Very much enjoyed this. Obviously, it’s not meant to be a great work of literature or to change lives, but for a slice of entertainment to be greedily consumed in a few hours, it’s perfect. Obviously written by a journalist, it’s essentially one long anecdotal article, and the acknowledgements at the back (as well as what the author himself, who is charmingly accessible online, has written) made it clear that the story is non-fiction, which only confirms what you come to think sooner or later. It’s not a great work of creativity; it’s a fun story, told in a sparky and entertaining style, which in its idiom makes great reading.
There are some problems. While Cox is excellent on the music he loves, and is clearly writing for people with a similar taste to him, who look with similar amused bewilderment at the teenagers of today, he really should have researched the kind of music his young ward encouraged him to listen to. Certain bizarre inconsistencies can be put down to the whims of being a teenager (Peter hates rap yet likes Linkin Park and early Slipknot, is ignorant of older bands yet enjoyed AC/DC, and I suspect it was he that mis-spelt ‘Kittie’ and Cox simply copied it, which was pretty sloppy on his part), but other mistakes seem to be Cox’s. He mixes up Kyuss and Drowning Pool, two very different bands, for one thing.
Cox’s musical tastes seem to place him closer to 37 than 27, with the exception of his inexplicable dislike for T-Rex (yes, they’re bland and repetitive, but that’s their charm, and there is genius in their music, even if it’s drowned by padding), but what he likes, he likes very much, and I deeply respect that. This isn’t a great book for showing the reality of contact between a teenaged boy and a prematurely aged man. For all the suggestion that Peter really is a genuine teen, and that teenaged clichés exist because they are based on truth, there is a lot of sarcasm, a lot of belittling that I would be quite insulted to read, were I Peter. He comes across as very sweet in his naivety – bordering on stupidity – and I cringe to remember some of the things that I did at a similar age when trying to find my identity. But the book would have been infinitely more coherent and more significant if Cox really did open his mind to the things Peter likes, rather than just pretending to.
Certain elements of my taste have changed and matured as I have grown older. But for all their association with empty corporate angst, lacking in rebellion, I remember the early days of bands like System of a Down, Slipknot and even Limp Bizkit (yes, even they had credibility in the beginning, when nu-metal was still an obscure and esoteric term), and the intelligent and powerful things they had to say, if only you were listening. And no matter how many sheep-like teenagers don the hoodies of those bands, no matter how uncool they become, I will always see those early days, when no-one knew who on earth they were, when they were angry, and hungry, and passionate, and I will be just as moved, affected and inspired as the people who grew up with The Who, Led Zep, Nirvana – or even Pentangle.
I’ve drifted away from the review, but it’s important for me to say this. I don’t care what’s cool and what’s not. I don’t care about credibility. I listen to the massively popular and the obscure, if I like it, and won’t abandon a band just because people dismiss them based on cursory analysis and the audience schematic. It’s those who do that who are the real sell-outs. Additionally, I will not loathe one style of music because I like another, any more than I will stop watching one genre of movies because I prefer another. I sometimes think that people both don’t take their music seriously enough, when they let the opinion of others sway them, and that they take it too seriously, when they begin to judge others and fear how they are judged over something that is supposed to be fun and entertaining.
This is far too serious an obloquy for a review of a fun and light-hearted book, but it needed to be said!
Oh, and isn’t ‘Educating Peter’ a euphemism for masturbation? o_O
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