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Dandy in the Underworld: An Unauthorized Autobiography (P.S.)

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"I am not a writer. I am a performer. Writing is merely a way of bringing myself to the notice of the world." Thus says Englishman Sebastian Horsley, and he certainly got my notice in _Dandy in the Underworld: An Unauthorized Autobiography_ (Harper Perennial), although reading it is often like the horrific roadside crash you cannot take your eyes off. A reader cannot help thinking that this is yet another fake memoir; it is just too weird, too incredible, even if it were written by an actual dandy, bisexual, drug-addicted, self-obsessed, obsessive-compulsive, libertine artist. As far as I can tell, Horsley really exists, and really has had the adventures recalled here, although if he has exaggerated some for comic effect that is the least of his sins. If you want to read a memoir by an addict who has grueling tales of the overpowering effects of drugs and the profound misery that they can cause, but you don't want to be made miserable, check this out. Horsley is hilarious. He jokes on every page, witty puns and turns of phrases that simultaneously counter and highlight any grimness in his story. He may borrow (nay, steal) a phrase from Oscar Wilde or Quentin Crisp, but this is a compellingly original memoir, strange, revolting, funny, and self-serving by turns. "If you can't brag about doing something well," he advises, "then brag about doing it badly. At any rate, brag." He has taken to heart his own advice.

In a chapter which is the apology for the dandy's life ("Mein Camp"), Horsley lists gloves, shirts ("I devoted myself to their design"), hats, and suits of all colors, and let's just give you the ones that were pink: "Soft pink, hard pink, petal pink, shell pink, shocking pink, even more shocking pink, flaming pink, salmon pink, prawn-cocktail pink, spam pink. In the pink pink." He enjoyed something like a thousand prostitutes. His drug-soaked days and nights are described specifically, and with his superb choice of descriptive detail, Horsley gives an idea of the attractions of drug use as well as the rot it causes. There were various descents into hopelessness and degradation, including disastrous stints in drug rehab, which he describes with the zingy humor that infuses even the book's darkest pages. In this strange book are two extraordinary sections that would seem to have no place in it. One is Horsley's adventures in diving to find the great white shark. The other is that he got himself crucified. He went to the Philippines in 2000 for the annual Good Friday crucifixions, "a seething, chaotic, blood-spattered circus in which the profoundest devotion and the most avid entrepreneurship meet." It was part of his artistic suffering and (though he has profound disdain for religion) part of his admiration for Christ, who "... after all, had profound style. He was the ultimate dandy... All great stylists borrow a lot from the wardrobe of Christ - everything in fact except those dreadful clothes." Horsley was invited to have painkillers beforehand: "Now, the one time I actually needed drugs, I declined." He fulfills the assignment, but the foot support of his particular cross gave way as he was being raised to the vertical, so he fell off, preventing his planned half-hour stay. "Bad carpentry was the cause, as Jesus, the carpenter, would probably have well understood."

There are less spectacular peculiarities throughout the book. Horsley writes laceratingly about his wife and about himself as husband; there is a good deal of misogyny here, although upon her death he writes movingly of memories he holds. He became a fan of the Scottish gangster Jimmy Boyle, who became an artist after prison, and he discovers that Boyle had been having an affair with his wife both before and after the wedding. Horsley had an affair with him, too, but found that Boyle was an egomaniac who didn't want to talk about anyone but himself; two's a crowd for narcissists. Having paid plenty of money for prostitutes, Horsley became one himself, with decidedly mixed results. He became surprisingly successful as a stock market investor. "Money is not the most important thing in the world. Love is. Fortunately, I loved money." Of course he doesn't keep it, explaining his economizing at the end of the book: "Dry your tears - I've got all the money I'll ever need - as long as I die by 4 p.m. this afternoon." Horsley warns us at the beginning, "I've suffered for my art. Now it's your turn." There are indeed grossly disturbing episodes described here, all in jocular, jaunty style that makes this one of the most peculiar autobiographies ever, and intensely readable. "You will find nothing wrong with this autobiography," he says at the end, "except a poor choice of subject."

I LOVE this book. Every line is a beautifully chosen combination of humor, pain and gut-shredding honesty and the author throws in numerous wonderful games with the language. I couldn't wait to find out what mischief Sebastian would get into next and how he would ride through the repercussions. For anyone who has aspired to much and accomplished little, this is a Bible of hope.

When I started reading this book, I was amazed at the constant barrage of glittering witticisms. Call them epigrams or bons mots or apercus. They are stunning, usually 3 or 4 per page. And then I got suspicious. One of them seemed to be pure Oscar Wilde. Another was worthy of Mark Twain. Finally, on page 89, the author admits that a lot of them had originally been written by Quentin Crisp. A few pages later, there is an uncredited but direct steal from Woody Allen, shortly followed by one from Bette Midler (who, I think, claimed that Joan Rivers stole it from her). And then he clumsily misquotes a famous one from George Herbert.

On page 258, he finally confesses to ten years of keeping "journals full of quips, gags, aphorisms, and epigrams," most of which he is quoting in this book, usually without any credit or context. Worse, he will create a paragraph that seems to be there merely to support one of these epigrams. (Which came first?--the epigram or the experience?) After a while, one gets the temptation to try to create one's own. "I would rather write a bad book than read a good one." "It's easier to steal someone else's perfect epigram than it is to create your own." "Which is worse--to invert someone else's bon mot or to invert your entire life?" "It's easier to write prose like this on drugs than it is to read it when not on drugs."

Why should we care about another rich kid who squanders his inheritance on drugs? Just because you idolized the Sex Pistols doesn't mean we have to read page after page about your drug-addled attempts to imitate them. As someone who never inherited money, I have zero sympathy for a rich kid who delights in wasting Daddy's money on crack and heroin and whores. This is a story we've read many times before, but at least it's larded with hundreds of better writers' famous witticisms.

He thanks his editor, but.... He doesn't know whether it's Ghandi or Gandhi, so he writes it both ways. He is a parachutist grabbing for "a rip chord" twice in the same paragraph. The old "its/it's" problem arises, as does "bare/bear." Once he uses "conversation" where I'm sure he meant "conversion." Some attempts at dialogue in thick Irish and/or Scottish brogue are hard to read. The most interesting part of the narrative is the author's artistic crucifixion stunt in the Philippines--a truly gruesome passage, although the omnipresent drugs apparently made it easier for him to endure than it is for us to read. Frivolous wordplay (that might be his own original work) gives us something about rather leaving out a comma than putting someone in a coma, but this thing would have been easier to read if more care had been taken with punctuation marks.

Sebastian said at US Customs, "I have nothing to declare but Oscar Wilde's genius." They wouldn't let him into the country. Read this book, and you'll find plenty of genius--Oscar Wilde's that is. Horsley, or more appropriately, Whoresley, is irreverent, illogical, and funny as all get out. Put down that yellow lilly, and pick up this book.

What a book...WHAT A LIFE! Dandy In The Underworld does what so many of Sebastian Horsley's admirers have said for years; "His true genius was for conversation."

Over the years "fellow writers eagerly collected his one-liners, which he often delivered with a touch of venom. Author Toby Young, a friend of Horsley's, wrote on The Daily Telegraph's website that he "never spent an evening with him without having to write down something he'd said."

YOU MUST READ THIS BOOK! The best way to show you just how utterly delicious it is...is to let the man speak for himself.

On his conception: "It was to my great delight that I found I had been conceived in New York: artificial, machine made and against nature. I was a natural born American!

On Children: "No wonder people are so horrible given that they start life as children. The idea that children are innocent is a myth. I don't remember ever being virginal or particularly surprised or shocked by anything at all. What was so awful was my sheer selfishness, my naked Darwinian lust for supremacy. As an adult at least I learnt how to disguise it"

On his passion for Marc Bolan: "Here was a man whose diamond hands were stacked with roses- the precious roses of personality"

On once being mistaken for Marc Bolan: "It was a catastrophic case of mistaken non-entity. When two spotty brats- one of whom was in plaster- hobbled out of the limousine the screams died on their foaming lips. I, who have always had such a strong sense of the disappointingness of existence, hung my head in shame. I was sorry that I was a nobody. Steve tried to stand tall on his dignity. He failed. It is difficult to look significant on crutches."

On his maternal grandmother: "Ada-who we called Gogo- was an awesome study in self destruction. A drunken spirit whose divine essence was lunacy. As a child I was aware of the unpredictability that is the pulse of madness. Mother too had grown up with it. She'd lived in a little flat in which the curtains were kept permanently drawn. Her character, like a photograph, developed in darkness"

On Socialism: "I can safely say that I had the worst luck since this cosmic dust ball of a planet opened for business. I was born into a family of socialists. Socialism means -to me- a wider distribution of smoked salmon, caviar and champagne. But it didn't to them. It meant organizing, controlling and marshalling people- and particularly their own kin. The good news was that the spacious philanthropy and socialism which Fther exhaled upon the world stopped quite sharply at the door of his own home. High Hall was riddled with standards of living. Every luxury was lavished on me- atheism, alcoholism and insanity. As with the Christian religion, the worst advertisement for socialism is it's adherents"

On his paternal grandparents: "Her one great quality was loyalty. She was Eva Braun to Grandfather's Adolf. You could imagine him shoveling Jews into the big ovens while she stood by her little one saying "Darling would you like one potato or two?" She didn't have a bad word to say about anybody-even Adolf Hitler: he was the best in his field."

On his Father: "Father had pickled his monstrous ego in depravity. He had never operated an open house policy. But now it was open bed. Lovers called in from the cold- in their dozens. sex sat enthroned; her drawrbridge pulled up to keep her intellect at bay. Father was more interested in penetrating orifices than penetrating insights"

On his stepmother: "Comparing her to mother was like comparing Glade air freshener to Chanel No.5. And yet she did eventually follow her to the mental asylum which was sweet of her and proved that a woman's place is in the home"

On his home life: "While I was making pictures Mother was still making scenes. She was not alone. Scenes were to my family what glass beads were to African traders. There is a photo I have of them all taken around this time. Mother is on the floor face down in a pool of her own vomit. On the sofa sits Gogo, her wig awry, her lipstick skid marked across her face. Next to her sits Father, his drink in one hand, his c_ck in the other. Home sweet home was obviously written by a bachelor"

On Jimmy Boyle: "It takes a long time for a person who trusts in his faith to reconcile himself to the idea that, after all, God will not help him. For an atheist the revelation is no less awful; there is no strong dark hero. Under his armoured exterior, Jimmy was mortal. Where I thought I would find strength, I was discovering force; where I had hoped for ruthlessness, I had unearthed spite; and when I thought I found a rock to cling to, I found it was part of a landslide."

On suicide: "I have read that dogs can sometimes commit suicide by drowning or refusing food. They usually do it when they have been cast out of the household, but also from regret, remorse or even sheer ennui. Animal suicide is often regarded as a manifestation of intelligence. But I couldn't even get it together to go to the dogs"

Seeing mention of Horsley's being denied entry to the US by our insane regime led me to recall some amusing piece of his in the British press and I picked up this book on a whim. Dry British accounts of depravity are common enough, but I was not prepared for this very well written and touchingly sincere account of such fundamental perversity. Mr. Horsley may declare himself a useless Dandy, but this book made me blow coffee through my nose and that is useful indeed....

Actually, he is a very good writer and I was quite taken by the book....however, that he goes on and on about how important Baudelaire, Byron, Bacon, Burroughs are in his life......and then he says the bands Kiss and Guns n' Roses are the greatest.....this makes him so suspect that I then threw the book out the window........sorry Sebastian, but.......

Well, the title of this review says it all, really.

Sebastian Horsley pontificates about his misbehaviour and drug abuse, philandering, snobbery, and buying sex like it is going out of style.

Unfortunately, the majority of the book is stolen from others: Marc Bolan (the title and much else...), Quentin Crisp, even Oscar Wilde is honoured with the flattery of imitation.

Couldn't get to the end, or, in fact, the middle...

Nothing really outrageous or shocking. I wonder if most of this comes from the authors imagination, rather than an actual account of his life, to date. I don't know how anyone can draw inspiration from this guy. Almost everything is entirely self inflicted. A little rich boy that wants to hang out with the underbelly of society, purely as a self serving form of ego gratification. A little rich boy looking for kicks. The book is extremely drawn out and most of the good quotes are nicked.I very much doubt little of what is supposed to have happened actually did...the guy would have been too stoned to have remembered most of it, if it was true!
It all seems to be a cheap publicity stunt from a guy who, sadly, thinks he is shocking and outrageous....and actually isn't.
Terminal boredom!