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Always Unreliable: Unreliable Memoirs / Falling Towards England / May Week Was in June
All three volume of Clive James's sharp and funny autiobiography where first we meet the young Clive James - dressed in shorts and growing up in post-war Sydney. With "Falling Towards England", we find Clive living in a Swiss Cottage B&B, where he practises the Twist, anticipates poetical masterpieces he's yet to compose, and worries about his wardrobe. Finally "May Week was in June" sees Clive at Cambridge University, where he enthusiastically involves himself in college life (generally female lives) until May week - not only in June but also a fortnight long - when he gets married. The rest is history, or awaiting a fourth volume of memoirs.
560 pages, Paperback
Published March 5, 2004
77 people are currently reading
223 people want to read
About the author
Clive James
94 books288 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.
An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.
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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
December 7, 2019
Really enjoyed the childhood memoir and the wonderful descriptions of post-war Australia. The other 2 books seemed to dwell on how poor, cold, and smart he was and I lost interest.
+++
The above are the few words I wrote when I read this many years ago. Clive is so highly regarded, I often feel I should give him another go, but he has always irritated me for some reason. What we used to call "too clever by half".
Now that he's just died, I'm sure there will be a new crop of readers, so I look forward to their opinions.
+++
The above are the few words I wrote when I read this many years ago. Clive is so highly regarded, I often feel I should give him another go, but he has always irritated me for some reason. What we used to call "too clever by half".
Now that he's just died, I'm sure there will be a new crop of readers, so I look forward to their opinions.
July 31, 2012
James can really write, and he is - of course - funny. He can be a bit hard on himself at times (probably with good reason) although difficult to know how much has been changed to protect people. Probably bad idea to read the whole book, which is a compendium of 3 books, all in one go; should've read other books between each.
Now I need to track down and read everything else he has written.
Now I need to track down and read everything else he has written.
April 24, 2020
After Clive James died, I figured it was time for me to read his autobiographical sometimes-fiction Unreliable Memoirs collection. Here, there's three books under one title, which is bad news for my Goodreads challenge numbers but pretty good in terms of entertaining stories per book.
It's a little strange to refer to these works as autobiographical when almost all of James's work features a certain level of autobiography. His travel writing, his television reviewing, his poetry – all these things feature a level of personal revelation and engagement, because in all his work James presents places and experiences through the lens of himself.
Where this collection differs however is that there's elements that have been fictionalised. Not changed, not exactly – but maybe one character stands in for a number of others. Stuff has been buffed in order to be more palatable. As the author says in the introduction, while most first novels are disguised autobiographies, this autobiography is a disguised novel.
Unreliable Memoirs, the first of the three books here, was first published in 1979 and was one of those books I remember hanging about home when I grew up. Not so much because James was a big cheese overseas in the days when that was a remarkable achievement (though that was true) but because his book captured something of the wildness of growing up in the 1950s.
Part of the appeal of this book is that while my parents could look at it and see parts of their experience reflected, I could read it and see parts of mine too. The movie-trip lollies, the heat of the summer. The carelessness with which children treat their parents, and the desperation with which they want their peers to like them. It's all in there. And fuck it, it's nice to go back sometimes, to feel that twin pull of delight and pain that come from regarding the past; a place we can never again reach except through the window of memory.
The first book contains a huge amount of possibility. As we transfer into secondary education and university life – a lot of the descriptions of Sydney University hadn't changed from James's stint to mine – the drive to do something, largely because James is thrust into a world he'd never expected to be in, becomes apparent. What will it be? Fuck knows. But the temptations of opportunities is enormous.
The following two books, Falling Towards England and May Week Was In June cover the author's journey to England, to a series of catastrophic jobs and even worse flats, but also to his discovery of Europe, of culture, and of university life with the Footlights crew. Poet, writer, man-about-campus. Hanger-out with Germaine Greer, Eric Idle and such. They're not as immediately engaging as the initial book, but there's enough here to keep anyone with an interest in 1960s culture on board.
(I learned a lot more about the author's wanking and vomiting habits than I ever needed to know, though. And, a fair bit about how to treat your girlfriend horribly.)
I've seen a fair few comments that indicate that James is full of himself. I don't know that this is anything near a surprise, though: it's pretty obvious throughout the text that the author has a pretty good regard for his own learning. However, it's a bit much to suggest that he's unaware of how he comes over. He's someone who went to university thanks to a grant due to a father killed in WW2, rather than by dint of his own intellect: the twin motivations of impostor syndrome and the infectiousness of learning are never far away.
Much like Morrissey's autobiography, James's writings are full of perilously small self-regard. This seems at odds with his boorish, seemingly confident (and yes, of-the-time to a certain extent, though this excuses none of his romantic shitbaggery) behaviour, but extraverts are often the most self-lacerating. You could heap shit on the guy, but it's fairly clear that throughout – particularly in the writings bookending this collection of works – that he is exactly aware of all his failings, and of the horrors his younger self visited on others. The thing that came across for me was an almost neurotic self-criticism, a consistent playing-down of any attractiveness, and an increasing of his faults. Indeed, this was James's stock-in-trade – for very few of his TV audience can he ever be remembered as something other than a wildly grinning, sometimes sweating bald fat bloke who seems to struggle against laughing at his own jokes.
And yet there's the turn of phrase. That wonderful turn of phrase. Honed by an omnivorous consumption of everything except the texts his university courses required him to read. The sort of wit developed to combat shyness, sharpened by a finishing of travel and languages learned through painstaking word-level reads of books in the original. The sort of wryness that, when it strikes home, makes a point the more personal because the reader feels something. The sense of a being in the making. One can be a prick – and at various points, James is one (and would not argue with the nomenclature) – and still write wonderfully. Hell, throw a rock and hit a poet.
In the end, if you're familiar with James and find his writing engaging, you'll be into this. If you're Australian, or are interested in that whole Push group that shunted off overseas to make their names – Humphries, Greer, Hughes et al – then there'll be something in here for you. For me, a fellow arts grad with a self-esteem problem decades in the making, I found a great – though not untroubling – read from someone who felt a bit like a kindred spirit, in some respects. But what kept me there was the voice. When a writer strikes upon the most apt phrase, there's fewer things more delightful, and James hits the target a lot more than most.
It can safely be assumed that any writer who gives you a record of his own life is nuts about himself.
It's a little strange to refer to these works as autobiographical when almost all of James's work features a certain level of autobiography. His travel writing, his television reviewing, his poetry – all these things feature a level of personal revelation and engagement, because in all his work James presents places and experiences through the lens of himself.
Where this collection differs however is that there's elements that have been fictionalised. Not changed, not exactly – but maybe one character stands in for a number of others. Stuff has been buffed in order to be more palatable. As the author says in the introduction, while most first novels are disguised autobiographies, this autobiography is a disguised novel.
Unreliable Memoirs, the first of the three books here, was first published in 1979 and was one of those books I remember hanging about home when I grew up. Not so much because James was a big cheese overseas in the days when that was a remarkable achievement (though that was true) but because his book captured something of the wildness of growing up in the 1950s.
Part of the appeal of this book is that while my parents could look at it and see parts of their experience reflected, I could read it and see parts of mine too. The movie-trip lollies, the heat of the summer. The carelessness with which children treat their parents, and the desperation with which they want their peers to like them. It's all in there. And fuck it, it's nice to go back sometimes, to feel that twin pull of delight and pain that come from regarding the past; a place we can never again reach except through the window of memory.
The first book contains a huge amount of possibility. As we transfer into secondary education and university life – a lot of the descriptions of Sydney University hadn't changed from James's stint to mine – the drive to do something, largely because James is thrust into a world he'd never expected to be in, becomes apparent. What will it be? Fuck knows. But the temptations of opportunities is enormous.
The following two books, Falling Towards England and May Week Was In June cover the author's journey to England, to a series of catastrophic jobs and even worse flats, but also to his discovery of Europe, of culture, and of university life with the Footlights crew. Poet, writer, man-about-campus. Hanger-out with Germaine Greer, Eric Idle and such. They're not as immediately engaging as the initial book, but there's enough here to keep anyone with an interest in 1960s culture on board.
(I learned a lot more about the author's wanking and vomiting habits than I ever needed to know, though. And, a fair bit about how to treat your girlfriend horribly.)
I've seen a fair few comments that indicate that James is full of himself. I don't know that this is anything near a surprise, though: it's pretty obvious throughout the text that the author has a pretty good regard for his own learning. However, it's a bit much to suggest that he's unaware of how he comes over. He's someone who went to university thanks to a grant due to a father killed in WW2, rather than by dint of his own intellect: the twin motivations of impostor syndrome and the infectiousness of learning are never far away.
Having a character that consists mainly of defects, I try to correct them one by one, but there are limits to the altitude that can be attained by hauling on one’s own bootstraps.
Much like Morrissey's autobiography, James's writings are full of perilously small self-regard. This seems at odds with his boorish, seemingly confident (and yes, of-the-time to a certain extent, though this excuses none of his romantic shitbaggery) behaviour, but extraverts are often the most self-lacerating. You could heap shit on the guy, but it's fairly clear that throughout – particularly in the writings bookending this collection of works – that he is exactly aware of all his failings, and of the horrors his younger self visited on others. The thing that came across for me was an almost neurotic self-criticism, a consistent playing-down of any attractiveness, and an increasing of his faults. Indeed, this was James's stock-in-trade – for very few of his TV audience can he ever be remembered as something other than a wildly grinning, sometimes sweating bald fat bloke who seems to struggle against laughing at his own jokes.
I rather liked the idea of being thought of as a shit – a common conceit among those who don’t realize just how shitty they really are … Excessive conceit and deficient self-esteem are often aspects of each other.
And yet there's the turn of phrase. That wonderful turn of phrase. Honed by an omnivorous consumption of everything except the texts his university courses required him to read. The sort of wit developed to combat shyness, sharpened by a finishing of travel and languages learned through painstaking word-level reads of books in the original. The sort of wryness that, when it strikes home, makes a point the more personal because the reader feels something. The sense of a being in the making. One can be a prick – and at various points, James is one (and would not argue with the nomenclature) – and still write wonderfully. Hell, throw a rock and hit a poet.
Rilke used to say that no poet would mind going to gaol, since he would at least have time to explore the treasure house of his memory. In many respects Rilke was a prick.
In the end, if you're familiar with James and find his writing engaging, you'll be into this. If you're Australian, or are interested in that whole Push group that shunted off overseas to make their names – Humphries, Greer, Hughes et al – then there'll be something in here for you. For me, a fellow arts grad with a self-esteem problem decades in the making, I found a great – though not untroubling – read from someone who felt a bit like a kindred spirit, in some respects. But what kept me there was the voice. When a writer strikes upon the most apt phrase, there's fewer things more delightful, and James hits the target a lot more than most.
December 9, 2013
Possibly the only book which has left both my husband and me literally prostrate with laughter. And no, I'm not abusing the word "literally" there: we ended up on the floor at one point.
The Cambridge bits appealed to me particularly, and I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only person to have fallen in that gutter outside Pembroke.
The Cambridge bits appealed to me particularly, and I'm relieved to see that I'm not the only person to have fallen in that gutter outside Pembroke.
January 1, 2020
In some ways, this book deserves more stars, particularly some of the boyhood stories. But as he ‘matures’ I like him less. His attitude towards women is disturbing. There is an underlying conceit that doesn’t sit well with me either. I only read Book 1, I have no interest in reading further.
July 6, 2024
The 3 volumes of James's slightly fictionalised memoirs in one book. The middle one is the weakest, his treatment of the women in his life is reasonably loathsome and his male friends don't fare much better. His turn of phrase, however, remains unrivalled and his deadpan wit is second to none.
October 4, 2022
What an interesting man!
February 4, 2020
I had read 'Always Unreliable' in hard cover several years ago, but it has now been joined with the other autobiographies to make it a very handy package. Hence there is a significant difference between the writing from the different periods. But what can you say about Clive? This is probably what many of his friends have said over the years. Brilliantly stupid. His Uni tutors must have felt the same frustration, as well as his dentist when he did deign to make a visit when most of his teeth were beyond redemption. But despite the inconsistency, the collected book is brilliant and has some of the best descriptive passages in it I have ever read.
May 11, 2022
Read each of these over a couple of years before the very witty, clever great man left this "earthly paradise".
Each of the memoirs are sharp & witty but also informative. My favourite is the first one (also the best known). I remember when "Unreliable Memoirs" seemed to be in everyone's house about 40 years ago. Still a great read.
Each of the memoirs are sharp & witty but also informative. My favourite is the first one (also the best known). I remember when "Unreliable Memoirs" seemed to be in everyone's house about 40 years ago. Still a great read.
November 10, 2013
Fabulously written, unfortunately having three volumes of memoir in one proves detrimental, as the final two can't compete with the side-splitting brilliance of the first part, which must be one of the best autobiographies ever published.
April 8, 2014
This was a re-read for me. I first read these three volumes in my 20's and enjoyed them immensely for their humour. I enjoyed them immensely, and differently, this time. I still loved the humour, but am old enough now to appreciate the writing.
March 4, 2014
Clive James’ first three volumes of memoir collected into one book. It takes us from his boyhood in Kogarah to his eventual graduation from Cambridge. As you’d expect from James, it’s peppered with insight, witty bon mots and quotable lines and built on a foundation of solid self-deprecation.
March 1, 2012
Boring. Goes nowhere.
March 5, 2020
Rubbish
Not very funny, the product of someone who thought he was more than he was. His Australianism was eroded by English muck.
Not very funny, the product of someone who thought he was more than he was. His Australianism was eroded by English muck.
July 1, 2020
Didn't finish it. Started to get bored so gave up.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews