[View from a Hill.]
There are a few versions of View from a Hill. It was originally published in 2007 by Guardian Angel, then later edited and republished in 2014 by Mittens On. My copy is from 2010 by Metropolitan and seems to be the original text. The first thing one notices is just how big the book is! It’s 555 pages with rather small print. No wonder it was subsequently edited, although the later version is still around 480 pages.
And unfortunately, this is a book that could really use some better editing. Apart from countless typos and some poor formatting, it’s just way too much. There are 65 pages about Burgess’ childhood and adolescence before he gets to the point of forming his first band, The Clichés. I cannot imagine who in their life is interested in that level of detail about which schoolkids and teachers were idiots in the early 1970s. I ended up skimming sections out of boredom.
Once he gets to the Chameleons, of course things get more interesting. I love reading about the origin of their classic songs and how the band navigated their music career through the many tricks and contrivances of the industry. Of course, reading about how thoroughly they got screwed over time and again is hard, but I appreciate that Burgess stresses to readers the important of good management. I always admired their independent-minded approach, although I’m sure it cost them quite a bit in terms of their reach and financial success.
Once the narrative gets to the Strange Times era circa 1986, it’s clear that Burgess wasn’t doing well, presumably from stress, but it’s unclear exactly what was going on with him. He describes some scenarios of blacking out and having visions, supposedly not caused by drugs. His relationship with his bandmates was disintegrating and he felt misunderstood by everyone. Somehow he got hung up on the idea of going to Israel, and he ultimately went and brought along Sally, a younger friend that later becomes his first wife. He spends 45 pages describing their time in Israel, where they apparently spent a few months having spiritual experiences and hanging out with Palestinians, until he panicked that his newfound friends might have nefarious intentions. They fled and returned to England, where Burgess finally seemed to be at peace and see things more clearly.
After a successful final tour of the USA with the Chameleons, he quit the band, although he doesn’t go into much detail about what exactly the conflict with guitarist Dave Fielding was all about. He accuses Fielding of being drug-addicted, mean-spirited, lazy, and financially short-sighted, but it really makes one wonder what the other sides of the story are. (Certainly Dave’s recent habit of leaving nasty comments on Mark’s YouTube videos doesn’t put him in a good light.) When the band ultimately reforms around 2000, there is conspicuously far less detail about that period, and Burgess lays the blame on their second breakup squarely on being ghosted by Fielding. Clearly Burgess’s relationships with drummer John Lever and guitarist Reg Smithies was better; Lever performed in Burgess’s subsequent band The Sun and the Moon, his solo albums, and early incarnations of ChameleonsVox, and Reg has joined a semi-reformed Chameleons in recent years.
The rest of the book is all over the place. Burgess doesn’t go into too much detail about The Sun and the Moon, his solo career, Invincible, or White Rose Transmission, only describing record label difficulties, some interpersonal struggles, and the occasional concert, but never describing songwriting or lyrical subject matter. He spends more time writing about renovating a rich Londoner’s Scottish manor, doing manual construction labor elsewhere in Scotland, hating the image-conscious culture of LA, working the Manchster City ticket counter, and contributing writing and design for the 1996 video game Drowned God. The final 30 pages are an extended treatise on metaphysics and politics. It’s a lot.
It’s hard to recommend this book. The sections closer to the music were great, but most of the else was tedious, obscure, or outright superfluous. I could never tell what Burgess really wanted to convey. I mean, his journal entry from 1986 on the state of affairs in Israel-Palestine is right on and just as accurate today, and back in 2007 I also thought that Germany handled their difficult legacy well. I no longer feel that way, but I still prefer the socio-political climate here to the USA, as Burgess did/does compared to the UK. But I would’ve been better off not knowing that Burgess edited a UFO newsletter for a while.
I’ll admit I enjoyed his description of the transcendent acid trip on a hill that inspired the great song and the name of the book, but did I really need the story about a young man’s unexpected encounter with a trans woman? I was amused that Burgess got into UNIX, but I wish he could’ve done better than describing every woman as beautiful and few other adjectives. I suppose that if, like me, you can’t resist reading this book, you should feel no hesitation or shame in skipping large sections of it.
Score: C
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