Eric Cantona channels Magritte and a six-year-old in 2017’s most pointless book
We know the drill. There are only a few days until Christmas. You’ve not bought a present for your brother-in-law. He is bound to be a Manchester United fan – after all, he lives within an hour’s train ride south-west of London.
And hey presto, there in the bookshop lies a stylishly packaged book by none other than Eric Cantona. It is black, glossy and hardback. My Notebook is written in cursive script. There is a dust-jacket with the legendary midfielder’s bearded face and a cryptic piece of writing. It’s only £12.99. It would be perfect for him.
Stop right there. Unless you hate your brother-in-law and wish his Christmas to be a crushing disappointment, then under no circumstances buy this book.
Buy 13 quid’s worth of fireworks. One of those dancing flowers that sings “Mambo No 5”. Hell, get him a copy of Vogue and Glamour, if only for the free bar of chocolate and make-up bag.
Phallus
Here’s one reason why: there is a page in the book (who knows which one – they are not numbered) where Cantona appears to simultaneously channel René Magritte and a six-year-old, with a rudimentary drawing of a phallus and the caption “This is not a cock”. On the next page there is a cannon, equally badly drawn. The caption? “This is a cock.”
It is either brilliant, sad or massively condescending – or maybe a combination of all three. Perhaps it is a joke from the United great and we are all the butts of it for spending money on an ex-footballer’s doodlings.
Because that is what they are. On every page, there is a scrawled drawing and a pseudo-deep caption (“reflections, I call them,” he reveals via a conversation between two protagonists, Flip and Flop, in the opening pages); some nonsensical, some clumsily satirical, some weapons-grade bollocks. None are associated with football. Some are disconnected from pretty much everything. Such as the human figure holding a heart above some windows. Caption: “Hearts love long arms.”
Funny
Sometimes the drawings are funny, albeit in a “how the hell did he get this published” kind of way than genuine mirth.
If you really want a justification for buying the book, many of the captions accompanying the page-holding doodles are in French as well as English, which could serve as a learning tool (who knew the French for trompe l’oeil was trompe l’oeil?).
One thing we hope Cantona is not trying to do is emulate the work of Ben Vautier, an artist so famous in France he is known by his first name only.
Ben’s works are known for their white or pale script on black backgrounds, with pithy, witty, surreal statements such as “l’art est poussière” (“art is dust”) that are revered in France but provoke quizzical looks in Anglophone countries.
But Cantona isn’t anywhere near Ben’s level. A badly drawn headless body with the slogan “farts higher than his arse” (there’s that six-year-old again) does not a deep statement make. Then again, we are gifted two new additions to the Life-long List of Rude Words in other Languages (we’ve all got one, admit it) with “péter and “cul“.
Even the statements that are mildly thought-provoking – “out of fear that it may fall” next to a drawing of a body wearing a slipping crown – are rendered next to pointless by the barrel-scraping level of artistry.
So you have been warned. As Cantona may scrawl – next to a picture of a three-legged dog falling off a kerb, no doubt – no book is better than this one.
inews.co.uk