It’s a fair question to ask whether Rob Doyle’s new book Autobibliography is cheating.
The critic and author of Here Are the Young Men and Threshold, was tasked by the Irish Times in 2019 to provide a series of short (350 word) reflections on fifty-two of his favourite books as part of an ongoing column.
In Autobibliography we get these (far too short) commentaries interspersed with Doyle’s reflections on his life of intellectual curiosity, sketched out as the pandemic unfolds around him.
The rather lazy structure of the book – part repurposed column, part diary entry – certainly doesn’t sound promising, yet Doyle’s undeniable talent as a writer and his excellent literary taste, make for a pleasant and sentimental read.
Autobibliography’s selections and commentaries are archetypal of a Millennial male writer entering the thresholds of mid-life.
Norman Mailer’s The Fight, J.K Huysmans’ À rebours, Michel Houellebecq’s Whatever, JG Ballard’s The Atrocity Exhibition – Doyle’s selections are certainly a ‘who’s who’ of high-minded dick lit.
But there is something infectious about his love of reading. “I’ve never read a book with so much light in it, wherein dazzle and radiance become theme and narrative” Doyle writes on Henry Miller’s The Colossus of Maroussi.
Whilst the canon is blokey in taste, Autobibliography is far from chauvinist in author selection – there is plenty of praise for Angela Carter’s The Bloody Chamber, Joan Didion’s Play It As It Lays, Virginie Despentes Baise-Moi along with the appropriate commendations for Woolf and Sontag.
Doyle’s philosophical selections have a nihilistic bent, with commentaries on E.M Cioran, Jean Baudrillard, Georges Bataille, Arthur Schopenhauer and (of course) Friedrich Nietzsche.
There are also some occasional wild cards thrown in, with unexpected reflections on Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations (“an ageless road map for those seeking to live a virtuous life”) and The Tibetan Book of the Dead.
Reading through Autobibliography, I glanced between chapter titles and my bookshelf, blushing over our shared clichés. There is a well-worn intellectual trajectory for boys who can’t play football and Doyle’s choices will probably come off as incredibly myopic to those who can’t relate.
The book also includes some wry commentaries on the struggles of certain literary palates. When I read “the male isolationist authors I wagered on in my youth have left me painfully ill-equipped for a life in the glare of the feminist, hive-minded 2020s” I chuckled in shared brotherhood.
Doyle’s interludes where he reflects on his early life as a 20-something struggling writer are also uncomfortably familiar. Stories of hungover visits to the second-hand bookstore, pathetic sexual failures and heavy drug use are peppered throughout.
There are also occasional flash forwards to present day, as Doyle grapples with pending Armageddon and lockdown: “watching Pornhub felt like a nightmarish roam through an infinite wet market”. Thankfully though, the book never descends into ‘pandemic novel’ territory.
For older (probably male) readers, Autobibliography provides a pleasant nostalgia trip – reflecting on the key texts which shaped our youth. For younger (probably male) readers Doyle outlines an erudite canon to be explored, some midlife reflections on a life well read.
Literature, it can’t be said enough, shapes lives and I thoroughly enjoyed a gifted writer providing a glimpse at the books that shaped his.
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