The Smoking Diaries

The Smoking Diaries #1

by Simon Gray

When he turned sixty-five, the acclaimed playwright Simon Gray began to keep this diary: not a careful honing of the day's events with a view to posterity but an account of his thoughts as he had them, honestly, turbulently, digressively expressed. The Smoking Diaries is the result, in which one of Britain's most amusing and original writers reflects on a life filled with cigarettes (continuing), alcohol (stopped), several triumphs and many more disasters, shame, adultery, friendship, and love. Few diarists have been as frank about themselves, and even fewer as entertaining. "So here I am, two hours into my sixty-sixth year.... The truth is that I'm nastier than I used to be back when—back when I was sixty-four, for instance, when I was nastier than when I was at sixty-two and so forth, back and back, always the less nasty the further back, until I get to the age when I was pre-nasty, at least consciously, when the only shame I knew was the shame of being found out, which was when I was, well, about eight, I suppose."

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Biography, British Literature

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2001

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

Simon James Holliday Gray, CBE (21 October 1936 – 7 August 2008) was an English playwright and memoirist who also had a career as a university lecturer in English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. While teaching at Queen Mary, Gray began his writing career as a novelist in 1963 and, during the next 45 years, in addition to 5 published novels, wrote 40 original stage plays, screenplays, and screen adaptations of his own and others' works for stage, film, and television and became well known for the self-deprecating wit characteristic of several volumes of memoirs or diaries

Reviews

[CanadianReader · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the first in a series of diaries prolific British playwright and screenwriter Simon Gray began keeping when he turned 65. A smoker since early childhood, a cigarette was no doubt usually burning in his left hand as he transcribed, with his right hand on a canary yellow pad, his often rambling and sometimes rather unruly thoughts. This first diary begins with Gray’s learning of his friend Harold Pinter’s esophageal cancer. Not surprisingly, then, the book focuses on the indignities of aging, along with memories of early childhood, and personal and professional missteps along the way. (Gray had been an adulterer, an alcoholic, and profligate with his money.) I was most entertained by the early sections of the book in which Gray is on holiday in Barbadoes with his second wife, Victoria, and imagines all sorts of backstories for guests staying at the same hotel. There are some laugh-out-loud moments about the poetry of W.H. Auden—which Gray loathed for its sloppy language—and the need for a comprehensive book on piles (hemorrhoids) in history.

Gray’s musings are often unrestrained. Sentences can go on a half a page or more, joined by seemingly endless dashes. It is often difficult to follow the thread, and I found the play-by-plays of soccer and cricket matches (in particular) very tedious. This is a very “male” piece of writing—that is, many of Gray’s preoccupations, and certainly his perceptions of women, are likely to be more sympathetically received by a male audience. In general this book is one in which parts are better than the sum.

Gray died in 2008 of prostate cancer.

Rating: 2.5

[notgettingenough]

Maybe it's all in the timing. I fully expected to like this, having liked him in both novel and play form. But I started this immediately after Waiting for the Barbarians, and the juxtaposition made it so painfully trite in the most unbearably bourgeois way that I was compelled to stop just a little way in.

Maybe I should leave it on the shelf for a few years and come back to it, but I'm pretty sure I don't have enough time in my bookreading life left. So it is getting the gong; may it find an appreciative reader in my local English church's booksale.

[Beth Bonini · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

While I was reading this book, a close friend moaned that I was constantly referring to ‘Simon Gray this’ and ‘Simon Gray that’. He got really sick of Simon Gray. On the surface of things, I don’t have all that much in common with Gray. I’m not a smoker, not a heavy drinker, not a man who is having to face the butt-ends of his mortality. And yet, I felt an odd kindship with the man and his mordantly funny ‘mortality memoir’. Either the voice and style of this book will appeal to you, or you will be driven mad by its digressive structure and its looping sentences. I have a high tolerance for morbid thoughts and self-deprecating humour and thinly disguised self-loathing. Maybe that explains things. At any rate, I enjoyed Gray’s forays into an England of the past and his family portraits. I enjoyed his literary friendships (with people like Harold Pinter and Ian Hamilton) and his frequent musings on poetry and poets. I mostly enjoyed his other musings and observations.

One other note about this book: it was once owned by Mike Leigh (the English writer and director). Leigh dropped off a bag of books at the Oxfam that I work at and I decided to buy this one. He wrote ‘M. L.’ inside the cover, and although I can never prove his ownership, it gives this book a funny added value to me.

[Scott Collins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not really a diary, not really a memoir; more like the off-the-cuff regrets and rambles of a man of a certain age. "Smoking Diaries" is above all else a book about death. But even that's not quite right. It's really about that odd period at the twilight of one's career, when one has done what one can and there is not much else to do besides remember and trade details of illnesses with friends. And, you know, wait to die. (Gray turns his close friend Harold Pinter's ultimately fatal struggle with throat cancer into an ominous leitmotif.) I'm making this all sound much more glum than the book reads. Gray was - yes, alas, past tense - a British-Canadian playwright of moderate renown. But his enormous gifts as a prose stylist are what make this book worth reading and remembering. It *is* funny, although in a mordant, self-mocking way that Americans might find off-putting. You don't read it for the laughs. You read it because the narrative curls around half-remembered incidents from long-ago, stops, coughs, tosses in an aside or two, then keeps going nowhere in particular, entertaining all the way. What else is writing, anyway?

[David · Rating 5 out of 5]

Compulsively readable, Gray has my kind of a sense of humour. I used to keep a rambling diary for many years. It still fills up two boxes in the garage. Maybe I'll find an audience for them someday. The humour is dry and detached, and he's of course politically incorrect at every step. It may just appeal to the British, come to think of it, at least the ones that can still read.

[Leslie Angel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved the stream-of-consciousness style and could identify with a lot of the sentiment and experiences, some funny, some painful. 3.5

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good read, aubobiograph of Simon Gray. V amusing in parts, but slightly rambling in others! Dont think I could read it again.

[Steve · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very much enjoying this..... more observational wit than a full diary, this has me chuckling on every page. Very British, I'm not sure my American friends would be so amused (or maybe it's just me)....

.......... now finished, a real treat, a mix of nostalgia, holidays and the favourite restaurant, to deliver an insight into a playwright's life fuelled by a number of vices (yes, smoking included). The humour is direct and in some instances quite touching, and no-one is spared the target of his humourous intentions, though I found some of his personal history notes a little too much of the confessional in nature rather than of an insightful exploration or explanation.

[Techgurl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ridiculous ramblings of an old man, this coming of "old age" book is a confluence of his experiences of youth and facing the inevitable final chapter(s) of life. If you want a story line look else where... If you want to be charmed and float between beautifully wry and witty situations in which we all find ourselves then this is well worth a read in my mind. I appreciated Gray's reflections, turns of phrases and descriptions of everyday life as he ponders how he got so old.

[Wobbler · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously there's a bit less of a cohesive narrative with this, as it's back and forth through his throughts as they occur to him. That being said it manages to be touching, poiniant, honest and above all... you really get a lovely account of the mans sense of humour. I'd never heard of him, got this for xmas from my sister but I feel enriched by having read it :)

[Christopher Roth · Rating 5 out of 5]

A complete delight. I was skeptical at first of the written-on-a-legal-pad-on-the-fly-with-essentially-no-editing aspect of it, but it works. And the laziness of the project fits Gray's character and his attitude toward life at this point. And really, why *should* people with lots to say who write well bother with things like editing? Also, I'm delighted that there are two more volumes of it.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

All the blurb and review quotes on the jacket would have you believe it's laugh out loud funny but it just isn't. Extremely melancholic/misanthropic/sardonic in tone though none the worse for that. Artfully crafted and craftily artful

[Christie Bane · Rating 3 out of 5]

What happens when an old man sits down to write every single thought he has, whether witty or not, whether interesting or not? (And some ARE interesting, that’s why this is a 3-star review and not 1-star.) Well, this is what happens, a tedious rambling of thoughts on death, other people, relationships, and everything else under the sun. He’s a smoker and so were lots of other people he knew who have since died of cancer. He cuts down, from 60 per day to 30 per day, but he’s still a hard-core smoker. The book ends mid-recollection when he’s talking about being on a plane and going to a reading event. This is the first installment in a collection called The Complete Smoking Diaries, and I’m very thankful I only bought this one so I don’t feel an obligation to read other volumes of this nonsense. (Also, he’s dead [of cancer] so I don’t feel any guilt about leaving him this lukewarm review.)

[Alejandro Fernández Bruña · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gran amigo de Harold Pinter, el diario se inicia cuando le dan la noticia del cáncer de laringe de su amigo. La noticia le pilla de vacaciones en Barbados, donde empieza a recordar su infancia, su adolescencia y, en general, su vida. Supongo que cuando nos sabemos cerca de la muerte nos da por hacer memoria.

No está mal como testamento este recuento del autor. Habla de las películas que más le marcaron, de las zurras que recibía de su madre (y que según él generaban una intimidad única mientras era perseguido), de las zurras que recibía de sus profesores (y que le hacían sentirse especial como si fuera una especie de trato distinguido), de por qué le pone de los Auden, de por qué las hemorroides arruinaron a Napoleón pero auparon a Gary Cooper en “Solo ante el peligro”, de todas las cosas que hizo sin querer pero sobre todo también de las que jamás hizo. Me gusta mucho la calma desde la que habla, aunque a veces sea un cascarrabias y un poco intransigente con el presente. A ver cómo llegamos a los 65 años. Espero no fumar para entonces. Lo de cascarrabias ya lo veremos.

[David Lai · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hope springs eternal, which is the only reason I can think of why I read this book: the cover and first pages are full of quotes saying how funny, even hilarious, it is, but as is always the case with supposedly funny books, it didn't make me laugh even once.

Either it really isn't funny, or it just went completely over my head.

I heard Michael Gambon's Singing Detective voice speaking in my head throughout. An old curmudgeon brooding on life's disappointments. (Him, not me. OK, both of us.)

[Newfad · Rating 1 out of 5]

Wow, why did i bother finishing this book at all? Tedious and nothing like the front, back, inside blurbs telling me how funny it is.....has its moments but they get less as it goes on....'What was i trying to say?' is a a favourite line of the authors - nothing much i'd have to add.

[Kexx · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable romp though his life: although advertised as diaries they are really cues for him to talk about his life. Interesting - fascinates me he can smoke 65 cigarettes a day, and has been smoking since 7 years old.

[John Bleasdale · Rating 3 out of 5]

I must admit I didnt love this book. There were some funny moments and some very touching chapters. But there was also a bit of whining and general grumpy pants.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

A new favorite.

[Chiefdonkey Bradey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wide eyed louche Boswellian memoir

[Luca · Rating 1 out of 5]

A painful read. All this undesirables of stream of consciousness books and a lacuna of the merits. I’d stick to Gray, the playwright.

[Kathryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very very readable. Deceptively rambling, he claims that it's all written as a stream of consciousness but it must have been edited, surely? Loved the diary format. All the stuff at the end about how he manages to live a rich person's lifestyle despite being broke... could it be anything to do with being married to a Rothschild, perhaps? Hmmm? Surely the two facts are not unconnected.

[Wayne Roylance · Rating 5 out of 5]

the first in a series of memoirs by playwright gray about aging, missing his drink, smoking (of course) & literature. he's a natural storyteller - very funny, very british. the whole series is worth reading.

[Beep · Rating 2 out of 5]

The review I read about this book was much better than the book itself. Hate it when that happens.

[David Edmonds · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perfect to carry around to read when waiting, traveling or just stopping during a busy day.

[Martinxo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ohhh, I wanted to like this book and some of it is indeed very funny but ultimately I found myself flicking through the pages looking for things of interest.

[Lynn Kearney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Any old smoker would love this. Any non smoker would too. Witty and profound.

[Sanjay]

What wonderful, loopy, discursive, digressive, comic - and addictive - sentences!

[Liltiki · Rating 4 out of 5]

Candid, sometimes shocking, often sad memoir of the aging literary crowd in the UK. Especially the take on the dying Harold Pinter. Touching. For any Anglophile.

[Fredd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. If you don't like this book then may you end up like Jim Fixx.