Brian Eno is MORE DARK THAN SHARK

INTERVIEWS, REVIEWS & RELATED ARTICLES

PopMatters JULY 12, 2021 - by Fiona McQuarrie

A YEAR AGAIN WITH BRIAN ENO

Published diaries are a tricky business. Brian Eno's twenty-fifth anniversary edition of A Year With Swollen Appendices is no less so.

On October 14, 1995, Brian Eno wrote "My diary: a book?" in the journal he had been keeping since the start of the year. And so 2021 brings the twenty-fifth anniversary of A Year With Swollen Appendices: Brian Eno's Diary, originally released in 1996. The re-release is a beautiful hardcover edition, "redesigned in the same size as [the original diary]", with two bookmark ribbons, and a new introduction by the author.

A reader seeking new insights from this edition's updated material will likely be disappointed. Eno's 2021 introduction reflects briefly on how the world has changed since the book was initially released, but the bulk of the introduction is a lengthy list of friend-sourced present-day words that didn't exist in 1995. So in assessing the new edition, it seems that its main contribution is not in bringing something new to the twenty-first century table, but in continuing the book's original purpose: illuminating the day-to-day activities of a polymath juggling multiple projects and possibilities.

Published diaries are a tricky business. The diary format is by its very nature performative, in that the diarist is unlikely to include all of their activities for public viewing and comment; indeed, Eno admits in his original introduction that his wife Anthea asked him to omit some material and that the diary entries became more "self-conscious" after his revelation that the diary could become a book. Since most published diarists tend to already be well-known for doing something else, at its worst the diary genre can devolve into tedious "me and my famous friends" humblebragging.

There's no question that Eno's diary is an engrossing read, but it's also performative in that the diary's contents serve to build up his public image as a multi-talented artist, musician, producer, and all-around deep thinker. During the year that the diary chronicles, he and U2 collaborate on the 1995 Passengers album, and he works with the band James on developing new music; he creates a multi-media installation for the Swarovski Crystal Worlds attraction; he participates in events to support the War Child charity, including the Help compilation album and the Pagan Fun Wear fashion show; and he travels frequently. He also spends a great deal of time tinkering with the Koan music-generating computer program. Meanwhile, his wife manages his business dealings, and apparently also manages their household and most of the care of their two young daughters.