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Wild Highway
Bill Drummond and Mark Manning's second trip was to Zaire, a jungle hell on the verge of bloody civil war, where they traveled down-river in search of the ghost of Conrad's Kurtz. By turns hilarious and horrifying, Wild Highway will cement the reputation of Drummond and Manning not only as cutting-edge writers, but as two of the most dangerous and subversive "pranksters" of the fledgeling 21st century.
432 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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September 16, 2020Part Two of Bill and Z's Big Adventure.
There's no point rating this. It is simultaneously compellingly mad (like its better predecessor) and childishly irritating. Drummond's stuck in a midlife crisis that manages to produce some reluctant, inadvertent flashes of occasionally brilliant insight amidst the tired self-loathing, while Manning's on a two-fisted adolescent trip to nowhere.
The provocations - the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, the cartoon sex and violence - are relentless and cranked up to the max, and the book's self-indulgent sprawl means the reveal of its knowing qualities comes clumsily, piecemeal, and late. (The book seems almost to have been written back-to-front, as it unfolds). But that self-indulgence, wearing though it can be, is also what allows its patchwork to contain some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. (Z's spiel about founding a new religion in Northern Ireland - no surrender Buddhism - is dementedly magnificent).
The literary allusions and influences are quite often just tiring (Wilde, Baudelaire, Moreau), but there's always a gusto to Bill and Z's necromancy. And the tension between a book you all know is going to be shaped by Heart of Darkness but which its authors really want to be Moby Dick is bound to produce some entertaining side effects even if it peters out inconclusively.
It's two clever men not knowing what they're doing, but being smart enough to recognise that and trying to make it make sense anyhow. And being doomed to failure helps. Their determination to overcome the shortcomings they're aware of has led them to throw absolutely everything into this one. It's difficult to think that they might have anything left for a third part of the trilogy.
There's no point rating this. It is simultaneously compellingly mad (like its better predecessor) and childishly irritating. Drummond's stuck in a midlife crisis that manages to produce some reluctant, inadvertent flashes of occasionally brilliant insight amidst the tired self-loathing, while Manning's on a two-fisted adolescent trip to nowhere.
The provocations - the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, the cartoon sex and violence - are relentless and cranked up to the max, and the book's self-indulgent sprawl means the reveal of its knowing qualities comes clumsily, piecemeal, and late. (The book seems almost to have been written back-to-front, as it unfolds). But that self-indulgence, wearing though it can be, is also what allows its patchwork to contain some genuine laugh-out-loud moments. (Z's spiel about founding a new religion in Northern Ireland - no surrender Buddhism - is dementedly magnificent).
The literary allusions and influences are quite often just tiring (Wilde, Baudelaire, Moreau), but there's always a gusto to Bill and Z's necromancy. And the tension between a book you all know is going to be shaped by Heart of Darkness but which its authors really want to be Moby Dick is bound to produce some entertaining side effects even if it peters out inconclusively.
It's two clever men not knowing what they're doing, but being smart enough to recognise that and trying to make it make sense anyhow. And being doomed to failure helps. Their determination to overcome the shortcomings they're aware of has led them to throw absolutely everything into this one. It's difficult to think that they might have anything left for a third part of the trilogy.
November 24, 2011
Where do you start with this book in terms of a review? For me it was a re-read, and I can still recall the day I spied it on the bookshelves of a shop - I had no knowledge it was "out there", but was immediately entranced by the prospect of reading the follow up to Bad Wisdom (I'm too lazy to link it!)
For the uninitiated, Bill Drummond and Mark Manning (Zodiac Mindwarp, or Z in the book) are sometime recording artists, artists and writers, who set out on a mission. In this book the mission is to recover their souls from the devil, deep in the Congo basin.
A simple enough premise, but the book is far from simple: it reads like a travelogue, but far from a Lonely Planet tome, this is laced with facts, lies and outright fantasy.
The writers adopt completely different styles, and the book is not an easy read, timelines and stories move back and forth, but it's crammed with imagery and ideas, not all of which are pleasant and easily palatable.
If you're looking for a twisted slant on a travelogue, with some important ideas underpinning it, then dive in, bathe in the madness and then have a nice cleansing shower afterwards.
If you're easily offended, or looking for an easy read, side step this one, it's not for you.
Personally I'm looking forward to the day the last part of the trilogy is unleashed upon the world
For the uninitiated, Bill Drummond and Mark Manning (Zodiac Mindwarp, or Z in the book) are sometime recording artists, artists and writers, who set out on a mission. In this book the mission is to recover their souls from the devil, deep in the Congo basin.
A simple enough premise, but the book is far from simple: it reads like a travelogue, but far from a Lonely Planet tome, this is laced with facts, lies and outright fantasy.
The writers adopt completely different styles, and the book is not an easy read, timelines and stories move back and forth, but it's crammed with imagery and ideas, not all of which are pleasant and easily palatable.
If you're looking for a twisted slant on a travelogue, with some important ideas underpinning it, then dive in, bathe in the madness and then have a nice cleansing shower afterwards.
If you're easily offended, or looking for an easy read, side step this one, it's not for you.
Personally I'm looking forward to the day the last part of the trilogy is unleashed upon the world
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July 27, 2011One of the oddest books I have ever read. So much so that I didn't have the foggiest idea how to rate this.
Iain Sinclair's cover comment "language bandits" - hardly my friend. More 'shock rock meets travelogue'. But even that, in many ways, excites....
However, accolades aside, Manning and Drummond, of KLF fame, did, through constructing a confoundingly intriguing composition - multiple storylines and spectres, coming and going, shocking and canjoling - draw me in and keep me in the end. I cannot say the same for their overly ten-year-old 'I'll gross you out more' attitude, which nearly drained me. That, and their infantile or maybe disturbingly constant fixation on buggery, faecal matter and other bodily functions. Hmmm...nah. But, I guess I should have guessed that from these two...or should I?
I bought this book, unfortunately, to learn about the Congo - a persistent dream-goal of mine nearing obsession - from a couple of creative modernists who challenge boundaries for breakfast. Sadly, I was left with a semi-imaginary, drug/booze infused dream state of the day-to-day grind. I bought it at times - I even revelled in it occasionally - but what I sought was their cold, hard and hitting descritpion of the journey by water, not by imagination. They really did this trip, so why not talk about it? Who knows, maybe to appreciate it I need to read this again baked, ripped and rooting an endless line of local prostitutes as I slosh through rivers of shit in search of gun fights.
Heh, maybe that is what the Congo is all about?
Nah, I don't buy it, even when they were there.
If you've got the stomach, the deviance and the fortitude, pick it up and go. If not, maybe let this one pass...
P.S. They do have a fucking great vocabulary, and any would-be wordsmiths out there would bow down and kiss the shit-stained ground that they boys slosh through. Bravo, on that and little more.
Iain Sinclair's cover comment "language bandits" - hardly my friend. More 'shock rock meets travelogue'. But even that, in many ways, excites....
However, accolades aside, Manning and Drummond, of KLF fame, did, through constructing a confoundingly intriguing composition - multiple storylines and spectres, coming and going, shocking and canjoling - draw me in and keep me in the end. I cannot say the same for their overly ten-year-old 'I'll gross you out more' attitude, which nearly drained me. That, and their infantile or maybe disturbingly constant fixation on buggery, faecal matter and other bodily functions. Hmmm...nah. But, I guess I should have guessed that from these two...or should I?
I bought this book, unfortunately, to learn about the Congo - a persistent dream-goal of mine nearing obsession - from a couple of creative modernists who challenge boundaries for breakfast. Sadly, I was left with a semi-imaginary, drug/booze infused dream state of the day-to-day grind. I bought it at times - I even revelled in it occasionally - but what I sought was their cold, hard and hitting descritpion of the journey by water, not by imagination. They really did this trip, so why not talk about it? Who knows, maybe to appreciate it I need to read this again baked, ripped and rooting an endless line of local prostitutes as I slosh through rivers of shit in search of gun fights.
Heh, maybe that is what the Congo is all about?
Nah, I don't buy it, even when they were there.
If you've got the stomach, the deviance and the fortitude, pick it up and go. If not, maybe let this one pass...
P.S. They do have a fucking great vocabulary, and any would-be wordsmiths out there would bow down and kiss the shit-stained ground that they boys slosh through. Bravo, on that and little more.
March 9, 2012
What the hell? Bad Wisdom was an excellent read, as was $20,000 and The Manual. Bill Drummond should know better.Whilst a chance to explore Africa and the European attitude towards it is taken to some degree by Mr Drummond, Mr Mannings fetid teenagelike sodomy obsessed sex/violence tirades really do get grinding and to the point wher you skip over them to read what REALLY happened. Not because they are shocking and disturbing (which they could be) but because they are childlike and just stupid.
The mission itself is interesting, go into Zaire and get your soul back from the devil. But from the outset all three protagonists had nothing good to say about their surroundings. Money is exchanged for safety, derogative and racially offensive words are banded about like it's the 1920's deep south (did Britain use the N word, or is that another gift from our European Cousins who obliterated a nation and formed a stage set called America?)or a gangster rap album.
I felt this book was a big waste of time, and yes take a white liberal and put them in a jungle and see how they react is an interesting prospect, but ingrained imperialist racist rants is not art.
The mission itself is interesting, go into Zaire and get your soul back from the devil. But from the outset all three protagonists had nothing good to say about their surroundings. Money is exchanged for safety, derogative and racially offensive words are banded about like it's the 1920's deep south (did Britain use the N word, or is that another gift from our European Cousins who obliterated a nation and formed a stage set called America?)or a gangster rap album.
I felt this book was a big waste of time, and yes take a white liberal and put them in a jungle and see how they react is an interesting prospect, but ingrained imperialist racist rants is not art.
August 19, 2010
(I may never finish this... just so you know...) I like Drummond's travelogue prose, but, my God, Zodiac Mindwarp's intrusive sophomoric attempts at Bataille-esque transgressive torture-porn is wearing just a bit thin after reading 'Bad Wisdom'. This second entry in their alleged trilogy offers little new except the backdrop as they continue their musings on a world that appears to constantly bewilder them. Will most likely stick with this to the end, but can't say I recommend it...
update: I've just got to suck it up and admit to myself I'm never going to finish this damn book.
update: I've just got to suck it up and admit to myself I'm never going to finish this damn book.
December 20, 2012
I have read a few other books by Bill Drummond which I have enjoyed. I may have a slightly unbalanced view as I am a huge KLF fan. This book is written by Bill and Mark Manning and is essentially two books in one. The half by Bill was very good and well written but I didn't really enjoy Marks half as I felt it got a bit tedious. However I will be reading their other book 'Bad Wisdom'.
This is still a must for Drummond fans and those who like very odd books.
This is my first review so I promise they will improve! :)
This is still a must for Drummond fans and those who like very odd books.
This is my first review so I promise they will improve! :)
August 30, 2008
Kind of like Bad Wisdom but a lot longer and with a little bit of extra effort put into the disturbing bits. I sure hope there really is a third book.
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