Quadrophenia (1979) Novelization

Quadrophenia the novel, by Alan Fletcher. Corgi edition published 1979. First publication in Great Britain.

I don't know much about the author. The style is loose and full of idiosyncratic touches where emotional turmoil is described via impressionistic text. The book alternates between third and first person and fleshes out the context of the film very nicely. The Who's lyrics are featured throughout the book, in perhaps a more direct way than in the film.

The book opens with a definition of how amphetamines work. There is a difference of opinion between audience members regarding the ending of the film. The entire end sequence--a dramatic depiction of the song "I've Had Enough"--involves Jimmy the Mod driving a scooter around some cliffs. The last shot before the credits shows the scooter crashing on the rocks beneath the cliffs. Many take that to mean that Jimmy killed himself by driving off the cliff. However, the FIRST shot of the film clearly shows Jimmy walking away from the cliff as the sun is setting. This clearly shows that Jimmy is in fact still alive.

So, for me, Jimmy does not die at the end of the film. He rejects the life he has been living, which is represented by the crashing of the scooter. This is far more rewarding in my opinion than having him kill himself. Just my opinion, mind you.

The novelization does NOT clear this up, by the way.

Excerpt:

And, again, it began to rain, gently and persistently. He put his face up and felt it drum over the skin, running into his collar, over his hands.

He climbed to his feet, overcoming the tiredness that almost paralysed his limbs, stiff from the cold. The scooter came off the floor after he'd heaved at it for several minutes, straining and sweating. It started and he revved it up, twisting the throttle. There was music in his head again, but not as it had been, harsh and discordant and violent. It was gentle as rain and soft, soft and swelling chords.

He brought the G.S. up to forty and the engine whined at a steady pitch. The wheels slithered on the wet grass, but he leaned and righted it and weaved away, the speed mounting and the engine beginning to scream.

He took it towards the edge, racing it down, the music increasing. Even through the blur and the rain he saw the green of the cliff top meet the band of white chalk along the boundary between earth, sky and sea, the land's end. He ran along it for a while, almost on the Up, then turned back, racing up the incline. At the road, he turned again.

On the rocky beach below a crab scuttled under a rock. Seaweed lay draped across the rocks that were clear of the water waiting for the tide to claim it, as did the shellfish and molluscs scattered throughout the quiet world of the microscopic ten square feet of space where the scooter came to rest.

As it hit the rocks the polished metal crumpled, great slabs of lacquer fell away, lamps shattered, the flyscreen buckled and cracked and the whole statuesque shape, the symbol of the mods splattered like a broken toy.

An hour later it was under water.