- So, I am going on a date.
Except not with a living human being.
No, no, no.
No human beings were harmed in the making of this video.
I'm actually going on a blind date with a book,
two books, actually.
This is the best threesome I'll ever have.
Actually, since we are in Paris
we should call it a menage a trois,
I learnt that from a Katie Perry, thank you.
So here's the backstory.
When I was living back in London,
I went to Hamstead
and I saw this bookstore called House of Books.
Now, outside the store they had these books
which were wrapped up.
You couldn't see what they were.
You couldn't judge them by their covers.
All you got was a brief description
of the books main themes.
So I had a look through them
and there were a few books I could tell
that I definitely already read
based on the descriptions that it gave.
but I swiped right for these two books.
It's safe to say I'm fully booked this Valentine's day
but not in a cool way.
So the first one says war is hell, journalist,
love, poignant and terse classic.
It's not the Tinder bio I would go for,
but it'll do.
So my guess
is that this was written after the first world war.
It could actually be a book written by
Evelyn Waugh because he was a journalist,
I'm pretty sure.
Damn I'm a poet and I didn't even know it.
Pack it up Shakespeare.
But then again, he wrote mostly satire
and this is love and poignant.
So I'm not sure, I wouldn't put money on that bet.
So only one way to find out,
getting you undressed on the first date,
this is going well.
Oh, Ernest Hemingway!
(child vocalizing)
So weirdly, Ernest Hemingway was kind of
the reason that I ended up moving to Paris.
How crazy!
In 1918, Ernest Hemingway went to war,
he volunteered for the ambulance service in Italy,
was wounded and twice decorated.
Out of his experience came "A Farewell to Arms".
Hemingway's description of war is unforgettable.
He recreates the fear, the comradeship, the courage
of his young American volunteers
and the men and women he meets in Italy
with total conviction.
But "A Farewell to Arms" is not only a novel of war,
in it Hemingway has also created a love story
of immense drama and uncompromising passion.
Damn, okay.
That is very cool.
Now onto the next one.
This book I chose because the description was so different
to anything I would normally pick up
and variety is the spice of life my friends.
You don't wanna put all your eggs in one basket,
you know?
This says hallucinations, Scotland and South Africa, risque
and also blackest humor and rather disturbing.
Humorous and disturbing
is kind of how I would describe my love life,
so what a coincidence!
Maybe I'm not even here, I'm a hallucination.
Oh, I didn't make any predictions.
I actually think this might be a book by Irvine Welsh.
I mean, he's probably one of the most well known
Scottish novelists but he's also known
for writing things that are rather disturbing
and have very dark humor, like Train Spotting.
So let's have a look,
aha.
(Jack gasping)
No way!
Irvine Welsh!
I have a very specific skill set
(Jack laughing)
but sometimes I do impress myself.
"Marabou Stork Nightmares"
Roy Strang is engaged in a strange quest
in a surrealist South Africa.
His mission is to eradicate an evil predator
scavenger bird, the Maribou stalk
before it drives away the peace loving Flamingo
from the picturesque lake Torto.
(Jack laughing)
Okay.
But behind this world lies another,
the world of Roy's bizarre family,
the Scottish housing system in which he grew up,
his mundane job, a disastrous emigration to Africa
and his youthful life of brutality
with a gang of soccer casuals.
As one world crashes into the other
this potentially charming story of goodwill
mutates into a filthy tale
of violence, abuse, and redemption.
You got me there.
You got me in the second half.
So let's Flamingo and read these books.
I hated that joke as I made it.
But quickly before we dive into that,
brand partners help me to keep this channel going.
So thank you so much to Bright Cellers
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Bright Cellers is a monthly wine subscription.
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A massive shout out to Bright Cellers
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(buzzing)
♪ Guess it's easier for you to walk around ♪
♪ And say I did it ♪
♪ Uh uh uh uh ♪
♪ Situations bleak and neither of us ♪
♪ Wanna be the one that end it ♪
♪ Uh uh uh uh ♪
♪ Does your mom think a little bit less of me now ♪
♪ I let you down ♪
♪ Can't make a sound ♪
♪ We used to have something so bitter sweet ♪
♪ And now it's bitter ♪
♪ So bitter ♪
- Guys, I thought the suit thing was funny
but now I'm in public I just felt like a tit
but I've come to my favorite place to read in Paris.
This is Luxembourg Gardens and it is beautiful.
♪ There's a bad taste ♪
♪ Running through your mouth when you see my name ♪
♪ And it used to be a common thing that you'd say ♪
♪ Now it's never gonna sound the same ♪
(Jack speaking in French)
- Look at that!
♪ I tried to pick up the broken pieces ♪
♪ And covered both my hands in blood ♪
♪ I tried to fix us without me leaving ♪
♪ But somehow I jut made it worse ♪
♪ Uh oh, here we go, I'm in the deep end ♪
♪ Trying to keep us both a float ♪
♪ Uh oh, here we go, I'm in the deep end ♪
♪ And I know I gotta let you go ♪
- Okay, guys, I've been reading this book that is written
in like Scottish colloquial dialect all day,
to the point where my brain is now thinking thoughts
with a Scottish accent.
Irvine Welsh basically writes out words
in the way that they would be pronounced by Scottish people.
In fact, it's ironic that his surname is Welsh
because this man is more Scottish
than a set of bagpipes stuffed with Haggis
being played by the Loch Ness monster.
Fun story for you actually.
I, one time, broke in to the Loch Ness Monster Museum.
This is a tangent, but I was on a road trip
around Scotland with my friends a few years ago.
And I was desperate for a wee.
We were on our way to Inverness
when we stayed at a taxidermist's house.
(Jack laughing)
That whole trip honestly feels like a fever dream.
Anyway, the 20 year old man child in the back,
me, needs the toilet.
So we stop outside the Loch Ness Monster Museum.
I go inside, there's no one there.
No visitors, no one at reception
and so desperate times desperate measures,
I just walked in and went to find the loo
because apparently I have the bladder of an OAP.
I stroll out and the security guard is standing there
like what the hell dude?
And I was escorted out of the Loch Ness monster Museum.
The thing is, it always starts with petty crimes,
doesn't it?
It's a slippery slope from there
but I heard some people like a bad boy,
so hit me up.
Anyway, I have finished the first book
and the reality of this video is
that I bought these books in August, 2021.
It is no longer August.
It's also no longer 2021.
They've just been sitting, wrapped up in my flat
and I feel like it's because,
I just couldn't shake the feeling
that these books obviously weren't selling very well,
so they had to be literally wrapped up
and people had to be tricked into buying them,
with a quirky like blind date with a book idea.
And I didn't wanna be let down,
on my book blind date you know,
I'd already been through one breakup in 2021.
At that point,
I had the emotional stability of a Jenga tower,
one wrong move, breakdown.
So that's why it's taken to me so long.
And to be honest,
I never ever would've picked up this book of my own accord.
However, I'm kind of in awe, after finishing it
because this was just unlike anything I have ever read.
Like, let me show you how some of the pages are formatted.
So you've got different font sizes,
you've got weird line breaks,
you've got text sort of weirdly overlaps.
And that style is very in line
with the general surrealism of the book.
It does not follow rules in theme, in style, in formatting.
So basically we have the central protagonist,
who is the narrator the book, and he is in a coma.
And essentially he is having these hallucinations
about trying to capture a Marabou stork.
But this keeps being interrupted
by memories of his childhood,
growing up in Scotland and South Africa.
And then later his adult life
where he was a kind of football, hooligan, thug gang member.
It's just this huge stream of consciousness.
And this voice is so raw and authentic
and believable as a character like his thoughts
often horrible and vile and depraved.
And I hate this man so much,
but as a character
it really does feel like you just chopped open his brain
and inserted yourself into it.
So I will warn you,
this book is not for the fainthearted, at all.
This character exhibits so much racist,
homophobic, misogynistic language and behavior.
And he is just a menace to society,
like the worst person ever.
He's an awful bloke.
And I think if you were to write a trigger warnings list
for this book, it would be, it would be longer than this.
The description that they gave this book actually,
was really accurate because it is this really, really
really dark humor
because he's just so blunt and to the point,
and it's shocking and grotesque
but there's kind of a deeper meaning at the end.
So mild spoilers.
And also I'm gonna put some trigger warnings on the screen
and a time you can skip to, if you want to avoid that.
But this man, who had an incredibly troubled childhood
basically ends up joining a gang,
and this gang horrifically assault a woman.
They're taken to court and completely get away with it.
And he experiences so much guilt
as a result of this event that happened
that he makes an unsuccessful attempt on his own life
and ends up in a coma.
And that's where we sort of join him.
So these scenes are so horrific
and I just don't think that a book like this
should ever be put in a blind date with a book format
because you need to know some of these things,
the themes, you know, going into reading this.
You need to know what you're letting yourself in for.
So this is not the way
I think you should encounter this book,
cause this took me by surprise.
But you're probably wondering,
how on earth does the Marabou Stork come into this?
Well.
This hallucination of chasing the Marabou Stork
is basically a metaphor
for the way that he is trying to track down
and destroy the evil in his life
and the demons that he has inside him.
The duty that he feels to hunt down this Marabou Stork
is the guilt that he feels.
No spoilers here,
but the ending of this book shocked me to my very core.
I was sitting in a coffee shop with my jaw
just like hanging open in shock
because what Irvine Welsh has actually created
is a really powerful statement against sexual violence.
And it focuses on the zero tolerance campaign
which was the first mass media campaign to target
male violence towards women and children.
So you can see on this page here
that the text is formatted in a big Z
and it's brutal and shocking, but so impactful.
And Irvine Welsh just uses colloquial language
in his storytelling, like no one else.
This book was not what I expected from this video.
This was not what I expected from a cheery and all
blind date with a book idea
and I'm speechless, truly.
So I'm also a fairway through the next book
which was "A Farewell to Arms".
But I think that I'm gonna to finish it off in bed tonight.
Wow, first date's going really well, huh.
But right now I'm shattered
and I don't think I am capable of articulating anymore
coherent thoughts,
so let's chat tomorrow.
♪ I kind of thought we'd make it out of that ♪
♪ We were ride or die ♪
♪ Now we're at the funeral ♪
♪ I kind of thought we'd make it out of that ♪
♪ We were ride or die now we're at the funeral ♪
- Hello.
So it is the morning after
and I'm done with this book.
Now the thing about Ernest Hemingway
is that he has a very very specific style of writing,
very stoic.
Back in the day I think he was known
as a very like man's man kind of writer
and actually the kind of general theme of both the books
that I've read in the last 24 hours
has been misogynistic characters.
So, what is the book blind dates agenda?
I'd like to know.
"A Farewell to Arms" is kind of a meditation
on the first World War where the character is an American
but he's working
as an ambulance driver for the Italian army.
And he is just so weary and demoralized and desensitized
to trauma and struggle.
And as a result, everything in this book
is discussed so casually and nonchalantly
but obviously deliberately.
The man is seriously injures his leg
and treats it like a paper cut.
I don't know.
Maybe I just live for the drama
but it would've been much bigger deal to me, I think.
But then again, I've never been to war
so I don't have a leg to stand on.
(fingers clicking)
Inappropriate, not okay.
He falls in love with a nurse
and their dialogue is one of the most special parts
of this book.
"My life used to be full of everything.
"I said, 'now, if you aren't with me
"'I haven't a thing in the world.'"
Isn't that lovely?
I think if someone said that to me,
I'd get down on one knee and propose it on the spot.
And there's lots of other things like that.
Whether they talk like real people is questionable,
but then again this was written
like nearly a hundred years ago
but they'll be like, "darling, do you love me?"
"Darling there's nothing I love more in the world than you."
And then again, we have an absolutely harrowing ending.
These writers will not let no peace.
And I did nearly, nearly shed a little tear.
Only nearly though, cause I'm hard as nails.
If there hasn't already been enough toxic masculinity
in this video already, geez.
And equally I will say
there are parts of this book that are terribly written
like the same word being repeated
over and over and over again.
For example, take a shot every time you hear the word road
in this paragraph, you'll be hammered.
"I came onto a road.
"Ahead I saw some troops coming down the road.
"I left along the side of the road
"and they passed me and paid no attention to me.
"They were a machine gun detachment going
"up toward the river.
"I went on down the road."
How long is this damn road?
However, where there's a Heming will, there's a Hemingway.
And I wonder whether the point of that
is to show the weariness of the character
in these moments because it does sort of build up
a really fascinating narrative voice
like things aren't elaborate and they're not elevated
and they're not shrouded in metaphors
and similes and beautiful descriptions.
Like war is brutal and it's ugly and it's horrible.
And we see it really in the cold light of day in this book.
And so it's not only "A Farewell to Arms",
it's also a farewell to this video
because I've officially finished my blind date
with these two books.
It's honest work, but someone's gotta do it.
This was a really interesting experience for me
to read books that I didn't necessarily choose
and I only picked them based on a very brief description
but I was shocked by some of the content in these books
because did not see that coming.
Anyways, thank you so much watching this video,
all the best, stay in touch.
Subscribe if you're new
and have a wonderful day, bye bye!