This had been on my list for ages. Some nice nostalgia, well-written history of a great 90s band, easy read etc. Wow, it is so much more than that. What a superb book, loved every page of this. Unexpected, mind-expanding, tangential, deep, genuis.
The main thrust of the book is of course The KLF, the band that famously burnt one million pounds cash our on a remote Scottish isle for reasons. The author John Higgs explores, investigates and interrogates what those motivations were.
That takes us on a magical mystery tour that oscillates around a subversive book called Illuminatus! which is a satirical take on conspiracy theories across ~800 pages of madness. This was the first appearance of the fictional group “The Justified Ancients of Mummu”, an inspiration for the name of an earlier band by the pair behind the KLF, Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty.
At every stage Higgs spins off into fascinating side tracks that at first seem completely unrelated, and then somehow circle back into the main narrative. The themes of the book – magical thinking, chaos, conspiracy, art, reality – also underpin its style. It becomes self-referential and somewhat meta towards the end; consider this lovely section:
Understanding just how simplified and restrictive our personal models are is a useful tool to prevent you from confusing them with reality. A narrative, such as the one presented in this book, is a perfect example of this. From the near-infinite set of data points that were created by Cauty and Drummond’s activities, one particular path was selected by this author to serve as model for what occurred. The decisions which dictated which data points were ignored and which were presented as significant were made in an attempt to create a narrative that was a) a good yarn and b) something that would mess with the reader’s head on as deep a level as possible. Neither of those reasons is concerned with uncovering some profound and unarguable ‘truth’ about what happened, even if all the actual facts they reference are true.
Love it. A book that really makes you think, even if it admits it is cynically trying to manipulate you into doing so. Is that deep or shallow? I’ve no idea, but that’s why this is a brilliant piece of work, highly recommended.
