Author: Richard Herring
First Published: May 2010
Tardy Review date: 8 March 2011
Lots of laughs and some truly touching moments
I'll be honest with you up front, I'm a Richard Herring fan. I lost track of him for a few years when he stopped being on the telly, but over the last couple of years I've seen him a few times live and I'm an avid listener to his podcasts. Just a couple of weeks ago I saw him doing his latest show 'Christ on a bike' in Swindon. The theatre wasn't exactly packed, but the people who were there had a good time in a show that's both clever and funny.
And those two words - clever and funny - sum up Herring's work pretty well. He often refers to the fact that me makes a living telling cock jokes, and there's certainly a crude and childish side to his routines, but it's a rare Herring performance that doesn't also make you think and question your way of thinking. I wouldn't say How Not To Grow Up is challenging in the same way, but it's often thoughtful and Herring's innate honesty and self-examination are a common theme throughout.
It's definitely a funny book. I found myself laughing out loud a few times whilst reading, and that's something I never do with books. I usually think it's a bit weird when people say a book make them laugh out loud, and the most they usually provoke in me is a reserved smile, but this book definitely provoked the odd guffaw.
For much of the book RH is approaching 40 and railing against the idea of having to become a grown up. He doesn't want to do it and he fights against it with every fibre of his being, seeking debauchery and rebellion as the big date looms. Convincing himself that he's happy as he is, he nonetheless manages to appear pretty fed up. As a reader it's easy to see the symptoms of a mid life crisis and when he's in 'author' mode, describing the events, Herring is able to pick apart his previous insecurities and disillusions. He still manages, though, to present them as he felt them at the time: real and valid.
It's Herring's comfort in being able to lay his life open, warts and all, that make the whole thing hang together so well and allows the reader to laugh at him - he, as the writer with 20:20 hindsight, is laughing at himself while he tells the tale, so we're just joining in.
Herring's examination into his experiences asks whether this rebellion against growing up is a modern symptom or just part of being human. Whilst this isn't necessarily a ground breaking investigation, his discussions around it will certainly chime with anyone of a similar age and give the book a more relevant feel, rather than just becoming a tale of a stand-up comic's fits of debauchery.
As the book progresses, he starts to examine the balance in keeping the good aspects of childhood and throwing away the bad. He describes this as the good aspects of childishness (the sense of wonderment and openness) and the bad aspects (the pettiness and being self-centred). I remember Neil Gaiman once describing it as the difference between being childlike and childish, which I think sums it up well.
The final two chapters of the book are absolutely superb and I honestly can't remember the last time I enjoyed the ending of a book so much. The penultimate chapter creates a genuinely touching and moving sense of the wonder there is to be found just by looking out at the stars and feeling happy. It's the sort of thing that could easily have become overly sentimental and corny, but Herring walks the line perfectly and creates an emotional impact that's superb. When I saw there was another chapter, telling a funny story about a kid, I thought he'd blown the ending but, if anything, he manages to top the preceding chapter. He captures the essence of what it used to be like to be a child and urges us to recapture a little of that for ourselves. If you think that sounds like a good idea, then you could start by reading this book.
