Drif Field

This is my first review. It may well be my last. In fact, while there's no way in which it would be appropriate to let "Drif's Guide" go without a review, words can hardly encompass the qualities of this book. To call it the greatest book ever written would be to attach oneself to it so firmly that one would be seen as agreeing with every sentiment in it, and, indeed, that they should be expressed. And yet, to not laud it to the hilt would be to sign up to a view of the world that panders to everything corrupting in it.

The short of it is this: to hold Drif's Guide dear is nothing else but a sign of rebellion against all that is short-term, vacuous, and impractical. Not bad, given that it is only a guide to the secondhand bookshops of Britain.

The easy reason to love the Guide is its shear outrageousness. Each bookshop has been visited and reviewed by Drif, a secondhand book finder, and where his knowledge of the trade allows he gives full vent to his feelings. In an age in which, then as now, Britain was being driven to the dull uniformity of the "public charter" by fear of litigation, Drif's devastating reviews are breath-haltingly filled with cheek. The following extract is not unusual:

"...British journalists are machine minders who simply churn out words without resort to thought. It is their hopeless books which fill this shop...One fact the local newspaper omitted was that they advertised for an assistant, chose the most attractive, then tried to pair her off with the half-wit son - the one who tells you "This is a bookshop!" as you go through the door. It is as much a bksp [bookshop] as he is Mr Right. WWA [Well Worth Avoiding]"

In some senses, one might imagine taking pops at secondhand booksellers is an easy target; few are not sinking into so much debt that our inequitous legal system is well out of their reach. Nevertheless, he doesn't hold back from attacking even the most media-whorish of the pack; indeed, he seems to delight in picking them out for special attention. Anyone who has wandered, dazed, through Hay-on-Wye wishing they'd never left home will find a friend in Drif. It should be said that he in no way holds back on giving himself just as good a going-over, and his candid discussion of his own foibles just serves to make his honesty all the more appreciated. If the number of booksellers advertising in the Guide (and joyfully repeating Drif's venom in the adverts) is anything to go by, the appreciation goes as far as his victims, who doubtless find his outrageous charm just as much fun as the rest of us.

However, Drif offers much more than just a "devil-may-care" attitude. He offers a comprehensive knowledge of books (without being showy), sound practical advice on the book trade, and possibly the only example of someone who can get away with writing like James Joyce since Joyce himself gasped his last. The tightness of space combines with his venom and love to create a poetry that occasionally makes one just sit back and smile. More specifically, he also offers a series of in-review essays on topics including the politics of newspaper reviews, the class-hatred of the "Eats, Shoots & Leaves" brigade, wishing, the idiocy of book-fairs, what bananas and the holocaust have in common, and a touching tribute to a London book-stall owner in the process of retiring.

It goes without saying that, as a guide to the secondhand bookshops of Britain, it is somewhat out of date, and yet, despite this, one can but hope that it survives as a beacon that one man held out, and that it continues to live on as a guide to all that is right and worth holding out for.… (més)