel. "69 Things to Do With A Dead Princess" (Canongate 2002) mixes porn with capsule reviews of dozens of obscure books as well as elaborate descriptions of stone circles, while in "Down and Out In Shoreditch & Hoxton" (Do Not Press 2004) every paragraph is exactly 100 words long. "Tainted Love" (Virgin Books) is based on the life of the author's mother, who was part of the London subcultural scene in the 1960s. "Memphis Underground" (Snow Books 2007) has a long conventional literary opening that is slowly unravelled.

Home’s 2010 novel "Blood Rites of the Bourgeois" (Book Works) is to date his only work written in the second person. The plot – as far as there is one - concerns an artist hacking the computers of London’s cultural elite to infect them with modified penis enlargement spam. Reviewing Home’s incredibly weird campus novel "Mandy, Charlie & Mary-Jane" (Penny-Ante Editions 2013) for The Guardian, Nicholas Lezard observes: “I think one of the great virtues of Home's work is the way it forces us to address our own complacency.”

"The 9 Lives of Ray The Cat Jones" (Test Centre 2014) is a fictional exploration of the life of one of the author's more infamous criminal relatives. "She's My Witch" (London Books 2020), is a love story exploring an unlikely relationship between a fitness instructor and a heroin addicted witch. "Art School Orgy" (New Reality Records, 2023) is a 'BDSM extravaganza'. Before this Home published his collected poems "SEND CA$H" (Morbid Books 2018) and a book about martial arts films "Re-Enter The Dragon: Genre Theory, Brucesploitation & The Sleazy Joys of Lowbrow Cinema" (Ledatape 2018).

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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
Profile Image for Παύλος.
233 reviews40 followers
July 8, 2017
Ποτέ δε κατάλαβα γιατι μου προκαλεί τόσο μεγάλο ενδιαφέρον η εικοσαετία 1980-2000 στην μεγάλη Βρετανία.

1) Δεν έζησα ποτέ εκεί
2) Δεν είχα ποτέ κανενός είδους εξάρτηση
3) Δεν ήμουν ποτέ φαν του punk κινήματος

Αλλά πραγματικά, αν τέτοια βιβλία δε περιγράφουν την κοινωνική πραγματικότητα όπως ήταν τοτε κανένα άλλο δε μπορεί!

Το συγκεκριμένο βιβλιο (στο οποίο πράγματι υπάρχει πολυ απο αυτό που περιγράφει ο τίτλος) παρουσιάζει μια ξέφρενη εικόνα των ακραίων ομάδων που μεσουρανησαν την εικοσαετία 1980-2000. Ακραίοι εθνικιστές συνταγμένοι σε φονικές ομάδες, αναρχικοί με ενέργειες καμικάζι, κοριτσόπουλα που γίνονται έρμαια στα χέρια του κάθε "ηγέτη" του κινήματος και κάθε καρυδιάς καρύδι θα παρελάσουν απο μπροστά μας.

Δε θέλω να γράψω την υπόθεση γιατι το βιβλιο ειναι μικρό και κάθε σπόιλερ μπορεί να αποδειχτεί καταστροφικό. Παντως σίγουρα αξίζει να διαβαστεί και να μπει δίπλα στον μεγάλο Irvine Welsh...

5/5 και λιγο ειναι.
Profile Image for Петър Стойков.
Author 2 books328 followers
December 3, 2025
Бунтовете и безредиците в Лондон и други британски градове в момента са много актуална тема, която ми напомни да препрочета тъничката Свирка на Стюарт Хоум – където авторът, чистокръвен британец и бивш комунист и скинхед, описва традициите на улично насилие на Острова и свързаните с него хиляди групировки и групировчици лумпени, в неподражаемо циничен стил…

Разбира се, бунтовете на живущите в гетата престъпници и паразити, които използват някакъв катализатор (някой от техните е насилен от полицията, защо ли) за да разграбят магазини и да застрелят конкурентната банда, са се случвали и преди. Това винаги е съпроводено с вой от страна на всякакви медийни и интелектуални измети относно „нарушени права“, „социален протест“ и други такива, макар да е очевидна вандалската и лумпенска същност на подобни прояви и прекалената сдържаност и нежелание на полицията да се справя с тях и да защитава мирните граждани от тях, както повелява закона.

Свирка описва обаче именно света на идеолозите на много подобни „бунтове“ – подземните радикални организации, които Стюарт Хоум добре познава от годините си на улиците, където покрит с качулка е хвърлял павета по полицията и по други закачулени свои събратя, с които се различава само по това коя безумна кауза са решили да защитават – Растафарианци-националисти за Чиста Англия, Революция с Че Гевара, Феминистичен съюз за Изтребване на Мъжките свини, Юбер хитлеристки съюз за Работнически права и каквито още се сетите. Събитията се развиват през 80-те години, иначе антиглобалистите и еко-талибаните също щяха да са неделима част от лумпените-революционери.

Романът е изключително интересен, защото докато използва хиперболизирани образи на самите организации (те се избиват с автомати и си въртят свирки нонстоп), разкрива невероятно точни подробности от кухнята – как подобни организации функционират, как набират членове и се издържат финансово, как се организират и най-вече какво мотивира техните ръководители и членове да участват. Показва и на какво интелектуално ниво са последните и как първите ги манипулират за своите цели и финансова и друга изгода.

А подигравката с идиотската интелектуална същност на фашистките, комунистически, работнически и националистически идеологии, на които тия „революционери“ се опират, щеше да напомня Пратчет, ако Пратчет беше на стероиди и алкохолик.
Profile Image for Jason.
312 reviews21 followers
January 19, 2020
If you have evey wondered what political activists on the far-right have in common with the far-left, Stewart Home’s novel Blow Job might be a good place to start. However, it is a work of parody and dark comedy so it may not be the best place to find a final answer to that question either.

As the novel begins, a street demonstration with a line of riot police separating white supremacist gangs from anarchist gangs results in a bombing. We are introduced to a street brwaling scene that replays itself over and over again throughout the story. Along the way, there are passages about dull meetings where Neo-Nazis belch out their moronic ideas about a societal rebirth in which they seize control over the country. The anarchists hold similar planning sessions, although the leadership is more concerned with selling their propaganda publications than anything else. The fascist feminist group The Church of Valerie Solanas embark on a quest to exterminate all men while their feminist white supremacist contingent, The White Seed of Christ, set out on a plot to give blowjobs to anarchists until the alleged anarchist leader Swift Nick Carter can impregnate one of them for the sake of giving birth to a white Jesus Christ who will rise up and dominate the world. Black and Indian nationalists and a communist Trotskyite party are involved in the mix too. The author has extensive knowledge about the intellectual and pseudo-intellectual ideological currents that hold these movements together in the non-fictional world.

Swift Nick Carter is hiding from the police. Writer’s block prevents him from writing the propaganda pieces he has been commissioned do for the Class Justice organization, run by Mike Armilus. Meanwhile Steve Drummond leads another bunch of anarchists but is more preoccupied with bedding his Catholic girlfriend who refuses to have sex with him. While these central characters are busy with more trivial matters, the youth leader Bogroll Bates organizes an army of angry punks and skinheads to riot and vandalize commercial districts of London. Similar happenings are going on with the far-right groups. The different bunches of political activists engage in gang warfare to the point where the story is like one big clusterfuck of violence.

A lot can be said about the way Home wrote Blow Job. His literary style is lifted from pulp novels of the 1970s. The language is sparse and lean. Repetition is used effectively for a purpose. The descriptions of gang fights are almost word for word the same with only small variations in the use of one or two words. This technique not only confronts the literary establishments official policy that good writers are not redundant but it also drives home the point that the right wing and left wing thugs are mostly all the same, similar people dressed up in different clothes and spouting different rhetoric. In fact, their theories of politics are so far out they function more as lines of demarcation rather than mature systems of belief that guide action and morality. The members of each political group are like empty slots in algorithmic formulas, empty spaces that can be moved from one section of a code to another without any noticeable difference.

The character Martin Smith is the explanatory narrative link between the two sides of extremists. When he decides to cease being the leader of the Trotskyist organization and embrace white supremacy, a lot is revealed about the whole story. One revelation is that he, as an activist leader, does not believe in either ideology. He masters the concepts of extremist thought then uses it to exert power over the young people he controls. While he does contrast fascism with communism and anarchism by saying that fascist language is easier to use because it is less intellectually complex, he also shows that exerting power over other people is his ultimate goal. The politics are just a cover. Beyond that, he really loves a good blowjob.

On the surface, oral sex is not the main subject of this novel. It is, however, the underlying desire that motivates the violent political behavior. Every man in the story really wants nothing more than to play in a proper game of tonsil hockey. Blowjobs are portrayed as the central enactment of power relations. The language used to describe the scenes of fellatio, often male on male, is redundant in the same way that the descriptions of street melees are. It is the same act performed by different people, revealing who is dominant and who is submissive, who is weak or powerful, who is controlled and who controls. In the end, all the men are really the same and all are craving a place on their feet or on their knees in the supreme and basic act of a good suck-off. But you may wonder why Home did not go all the way and have a chapter where a guy blows himself and shoots a load of splooge into his own mouth. That really would have put an interest twist in the plot, leading to more complexity in the philosophical implications.

Stewart Home makes his point well. It is clear and concisely laid out bare in the open for all to see. Blow Job really tells you what to think about the characters and there is not a lot of room for debate or interpretation. The writing style serves its purpose but it also makes the characters look two-dimensional and cartoonish but Home would probably say that is the whole point. If you read this as comedy and satire it works pretty well but it is not as polished or developed as some of Home’s later works like Slow Death or Cunt.

It is hard to tell where Stewart Home is coming from in this story. He sufficiently lampoons the radical right and left but he is no supporter of mainstream society either. Still, you can feel a sense of elation while reading about a Nazi skinhead getting his face kicked in by an anarchist or when punks are smashing store windows with bricks and baseball bats. The depiction of the police as brutal thugs with no regard for the law says a lot too. No one dodges the punches thrown by Home in his writing.

https://grimhistory.blogspot.com/
Profile Image for Frank Farrell.
105 reviews16 followers
July 15, 2018
Back in the 70's Richard Allen wrote a series of books about a skinhead called Joe. I remember reading the first one (Skinhead) and quite enjoyed the plot, which revolved around Joe's life of casual violence and sex. Well, I was young! He also wrote a book called Demo, which looked at the world of radical student politics (sex, violence AND drugs). I quite enjoyed that, too. Well, I was young.

Stewart Home has taken on board the genre and used it to satirise extreme political groups, both left and right. If you have read the Richard Allen books, you will quickly spot Home's indebtedness. It has a convoluted and totally unrealistic plot with lots of casual sex and violence, like Allen's.

The difference is that Home has a keen intelligence, wit, sense of humour and is extremely widely read. So the comic book narrative is interspersed by the type of critical political analysis beloved by extremists. Home clearly understands these well and creates very amusing parodies. His satire of the obsession with achieving newspaper sales targets will be appreciated by anybody who has ever had anything to do with fringe groups (or cranks, as I prefer to call them)

Lots of laugh out loud moments for me.
7 reviews2 followers
April 5, 2015
Цікаве чтиво про субкультури і політичну боротьбу на вулицях, написане в цілковитому треш стилі
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