Snodgrass and Other Illusions: The Best Short Stories o… (2024)

Quite an interesting collection of short stories, mainly dealing with mystical and alternative reality subjects, so a bit outside my scope of interest. However, ‘Snodgrass’, the story which presents in a very convincing way the alternative history of John Lennon is quite enjoyable to read. Here we have John who was stupid enough to leave the Beatles because he did not want to play ‘Love Me Do’. He thought that song was beneath his dignity. Well, obviously, had he waited a couple of years more, he would have all the money in the world and people adoring him. He realizes that, so throughout the years he has turned into a depressing and vicious individual. He lives off a Birmingham prostitute’s earnings and steals anything he can lay his hands on, whether the woman’s earnings or from her customers. His resentment towards the now rich and famous Beatles and especially Paul McCarthy is practically palpable. Somehow, the atmosphere of this story felt very true to life. This alternative John sounded like a reality. Amazing!

I confess that I purchased this book because I enjoyed the television play of "Snodgrass" by Playhouse Presents and wanted to read the original, but I found there was more to this book than I expected. I am not a fan of sci-fi and Ian R. MacLeod is known as an author of that genre, so I tried a couple of other stories tentatively and soon found myself immersed in the worlds he has created. There are actually eleven stories in this collection: The Chop Girl, Past Magic, Hector Douglas Makes a Sale, Nevermore, Second Journey of the Magus, New Light on the Drake Equation, Snodgrass, The Master Miller's Tale, Isabel of the Fall, Tirkiluk and Grownups. The stories were originally published in the years spanning 1993 to 2011, with the title story being the earliest. They deal with themes such as cloning, an industrial revolution based on magic, mythical worlds, a frightening alternate view of puberty and ghosts.

Much of MacLeod's writing deals with isolation and alternate realities. Of course, in "Snodgrass" he also portrays an alternative history of the Beatles - one in which Lennon walks out of the band after "How do you do it?" is recorded as George Martin first suggested and the band go on to mediocre success without him. I will not spoil the plot of this interesting story, which really captures Lennon's essence, but I would say that it is different, and darker, than the television play and worth reading if you enjoyed that. My own favourite in this collection has to be "Tirkiluk" about a science officer manning an Artic weatherstation in WWII and his meeting with an Eskimo encampment. Another story set in the years of the second world war, "The Chop Girl" looks at superstition on an RAF fighter base and is excellent. Overall, this is a really entertaining and thought provoking collection of stories, which shows a wide range of styles and which I recommend highly.

This incredibly depressing story begins with John Lennon in, probably, his mid fifties, unemployed, totally broke, renting accommodation from a Birmingham prostitute young enough to be his daughter, to whom he never pays the rent anyway, and also apparently steals from when he can. He's embittered, calling all of Cal the prostitute's pimps "Kevin", all other males who are more successful than him "Snodgrass", all their women "Tracey", and especially seething with resentment towards the Beatles.

The Beatles? Yes, in this reality Lennon walked out on the Beatles when asked to record a song he didn't want to. George Harrison, Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Stuart Sutcliffe (who in real life was the fifth original Beatle before quitting the band to study art and then died of a cerebral haemorrhage at age 21) continued in the band and swiftly Made It Big, while Lennon, consumed with envy, bitterness, and self hatred, sank into poverty, decrepitude, and borderline alcoholism.

So, after another job abandoned because he went out of his way to insult his new co workers for asking what the Beatles were really like, Lennon - this embittered, utterly unlikeable, and totally unreliable narrator Lennon - comes back "home" to find Cal the prostitute in a flurry. The Beatles are in town! McCartney had visited! He'd tracked Lennon down! He's left free tickets to tonight's concert and an invitation to a party afterwards! Panicking at the thought of meeting his ex friends, Lennon steals what he imagines are Cal's savings - they're actually "Kevin's" - and runs. She rescues him from a pub, drunk and already broke, and drags him off to the concert.

You'd think it might get better from there, especially when McCartney dedicates a (in this story) unrecorded song ("Love Me Do") to Lennon. You'd think wrong. Lennon is just too much of a disaster, too utterly self destructive. You can't even feel a twinge of sympathy for him by the end.

Ian MacLeod must not like Lennon at all. That's all right, neither did Julian Lennon, who in this story is mentioned as being 31, which would make Lennon 54 (John was born in 1940 and Julian in 1963). McCartney, who Lennon keeps assuring the reader was a sell out who jumped at the chance to throw him out of the band, turns out to be friendly and desperate for reconciliation. So is Cal, by far the most likeable and engaging character in the story, whom even Lennon can't bring himself to criticise or call "Tracey".

Lennon? He's just a pill.

I've read some of the other stories online. They aren't cheerful either, leading me to believe that the author is one of those who think good writing is necessarily depressing writing. "Chop Girl" is a story set in and long after WWII. A former woman non commissioned officer who'd spent the war serving at a Lancaster bomber base reminisces of how she got the reputation of being a "chop girl", as in anyone who dated her got killed ("the chop"), and her budding romance with the only person bold enough, a pilot who'd already survived three tours and one shooting down and was reputedly immortal. It's well written but the author really should have researched Lancasters, his account of them is as full of holes as
of German shrapnel. For example, they did not have a "co pilot".

The other stories available online from the collection are the same. Well written, intensely depressing, to be avoided unless you're in the mood.

Bought mainly to read Snodgrass, as I'm a sucker for Beatle-inspired fiction. It paints a grim alternative history of the band with John leaving on the cusp of stardom, living out a meager, dull existence. Still leaves it up for the debate who is worse off in this scenario - John for walking away from untold riches, or the Beatles for puttering along for decades as a popular band but not a spectacular or influential one. Quite good.