A thoughtful and introspective novel about two real artists
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The blurb
A short counterfactual novel, published exactly fifty years after the encounter it purports to describe.
A beautiful young man dressed in Cuban heels and a crushed-velvet jacket cuts a dash as he strides up Silver Street in his native Cambridge, heading for the ornate splendour of King’s College. It is 1968. He is the 22 year old Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, and his destination is home to the great Edwardian novelist, 89 year old E M Forster.
What follows is a tender exchange of truths between two men belonging to opposite ends of the 20th century, but who find within each other’s company shadows of the same demons, loves and losses as well as the familiar weight of the creative impulse. They become unlikely comrades passing fleetingly through each other’s lives. Conjuring the mischievous spirit of Pan, Haydn Middleton has created an exquisite fiction involving two towering figures of English culture.
The Ballad of Syd & Morgan is a deeply moving but joyous portrait of the despair and redemption at the heart of artistic endeavour, as well as the essential solace of companionship - wherever it may be found.
The Review
As part of wanting to support local businesses during lockdown, I ordered an isolation book pack from The Book Hive. They ask you a few questions about recent books you have liked/disliked and what your favourite genres are, and then they pick a set of books they think you will like based off your preferences. I love getting surprise parcels of books, and it was lovely to treat myself to something like this during this anxiety inducing time.
The Ballad of Syd & Morgan is one of the books that The Book Hive chose for me. (The cynic in me would suggest that this was somewhat influenced by the fact that it is published by Propolis, a small publishing imprint, owned by none other than... The Book Hive - but I'm prepared to give them the benefit of the doubt...!)
This is not a book I would ever have chosen for myself. Not least because it depicts a fictional encounter between two real life people that I know barely anything about. I know nothing about the early days of Pink Floyd (or the later days really, if I'm honest) and am ashamed to say I have never read anything by E M Forster.
So, I went into this with quite a lot of trepidation. I just thought it would be too esoteric for me to get any real enjoyment from it. Actually, I was pleasantly surprised. It's quite a short book, and it focusses entirely on one brief encounter (that can't last more than a few hours) between these two artistic characters.
This is so far from the plot-driven fiction that I usually consume. However, the characters were so wonderfully written and the setting was so realistic, it was as if I was in the room with them. I found their exchanges and the dynamic between them fascinating. The conversation that flows between them raised many questions and ideas about creativity and artistic endeavours. About whether the value of the art changes when it is made for consumption by others or whether it is made more valuable if the artist suffers to create it. Surely an argument that has existed ever since the tortured artist trope began.
Yes, it's quite an introspective story and the nature of the book means it is inevitably quite meta. But even if you're like me and you don't understand all of the intricacies behind these two specific characters, you will still enjoy it for its simple stylishness and the thoughtful and authentic conversations had between them.
"What he told me was that people will say laughingly exactly what they mean, hoping thus to conceal it"