Sheridan Simove: The Value of Nothing

Sheridan ‘Shed’ Simove is a man of many careers, having written for comedy aliens Zig and Zag, been commissioning editor of Big Brother and produced many novelty gift items, like a ‘Control-A-Woman’ remote control. After taking years to produce a book about his career and ideas called Ideas Man, and seeing it only sell modestly, he decided to produce another book which mixed his desire to write with his flair for producing gift items. Thus the book What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex was born, a very succesful 200 page book that’s completely blank inside. It’s been out for a while now, and some (male) students have proven him wrong by using it as a lecture notebook – or does this prove him right, as it still shows what men think about? Anyway, the book is back in the news as translated versions are launched around the world, no doubt making some paid translators very happy.

It’s obviously a hokey concept, which is probably why it’s popular, but give Simove some credit – he didn’t try to pass the book off as art. There are a number of examples of artistic blankness, such as Robert Rauschenberg’s White Paintings from the 1950s. As a depiction of whiteness, they can’t really be flawed, and commentators, and Rauschenberg himself, spoke about how the paintings did produce emotional reactions in the viewer. True, although many would argue that the craft of art, the actual appreciable effort in making the piece which for some is an essential element, had been eliminated. Yasmin Reza’s play Art deals with the fallout amongst three friends when one buys an almost blank painting. Maybe it is or isn’t art, but it certainly produces enough of an emotional reaction amongst these three characters.

Art the play is a series of elaborate discussions. However, blankness on stage is... almost... possible too. Samuel Beckett’s Breath is a piece that involves the recorded sound of someone breathing in and out, lasting around thirty seconds, with nothing on stage but some rubbish. Again, the question of art vs craft is raised here, and it doesn’t help that Beckett sent the play on a postcard to its first producer. It also doesn’t help that when Channel 4 chose various directors for their complete Beckett on Film series, they chose controversy magnet Damian Hirst as the director of this one.

Another controversial figure, composer John Cage, created probably his most controversial piece by making it completely silent. 4’33” is a composition in three movements, which in the piano version are delineated by the raising and lowering of the keyboard lid. Part of the point is that though the composition itself is silent, the actual piece never is, as the audience hears all kinds of noise, mostly made by the actual audience. This is not without its detractors though. Comedian Mark Steel often comments on his laughter and disgust at hearing the piece examined on BBC2’s Late Review, where someone said "..and of course, we were privileged as we also got to hear the rehearsal".

All of this is necessary preamble, seeking to answer the question of how to review Shed Simove’s work in a way that fully encapsulates all thought about it in a way that does it justice. And so the review goes like this:

What Every Man Thinks About Apart From Sex
By Sheridan Simove

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Keir Hind]

Now, clearly this raises three important questions. The first two are why the piece is so well written, obviously, and then whether Simove can make an accusation of plagiarism. The answer to this is that it’s actually a reference to King Lear, specifically the blank space Shakespeare thoughtfully includes between Lear’s line ‘Nothing!’ and Cordelia’s subsequent ‘Nothing’. Being full of Shakespearean references then, this is why the review is so good, and being public domain, and in any case translated to a review form, is why no-one can make any accusation of plagiarism.

The third question is that, having just read a review drawn from the nothing between two "nothing"s, about a book about nothing, and consisting of nothing, how can you be sure you’ve been reading anything at all?