Customer Reviews

Disco Boy

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Disco Boy seems to be me to be a new genre of Australian novel - exposing an altogether sought-after but difficult-to-find Australian male protagonist....articulate, sensitive, values-driven - and shock horror!!! able to be great friends with a woman and examine his sexual pursuits against a background of relationship relevance.

There are far too few of these types of males in real life - at least as far as most of the women I know are concerned - so applauding their depliction in a novel is a good move, I would have thought. And if it encourages this kind of approach from more males, well, I would have thought that's a very good thing. But apart from the moral position taken by the protagonist, it was also a very entertaining - if light - read. Yes, there are a few musical references I'll chase up, but most of them were a deft way to convey meaning...as well as a good laugh about all the nights out we've had.

Personally, I'm sparing very little mental energy on the Australian male who left such a so harsh review (seen far too many in pubs and round the traps with the lads) and will leave the subject by only wondering aloud why a new form of gallant - but self-conscious Australian bloke could be such a threat! Plus, wondering how many books he's attempted to write himself, of course....so much easier when you are outside the glass house to throw stones!

Although I can confess that at first I found the first person narrative about a 20s something non-Alpha male was almost too painfully honest about the excruiating situations we find ourselves in when it comes to the opposite sex and dating, in the end I found it utterly charming. Yes, it was reminiscent of Nick Hornby, but softer. So all in all - I'd say I think brave from an author best known in Australia for other more cynical pursuits - and if this is the new age of bloke's books - I for one will support it at the retail counter, as Australian culture needs an overdose of this!

This book started life as a writing project for a university course, and should really have ended it there. I can, with all honesty, say that it's one of the worst I've ever read.

For those who don't know, Dominic Knight is one of the Chaser team. The Chaser are a satirical group who still have the word "boys" added to any description of them, despite the fact that marriage and children have intervened in their youthful years of jubilation.

It's fitting, this perma-boy attitude, as it peppers the work. The reader is presented with a scarcely believable tale about a guy who can't decide what to do with his life - or, more importantly, who to shag. The 40 chapters - he's a DJ, it's a countdown, geddit? - contain the sort of observational comedy that would be interesting if it wasn't so laboured. It's chock-full of pretentious musical reference - though sadly not at a level that would earn a Pitchfork thumbs-up - and there's really a lack of narrative development. Most figures are cardboard cut-outs, particularly the women of the book, who seem to either provide some kind of deus ex machina role, or exist to be ogled and lusted after. Elsewhere, the about-face his parents make at the book's conclusion really goes against the role they've played for its entire duration.

To be fair, Knight's book does warn that it could be a thinly-veiled whinge about his life. If only it were that. The text seems to be a poorly-woven collection of namedroppings and excoriations of parts of Sydney's culture (the law, the University of Sydney and the North Shore, generally) which appear to be fuelled by a strange mixture of self-loathing and a desire to be known for trenchant insight.

The combination of weak story and weak humour beg a basic question: where were the editors on this project? It smacks of a novel that's been pushed out the door in the hope that the author's Chaser appeal would shift units. It's the sort of thing that, in the hands of any other writer, would have been flogged into shape with a couple more revisions.

Even if you're a lover of the male equivalent of chick-lit, you deserve much better than this dross. Appalling.