My Shit Life So Far [Paperback]

The best book i have read for a long time. It will have you laughing through most pages!! :) :L

I dont know Frankie Boyle's work but I love stand up comedians and have always been facsinted by their back story which is frequently disturbing and sometimes horrific but reveals the beginnings and sources of the performers comedy. While this book is funny in parts it didn't reveal anything out of the ordinary. I do suspect that the author may have a touch of misogyny going on but I can forgive that if the text is convincing, amusing or revealing and it just didn't quite make it. Having said that, I read it from beginning to end without bailing out so it was well executed if not outstanding.

As a lover of comedy and an amateur stand-up comedian myself, I was really looking forward to reading Frankie Boyle's autobiography and possibly being able to gain some insight into the great UK stand-up comedy industry from his book. Prior to reading it, I had a large amount of respect for Frankie. Then, unfortunately I read his book and everything I thought about the man and his alleged prowess as a comedian was obliterated into dust in two hundred and ninety one mindless and boring pages of complete drivel.

I've watched Frankie on Mock The Week and found him crude at times, but generally on the money in the sense of being able to express scathing critique in a profoundly outrageous and unique way. His stand up shows in my opinion did have the feel of him pitching his abilities at the lowest common Brit denominator. But his book is just the pits. He should seriously consider changing the name to "My dull life so far and an even duller book about it".

I can't understand what he aimed to achieve in this book because it offered absolutely no insight whatsoever into Frankie as a person or as a comedian. It just glibbed over everything about his life. I got to the point where I said "Ok, now I really don't care any more about Frankie as a person, because he is so dull, but I want to know more about him as a comedian". But neither did I learn a thing about him as a comedian.

I can't say I know anything more now about the man and his comedic life after reading 291 pages about him. There is no substance to it. He offers nothing to the reader in terms what makes him tick on a comedic level which is what I was so interested in. I'm not even talking about intimacies or confidences. It's just that one gets absolutely no feel whatsoever of how he came up with and wrote his material, how he struggled with gigs and crowds, his failures on the comedy stage and resolution of these and other comedic issues.

Maybe he's just an unbelievably dull, boring and vacuous person (at least that's what one gets out of the writing) who just has an incredibly foul mouth and a natural comedic delivery, who gave the crowds exactly what they were looking for, ie an unadulterated and endless use of sexual terminology reference and sexual black comedy outrageousness.

The only admission he made was that he was a drinker and a druggie. And that he overcame both. Yeah, so what? What makes that so interesting about the man in this day and age?

In conclusion, my advice is: if you're considering reading this book in order to learn something about Frankie Boyle comedy, rather heed the implicit advice in the title and stay clear of this one.

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