Friday, February 09, 2007

Book Learning #31



Mr Nice. An Autobiography. By Howard Marks.

Upon the birth of Henry I was advised by my brother to get into some good airport reading. He told me that I wouldn't get much time or energy for anything too taxing or too interesting. He was mostly right.
I'd seen my mum read this a few years ago, It was very much a must read for the New Lad brigade back in the UK in the Nineties.
Alright, I'll give it a try.

Marks can tell a good story and he's clearly an intelligent guy. The drawback occurs when it soon becomes obvious that it's variations on the same story over a number of years. I'm also such a book-slut that if the book doesn't hold me well enough me from start to finish I'm soon pondering my next read.
An entertaining read, I guess that's why so many stoners have managed to plough through it. A romantic read with a bunch of fascinating underworld characters getting into scrapes involving the smuggling of massive ammounts of marajuana and hash around the world.

And nobody really got hurt.

Yeah?

I wonder about that. This isn't the place for my views on drugs but Marks does a superb job on glossing over his criminal activities. For him it's a life's adventure in a foggy cloud of false passports and close calls with The Man.

By the end I was getting quite excited about his ineviatble 'bust'.
By the end it was rather like listening to that lovable yet repetitive stoner friend who cannot quite remember the punchline to the story they were telling you.

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