Twenty-two in '22: Ramble Book

I've set myself modest reading targets in each of the last three years and failed every time (I managed 17 books in '19, 11 in '20 and 18 in '21), so I'm determined to read twenty two books in 2022. I'll review them all here.

10/22: Ramble Book by Adam Buxton

The blurb: The long-awaited, rambling, tender, and very funny memoir from Adam Buxton

Ramble
/ˈramb(ə)l/
Verb

1. walk for pleasure in the countryside.
   'Dr Buckles and Rosie the dog love rambling in the countryside.'
2. talk or write at length in a confused or inconsequential way.
   'Adam rambles on about lots of consequential, compelling and personal matters in his tender, insightful, hilarious and totally unconfused memoir, Ramble Book.'

Ramble Book is about parenthood, boarding school trauma, arguing with your partner, bad parties, confrontations on trains, friendship, wanting to fit in, growing up in the 80s, dead dads, teenage sexual anxiety, failed artistic endeavours, being a David Bowie fan; and how everything you read, watch and listen to as a child forms a part of the adult you become. It’s also a book about the joys of going off topic and letting your mind wander.

The review: I've started a lot of past book reviews by saying that I'm predisposed to liking X or Y because I am a long-time fan of the author and have enjoyed their other work. Well, that's not the case here. It's not that I'm not a fan of Buxton, its just that I haven't really consumed much, if anything, of his previous output - not TV, not podcasts, nothing, save for his Cobbler Bob YouTube video. I don't know how I've got to this point in my life without The Adam and Joe Show, for example - thinking back, I think it struck a chord with people just a couple of years younger than me - and I was very slow to embrace podcasts. Anyway, for whatever reason I was not up to speed on Buxton or anything he's done previously. So why did I feel the need to pick up this book?

Well, on the simplest level it was the tagline: "Musings on childhood, friendship, family and 80s pop culture." Buxton would have been two years above me at school, age-wise, and so I figured his musings on all those things might be close enough to mine to make for an interesting read. And I was right.

Sure, there are plenty of differences between Adam's life and mine that might have made his nostalgic ramblings of less interest: he went to public school, and fixated on Bowie and Star Wars, for starters, all different to me. But he captures the essential experience of growing up in the 70s and 80s very well, and of course that's relatable.

What this book's blurb doesn't make enough of, though, is the family aspect of Buxton's rambles. There are very entertaining diversions into the mechanics of his married life, framed as lists of things he and his wife have argued about. That's relatable too, of course, even if, like me, you're not actually married. But the real heart of this book, beyond detailing the author's reaction to each new Bowie album or the relative merits of The Empire Strikes Back, is Adam's complicated relationship with his father. This is gently explored throughout the book, from recollections of an austere, slightly remote figure in the author's childhood who was, unbeknownst to Buxton at the time, crippling himself financially to educate the kids privately, to the subsequent integration of "BaadDad" into Adam and Joe's TV work, right through to his father moving in with Adam's family in his last months, waiting to die. Its all there, sometimes between the lines, but all there. It's the most affecting aspect of the book.

A note on the format - it's not called Ramble Book for nothing. Buxton breaks his narrative flow at the drop of a hat to go off on tangential rambles, preferring these to be in boxes within the main text rather than in footnotes. That might sound potentially annoying but it works, and lends the book a conversational air.

I can't say this has turned me into an Adam Buxton fan - I don't feel the need to suddenly subscribe to everything he does, or scour YouTube to take in his back catalogue - but I did enjoy this book. I think anyone of a broadly similar age would too, as would anyone who has made the transition from child to parent, and whose own parent is now in the child role. That probably sounds a bit deep, a bit serious for what is a fairly light-hearted, entertaining book... but it's true.

The bottom line: nostalgia-fest for readers of a certain vintage, with some pathos peaking out from between the rambles.

Since everything online is rated these days: ★★★★★☆