Let's Go (So We Can Get Back) by Jeff Tweedy

Jeff Tweedy is the frontman of alt-country group Wilco. I had the privilege of seeing Wilco at Pori Jazz a few years ago here in Finland. The group almost never comes this far north, but the Finnish summer did not relent even for them. It was barely 10 degrees outside and occasional rain guaranteed that unprepared festival goers were regretting showing up. I made my way to the front of the stage barely ten minutes before the band walked on. After a few songs, a rainbow broke out over the festival area and Tweedy made a joke about singing sad songs in the rain. Overall, it's one of my favorite concert experiences.

Now, Tweedy has written an autobiographical novel and complemented it with a companion album, Warm. For the Wilco fan, this is as good or even better than the band releasing a new album. Tweedy has always been the emotional center of the group and in Let's Go he recounts his life all the way from his childhood to the present day. Wilco, however, is not your average rock band. They've always been closer to a jam band than The Rolling Stones and this shows in Tweedy's light touch with the pen on both album and book.

Let's Go is really funny. I was chuckling mid-sentence several times, to the annoyance of my wife, who was trying to nap next to me. Tweedy has an off-handed way of writing that is in stark contrast to his songs, which can be musically complex and lyrically inscrutable. Early days Wilco was known for setting the bar extremely high in the recording studio, but Tweedy has since matured and loosened up and this is in full effect in his writing. He transcribes conversations between him and his wife into parts of the book, which - coming from someone else - could appear half-baked. Here, however, these passages are some of the most entertaining and heartening in the whole book.

Tweedy may not be the most trustworthy source for everything, though. He subscribes to radical honesty and describes his comfort level with being vulnerable a "superpower", but some passages raise questions about wilful forgetfulness. Tweedy coolly fired original drummer Ken Coomer via phone after stumbling on Glenn Kotche. He admits to his mistake in handling the incident, but devotes less than a paragraph to it. The same goes to his falling outs with fellow band members and Jays Farrar and Bennett. The way he tells it, neither was his fault and both men abandoned the band due to their own demons. But it's hard not to imagine the other side of the argument.

In contrast, Tweedy is painstakingly open about his opioid addiction. He stole morphine from his wife's ailing mother. He disguised his addiction behind migraines, which he did really have, and hid the truth from his wife, who found out only once an acquaintance, who was more familiar with opioid misuse, pointed out that her man was a junkie. Incredibly, all of this can be heard on the album A Ghost is Born, which was recorded during the worst part of Tweedy's addiction. His voice is uncharacteristically bland and forgettable and the songs lack the charm of Summerteeth or the quirks of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. It's impossible to listen to the album now without hearing Tweedy's addiction in each song and he admits as much. Spiders (Kidsmoke) was recorded in just two takes, because that was all Tweedy could get the energy for.

Tweedy outlines his life after recovering from addiction in a way that lends additional context to the music he has recorded since. Many of his albums after A Ghost is Born have received less critical acclaim, but the truth is that they were not meant to. Tweedy has consciously lowered the bar for his musical output to focus more on his family. Yankee Hotel Foxtrot may have been the global experimental breakthrough, but Sky Blue Sky (and the song Sunday Morning) are unforgettable pop epics. They mark another turn in a musical career that has spanned over three decades.

The Pigeon Tunnel by John Le Carre

2018 may look like the year I read the least books in the history of this blog (just 10 entries dated last year), but it's far from the truth. First of all, I finished a record three books during a Christmas holiday in South Africa, the reviews of which have been on my backlog for the past two weeks. The real number for last year is probably 13; over one book per month. Second, last year included some of the longest books that I've ever read - 4 3 2 1 by Paul Auster and Hamilton by Ron Chernow - which definitely set me back in pure numbers but contributed to a total page count that is most likely way above my yearly average. Karl Ove Knausgård may have dampened my enthusiasm for the long form, but 2018 was a success in terms of page volume.

The books themselves were great too. Many of them had a profound impact on me and a few have been in my thoughts ever since. The Pigeon Tunnel from spy-thriller veteran John le Carré was refreshing and charming, but probably not among the books from last year that will keep me up at night in the future. Le Carré is best known for the cold war espionage of The Spy Who Came in from the Cold and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, which I've previously featured. His CV is impressive as is the number of film and TV adaptations that have been made from his books. These books seem like they were written by a confident auteur; someone who could bend people and words into new shapes and surprise readers with intrigue built on the frailty of man. The Pigeon Tunnel shows an altogether different side of le Carré (or David Cornwell, his real name). His prose is still pristine, but the person behind it is much more nuanced.

The Pigeon Tunnel is a collection of anecdotes from Cornwell's life. Some focus on the real world inspiration for his best known characters. Others recount his travels abroad and meetings with world leaders. The longest one, and the last chapter in the book, is devoted to his father, a confidence man and criminal, who's lies and vagary left le Carré permanently seeing two sides to people in his life: the one they try to show you and the one they don't. In these stories, Cornwell is insecure but warm and describes his journeys more through the lens of his constant conviction that he is way out of his league. There are parallels to Bruce Springsteen's autobiography: a man driven to entertain by an absent father and a sense of not doing enough.

In addition to the harrowing tales of his father's misdeeds, I was most struck by an acute generational gap between me and Cornwell. A battalion of cold war diplomat-spies was unleashed on the world with the overt goal of stopping communism. Behind this laudable facade, however, not much was done to the general benefit of western countries and Cornwell admits as much. Young diplomats would attend lunches and dinners, interview locals and file reports that may or may not have had as much informational value as the local newspaper. In reality, the western intelligence community tricked itself better than it could trick the opposing spy agencies. In today's world, the same spies would compete to work 60 hour weeks and write elaborate reports: meaningless work done exceptionally well.

It is difficult to pin down what The Pigeon Tunnel is about. Cornwell's life is better told in a sanctioned biography. The le Carré novels do a better job of animating the cold war. It is not a autobiography by any means; the stories are too vivid and wonderful to be assumed unenhanced by their masterful author. As part of the oeuvre, The Pigeon Tunnel is more evidence to the writer's skills in semi-retirement. In itself, it's impossible to recommend to non-fans.