“Without any clue as to the basics of self-sufficiency, Carlos is a slight burden – but still a richly talented and quite noble old stick who goes well out of his way not to prise anything out of my weak grasp.”
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand: “It’s about two architects, one who’s obsessed with this dream and one who wants to be an artist. It’s fucking amazing.”
“A book that changed me… Catch 22 was one of the first books I read that I really lost myself in. Having only read it once, I find that I still miss the characters to this day.”
“Every man should have the collective works of Saki on his bookshelf – a very unsung hero – written in such a tongue-in-cheek way, the epitome of Edwardian splendour.”
“I found Catcher In The Rye a little whingey and phoney.”
Q: “ what is your favourite book?” Carl:“ not now bernard…?
“
Peter:
“Books filled my shelves, like a madman, I collected them in flea markets: everything from Graham Greene, Oscar Wilde, Evelyn Waugh. I even began Being and Nothingness by Jean-Paul Sartre, when I was 14.”
What is your favourite book? “Crime And Punishment.”
“I’ve got a shelf full of books with HMP Pentonville, HMP Wandsworth on them, smuggled ‘em out, yeah. Crime and Punishment I read! Except my cellmate at the time kept on pulling his shorts down and getting his knob out, and going, ‘Is this normal, Pete?’ And I’m trying to read.“
“When i was 15 i read Oscar Wilde’s Picture of Dorian Gray. Wonderfully written. Very poetic and powerful. Quite sinister as well. It was so far removed from what i was going through at the time. This book was bursting with descriptions of this very liberated individual, who could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. It was like i was in a trance when i was reading it.”
Also advice from Carl: twenty thousand streets under the sky, diary of a nobody, the narrow road to the deep North (source: https://twitter.com/carlbaratmusic/status/615697262224756736)
Also he mentioned ‘Master and Margarita’ as one of his favorites during facebook q&a thing.
And he enjoyed Ulisses, but told that it ‘took some work to read this one’
I was in a vintage shop yesterday and they had all sorts of postcards of literary figures, including Ayn Rand and Saki. I should go back and pick them up for Carl, heh.
I was just a lost fucking soul, completely alone, completely cut off by Carl. I couldn’t put up with the heartache of being completely exiled, not being taken seriously or shown any respect by the band, the management, the record company, the accountant. I was treated like a monster, or a child. The gigs were my only escape. […] So if you’re gonna get involved, don’t dip your toe in the water, dive in and immerse yourself, right? I can be a swine, but I’m not really, and I’m not a violent, socially corrupt person. I’m gentle and try to be positive with myself. But the more people who mistrust me or disrespect me, the more likely I am to play them up.[..] I think Carl had been clean for a little while, but after what happened between me and him and then prison, I felt different towards Carl. I knew it was still the same but I wanted so badly for it to be all or nothing, wanting it to be me and him. But then I knew that that could not be and that was not what he wanted anyway. I fell back into being a little more emotionally dependant on Carl but I realised I had to cut myself off from demanding him like that. [..] Back when we were on the dole, or working in the theatre, we’d fall out and then that would be it. [Carl] would fuck off for a couple of months and everything would be at odds. I’d just be pressing on with the band on my own. This is how it ended up with me being exiled, the fact that I continued with the hermetic existence whereas Carl completely opened himself up to the outside world and to a different way of life, and therefore was seen as sort of the acceptable one, and was able to win the support of the infrastructure simply because he made himself more conventional. I don’t mean that in a derogatory way, just in that people saw him more likely to get the job done.
“Obviously when you’re connecting with someone on that level, even when there’s a soulmatedom and you grow an intrinsic part of your entire ethos of the world with that person then you’re going to remain…there’s always going to remain a vestige, a little light which you can’t extinguish.”
Pete: “(Carl) phoned me last week but he hung up. He texted me to say ‘Sorry, I bottled it. I’ll try later.’ Then I got a letter. It was quite nice. It had a poem in it and some quotes from (jazz trumpeter) Chet Baker. Y"know, I’m proud of him. Over the years he’s changed a lot. He’s got a lot more confident. I’m really proud of him and I love his bones.”
Interviewer: So how do you feel about your new single ‘Don’t look back into the sun’? It seems The Libertines music comes second to the bands scandal at the minute.
Pete: “It’s a beautiful song. When we wrote it me and Carl knew it was a special song and we both fucking love it. I’ve heard him singing it in his sleep.”
““Whatever happened with the heroin and the situations I was in that I knew Carl despised, I always carried on pushing myself, in terms of the music or traveling or different affairs and adventures. I just love life and I enjoyed it all, but there came a point where I had no option but to stop. Your body won’t have it. Alas. And when Carl looked me in the eye and actually believed me when I said I was going to give it a fucking go, it was like a miracle. Everything else was forgotten. This self-absorbed vision, this decadent artistic life, it didn’t mean anything when you’re squatting in that dank, decaying place. And Carl said, ‘Look, I know somewhere you’re still in there, the person I used to know. Come out to play.’””
suchasinistergame 