Review of Mark Johnson's "An Ideal for Living"

NME - NECRO FILLER

AN IDEAL FOR UVING: AN HISTORY OF JOY DlVlSlON
by Mark Johnson (Proteus, £5.95)

1 . AN HISTORY. . .: note the n by which the tone is set.

2. As pompously enigmatic as any of the obfuscated outpourings to have clouded this group. Mark
Johnson's book lists Joy Division‘s career down to the last fart yet ostentatiously declines to say anything at all.

3. I am, however. much the wiser with regard to FACts and figures. Perhaps that is the purpose of this slim volume. No more. no less.

4. Camus, Burroughs, Mishima and sundry other Penguin Modern Classics are extensively quoted as, er, antecedents ? Spiritual kin ? I’m not impressed: put up or shut up.

5. Furthermore, screeds of sub-Kafka and overheated psychobabble, presumably the author's own, additionally reinforce the mythology, the schtick.

6. Of lan Curtis’ death: “Speculation is not only futile, but also an invasion of his privacy. Suffice to say that melancholy had not been a dominant factor in his personality, and his life had been relatively happy and punctuated with some practical jokes of his best left untold."  I'm sorry such speculation  ever crossed my morbid little mind, Mark. But l must say that your own brand of coy necrophilia is not only, as they say, dead boring, but also a touch dishonest.

7. I'd also like to know things like Bernard Albrecht‘s real name, Peter Hook's finishing school, Ian Curtis' favourite book. Totally irrelevant stuff like that.

8. Mark Johnson's tunnel vision is positively baroque.

9. Some good photos.

10. For fans only.

- Mat Snow