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Unreliable Memoirs #5
The Blaze of Obscurity: The TV Years
For many people, Clive James will always be a TV presenter first and foremost, and a writer second—this despite the fact that his adventures with the written word took place before, during and after his time on the small screen. Nevertheless, for those who remember clips of Japanese endurance game shows and Egyptian soap operas, Clive reinventing the news or interviewing Hefner and Hepburn, Polanski and Pavarotti, Clive's 'Postcards' from Kenya, Shanghai and Dallas, or Clive James Racing Driver, Clive's rightful place does seem to be right there—on the box, in our homes, and almost one of the family. However you think of him, though, and whatever you remember him for, The Blaze of Obscurity is perhaps Clive's most brilliant book yet. Part Clive James on TV and part Clive James on TV, it tells the inside story of his years in television, shows Clive on top form both then and now, and proves—once and for all—that Clive has a way with words ... whatever the medium.
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
20 people are currently reading
137 people want to read
About the author
Clive James
94 books289 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 - 30 of 39 reviews
July 22, 2020
To be honest, he could have written 'I am Clive James' a million times and I'd still give it five stars. But he didn't do that. He wrote a brilliant, incisive and hilarious memoir. I loved every single word.
July 14, 2020
If you've never heard of him, Clive James was an immensely popular TV presenter in England during the 1980s & 90s; a period which this autobiography chronicles. I was one of a generation who grew up with his wit, warmth, and social commentary on almost a weekly basis. He was also an accomplished writer and poet, and highly respected in London's and NYC's literary circles. While he could always make me laugh with his sharp and self-deprecating humour, at the time, I never realised how much I had actually learned from him as well. James interviewed almost every international celebrity of the period, and travelled to nearly every major city of that era. He remains my favourite Australian; read this book, and he will become yours too.
January 2, 2010
Clive James, for those too young too recall, is a London-based, Australian expatriate writer and former television presenter of some fame. This book, the latest in his series of memoirs all published by Picador, chronicles his years as a presenter of a variety of television programmes and made-for-television documentaries - it is written from a reflective position, some years after the end of that highly-public part of his career, having returned now to more 'serious' expansive writing of novels, essays and reviews.
In his memoirs, James' style echoes that of his on-screen persona - biting, laconic, erudite and self-deprecating. He is egotistical and avuncular, but somehow charming in spite of himself.
With James' characteristic skill for providing self-analysis while writing expansively and interestingly about the jealousy-inducing list of people he's met and places he's been, this book slowly reveals itself to be much more than a mere memoir, but rather an elegy for a time when regular consumers of media (i.e the punters) were interested, genuinely interested, in the world around them, rather than in the banal and intellectually-bereft offerings presented to British television viewers. Without spite, or pressing the point, James poses leaves the reader in no doubt that, as a medium, television is without the power, either commercial or artistic, that it once had and of which television executives continue to blindly reassure themselves.
It seems to me people fall into either of two groups - those who think James is a genius (of which I am one) and those who think he's a boring, old fart. If you're a member of the former, read this book, if you're not sure to which group you belong, read his memoirs starting from the first volume "Unreliable Memoirs" and find out, if you're a member of the latter - then I'd be amazed if you are still reading by this point.
In his memoirs, James' style echoes that of his on-screen persona - biting, laconic, erudite and self-deprecating. He is egotistical and avuncular, but somehow charming in spite of himself.
With James' characteristic skill for providing self-analysis while writing expansively and interestingly about the jealousy-inducing list of people he's met and places he's been, this book slowly reveals itself to be much more than a mere memoir, but rather an elegy for a time when regular consumers of media (i.e the punters) were interested, genuinely interested, in the world around them, rather than in the banal and intellectually-bereft offerings presented to British television viewers. Without spite, or pressing the point, James poses leaves the reader in no doubt that, as a medium, television is without the power, either commercial or artistic, that it once had and of which television executives continue to blindly reassure themselves.
It seems to me people fall into either of two groups - those who think James is a genius (of which I am one) and those who think he's a boring, old fart. If you're a member of the former, read this book, if you're not sure to which group you belong, read his memoirs starting from the first volume "Unreliable Memoirs" and find out, if you're a member of the latter - then I'd be amazed if you are still reading by this point.
July 1, 2012
The fifth in the series of memoirs by Clive James is just as funny, self-deprecating and insightful as its predecessors.
This volume covers the period when James was regularly on TV, when he (and his team to whom he gives generous credit) and others were inventing a whole new genre of programming: sardonic, self-referential, using the medium to examine TV and fame itself.
Covering a period when James was travelling the world and meeting the `stars', I was at first somewhat put off: it seemed less personal than the previous volumes - more about others than about James. But I settled into it and revised my opinion. His intelligence shines through, and we learn as much about him as we do about the targets of his intellect. I also came to appreciate the quality of his writing: this book is extremely well-crafted.
Strange to have been reading this in the week when the media shamelessly misreported something he said about his illness (leukemia), I find myself eager to read another volume of memoirs, to re-read the previous volumes with my new-found appreciation of the quality of his writing, and any other of his works I might find.
This volume covers the period when James was regularly on TV, when he (and his team to whom he gives generous credit) and others were inventing a whole new genre of programming: sardonic, self-referential, using the medium to examine TV and fame itself.
Covering a period when James was travelling the world and meeting the `stars', I was at first somewhat put off: it seemed less personal than the previous volumes - more about others than about James. But I settled into it and revised my opinion. His intelligence shines through, and we learn as much about him as we do about the targets of his intellect. I also came to appreciate the quality of his writing: this book is extremely well-crafted.
Strange to have been reading this in the week when the media shamelessly misreported something he said about his illness (leukemia), I find myself eager to read another volume of memoirs, to re-read the previous volumes with my new-found appreciation of the quality of his writing, and any other of his works I might find.
December 22, 2009
Oh Clive James how I love you...
October 27, 2015
Brilliant. He's not allowed to snuff it until he writes one more volume.
September 22, 2020
Well, here we are. This is the final volume in Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs series. It's the fifth book wherein the éminence grise (or should that be éminence chauve?) describes his continued ascent through the land of the crystal bucket. With The Blaze of Obscurity, the Australian writer moves from being about the box to being mostly on it. It's where shows began to be prefaced with his name, not just his image.
It's certainly the part of his career I knew most fulsomely. Beginning in 1982, it takes in James's collection of Postcards shows, as well as the assorted clip shows (with or without Margarita Pracatan, who is rightly venerated here as an unstoppable force) and NYE celebrations that were a staple in our house when I was becoming old enough to get some of the jokes.
(All right, I might not have been quite cognisant of why the idea of Leonid Brezhnev kept upright by a foot pump was funny, but I could tell it was, so that's something.)
Famous people abound in this book. I don't know that I've read a more delightful portrait of Pavarotti than appears in here, and James's description of Princess Diana – a woman he knew a little, and loved a lot – is particularly trenchant. There's silliness and sadness in his encounters with fame – truculent dancers and movie titans who like knob jokes – but it's presented in a way that never seems like name dropping. It's vicarious, true, but the enjoyment is immense.
There's a lot of information about the nuts and bolts of TV production here, and James manages to ensure it's not boring as batshit. Instead, it highlights the amount of work that went into the review shows – a mammoth amount, as the following indicates…
…and the serendipity that was necessary to make the Postcards shows rise above the norm. There's still silly stories, but the amount of work involved to make the seamless shows is remarkable. The increase of pace involved in the formation of a production company is enormous, but there's the sense that, even in the whirlwind, there's Clive in his regulation blue suit.
This time, though, there's a lot more poetry. Though it's long been a part of the author's life, it's making itself more known here – or at least is given a lot more space. The death of Larkin – and James's distress at being overseas at the time – is touchingly conveyed. But there's never any doubt that the creation of poetry – even in translation (his Divine Comedy was yet to come) – is still bloody hard work:
Speaking of words, the description of James's place in London's literary scene is still a key part of the Unreliable Memoirs series. The personal nature of the meetings, the stoushes and verbal sparring are brilliant, but are shot through with the regret that comes with increasing workloads, if not increasing fame.
(I am not sure whether Julian Barnes would welcome being described as an Easter Island statue when presented with French farce, but it's certainly a line that seems particularly appropriate.)
Along with his literary endeavours, the author's incredible drive to self-educate stands out. It's always been there, as has his awareness of the ticking clock of mortality, but there's a heightened sense of the need to get on with it. Learning to read Russian, working on one's poetry, and figuring out how to wring the best out of both interview and travel – they're all grist to James's mill. Research is never wasted, and sometimes approaches transcendence.
Of learning to read Japanese, he writes
There it is: that delight in learning. The way turning down an alley of passing interest can lead to obsession and delight. If there's anything that James has communicated through the volumes of memoirs he's written, it's that education and experience are to be pursued, to be savoured. The bloke truly was an intellectual omnivore. True, he never thought he was all that crash-hot at the things he was doing – ah, there's the Australia in the man! – but he was never afraid of giving it a red-hot go.
I think that's the real Clive James I see when I think of this volume, and of the Unreliable Memoirs in general: someone giving it a go. The line between enthusiast and chancer is very fine, but James managed to walk it pretty well, at least from an onlooker's perspective.
There's plenty of hints throughout that James was considering another volume of memoirs. It's saddening to know that his post-television exploits – including (but not limited to) his poetic growth and long struggle with illness – will not be written. For all their humour, these books in general (and The Blaze of Obscurity in particular) provide a portrait that's touching in its humanity. It would have been interesting to see how Clive presented his later years – I'm sure he'd have spun a few excellent bon mots out of increasing decrepitude – but I think his poetry perhaps took on the role that memoir once played.
At any rate, I'm sad these are over. They're no Boswell-styled epic, but they do capture a self-doubting man whose turn of phrase was pretty fucking great. And let's face it, there's not much more one requires in a memoir.
From now on, in this book, I will try to leave my name out of the title of the shows, thus to circumvent the twin fears of wasting space and sounding more than necessarily like a self-glorifying pantaloon.
It's certainly the part of his career I knew most fulsomely. Beginning in 1982, it takes in James's collection of Postcards shows, as well as the assorted clip shows (with or without Margarita Pracatan, who is rightly venerated here as an unstoppable force) and NYE celebrations that were a staple in our house when I was becoming old enough to get some of the jokes.
(All right, I might not have been quite cognisant of why the idea of Leonid Brezhnev kept upright by a foot pump was funny, but I could tell it was, so that's something.)
Famous people abound in this book. I don't know that I've read a more delightful portrait of Pavarotti than appears in here, and James's description of Princess Diana – a woman he knew a little, and loved a lot – is particularly trenchant. There's silliness and sadness in his encounters with fame – truculent dancers and movie titans who like knob jokes – but it's presented in a way that never seems like name dropping. It's vicarious, true, but the enjoyment is immense.
There's a lot of information about the nuts and bolts of TV production here, and James manages to ensure it's not boring as batshit. Instead, it highlights the amount of work that went into the review shows – a mammoth amount, as the following indicates…
Editing is an essentially poetic process akin to compressing carbon until you get diamonds. In our case we were compressing dross to get zircons, but that made the job even more difficult.
…and the serendipity that was necessary to make the Postcards shows rise above the norm. There's still silly stories, but the amount of work involved to make the seamless shows is remarkable. The increase of pace involved in the formation of a production company is enormous, but there's the sense that, even in the whirlwind, there's Clive in his regulation blue suit.
This time, though, there's a lot more poetry. Though it's long been a part of the author's life, it's making itself more known here – or at least is given a lot more space. The death of Larkin – and James's distress at being overseas at the time – is touchingly conveyed. But there's never any doubt that the creation of poetry – even in translation (his Divine Comedy was yet to come) – is still bloody hard work:
Money and time are forms of each other, and there is no poem that does not cost the poet a hundred times what he gets paid for it. Poetry, the centre of my life, has always been the enemy of my material existence, and even now, after fifty years of writing it, it is still trying to put me out of business.
Speaking of words, the description of James's place in London's literary scene is still a key part of the Unreliable Memoirs series. The personal nature of the meetings, the stoushes and verbal sparring are brilliant, but are shot through with the regret that comes with increasing workloads, if not increasing fame.
When the up and coming are still in the early stages of their ascent, they cling together for warmth, but higher up the mountain, even though it gets colder, they start going their separate ways to the top. They just get too busy. It was our timetables, and not our different views, that put the first cracks in the old camaraderie.
(I am not sure whether Julian Barnes would welcome being described as an Easter Island statue when presented with French farce, but it's certainly a line that seems particularly appropriate.)
Along with his literary endeavours, the author's incredible drive to self-educate stands out. It's always been there, as has his awareness of the ticking clock of mortality, but there's a heightened sense of the need to get on with it. Learning to read Russian, working on one's poetry, and figuring out how to wring the best out of both interview and travel – they're all grist to James's mill. Research is never wasted, and sometimes approaches transcendence.
Of learning to read Japanese, he writes
One day I hope to start again, because it was one of the big aesthetic experiences of my life, like getting into the Bach cantatas.
There it is: that delight in learning. The way turning down an alley of passing interest can lead to obsession and delight. If there's anything that James has communicated through the volumes of memoirs he's written, it's that education and experience are to be pursued, to be savoured. The bloke truly was an intellectual omnivore. True, he never thought he was all that crash-hot at the things he was doing – ah, there's the Australia in the man! – but he was never afraid of giving it a red-hot go.
I think that's the real Clive James I see when I think of this volume, and of the Unreliable Memoirs in general: someone giving it a go. The line between enthusiast and chancer is very fine, but James managed to walk it pretty well, at least from an onlooker's perspective.
There's plenty of hints throughout that James was considering another volume of memoirs. It's saddening to know that his post-television exploits – including (but not limited to) his poetic growth and long struggle with illness – will not be written. For all their humour, these books in general (and The Blaze of Obscurity in particular) provide a portrait that's touching in its humanity. It would have been interesting to see how Clive presented his later years – I'm sure he'd have spun a few excellent bon mots out of increasing decrepitude – but I think his poetry perhaps took on the role that memoir once played.
At any rate, I'm sad these are over. They're no Boswell-styled epic, but they do capture a self-doubting man whose turn of phrase was pretty fucking great. And let's face it, there's not much more one requires in a memoir.
It was said that when people wept at Diana’s death they were weeping for their own mortality. If they did, why should they not have done? To treat your life as if it will last is an illusion. If chance doesn’t stop you early, decrepitude will get you later on. Even when I was young I could hear the clock tick. Now, with my sixtieth year coming up, I could hear it boom.
August 27, 2020
A sense of deja by accompanied my reading of this memoir. I eventually realized this was because I had watched Clive James' TV interview series. He writes with humor about his experiences filming for TV, has some great anecdotes to share and a penchant for name dropping. However I didn't learn much about Clive the man.
August 16, 2012
I must admit that had I not got this volume of James' memoirs out of the library at the same time as its predecessor, I might not have gone back for it, much as I enjoyed North Face of Soho. I left Clive James on Television a long, long time before Clive James left television. And yet here we are with yet another engaging read - almost a guilty pleasure. As I write, James believes he really does not have much longer to live, in a rather more specific way than his intimations of immortality at the end of The Blaze of Obscurity suggest, and frankly that's why I read these books now, I didn't want to read them when he was dead. I can't quite put my finger on why I like these books but it has something to do with his apparent basic standpoint of as far as possible liking people. Somehow there is a sense that there is something important underneath all the dross of the "who was naughty, who was nice" accounts of interviewing Ivana Trump and Ronald Reagan - I have no idea whether there is or not but yet again, I enjoyed the feeling.
July 3, 2016
This is the fifth and so far last instalment of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs, although they appear to be becoming more reliable as they go on. The Blaze of Obscurity covers James' TV career from the eighties through to the turn of the millennium, at which point he's had enough and gives it up to return to the literary life. Smartly written of course and funny throughout, but the subject matter of this volume interested me less than the earlier volumes: the challenges of filming TV specials in glamorous locations, chasing Hollywood stars for interviews and the technicalities of setting up complicated shoots bored me rather. Not that that has altered my opinion that James is one of our greatest writers, it's just that The Blaze of Obscurity didn't hit my buttons in the way the preceding volumes did.
May 18, 2019
Interesting look back at the beginning of television as a real force. Found that James did go on a bit about his longings around unattainable women. But then, it was a period piece. A memory lane book for those of us in our 60s and 70s.
June 26, 2019
Clive James is a great storyteller, and this volume of memoirs covering the years when he was a household name on TV is full of fascinating anecdotes told in typically entertaining style.
January 31, 2025
In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed monster is king
Clive James continues telling the story of his life by describing the years he spent wrestling with the one-eyed monster that is television: trying to make entertaining programmes that were interesting, told a story, or produced some penetrating insight from a celebrity guest. Although I'm a big fan of his writing, I should say that I'm less interested in his work for TV - partly because, not possessing one, I've hardly seen any of it, and also because I'm less enamoured of his speaking voice than his writing one. So my expectations of this book weren't high before I started it. As it turned out, however, I ended up enjoying it a lot - in fact, somewhat more than the previous volume of his memoirs, North Face of Soho, which deals with his entry into the London media world.
I think one of the reasons for this is that there's more going on: the scouring of the world's TV output for the peculiar or amusing (culminating in - or rather, beginning with - his exposure of the Japanese game show "Endurance"), the trips to cities around the world for the "Postcard" series, the celebrity interviews and the end-of-the-year show. He describes the work that goes into putting the programmes together, highlights what can go wrong when some important detail is missed, and is always careful to acknowledge the efforts of his colleagues (the producers, the editors, the researchers) lest anyone think that all he had to do was turn up and start talking. He also describes how much time all this takes, and how he tried to find space in a packed schedule in order to write essays and reviews (collected together in books like Snakecharmers in Texas and The Dreaming Swimmer), novels such as Brrm! Brrm! and The Silver Castle and, indeed, earlier volumes of his memoirs (a self-reference which reminds me of a hall of mirrors, or a serpent eating its tail).
The jokes don't come as thick or fast as in some of his other books, and certainly not as much as the first instalment (Unreliable Memoirs) which is one of the funniest books I've ever read. Instead, there's more of a sober assessment of what he's (tried to) produce, and a consciousness of the passing of time (this book was published on his 70th birthday). The valedictory note becomes more prevalent at the close, when he muses on colleagues and friends - including the Princess of Wales - now departed. The limits of time and energy are what we all have to work within, but not all of us transcend them as well as this most adept of writers. Even as he lays down the final word on p325 ("I've always been a lucky man") he characteristically anticipates the reaction of a reader who thinks they've detected his swollen head: "Try to forgive me if I pay myself the compliment that I was wise enough to know it".
Originally reviewed 8 February 2011
Clive James continues telling the story of his life by describing the years he spent wrestling with the one-eyed monster that is television: trying to make entertaining programmes that were interesting, told a story, or produced some penetrating insight from a celebrity guest. Although I'm a big fan of his writing, I should say that I'm less interested in his work for TV - partly because, not possessing one, I've hardly seen any of it, and also because I'm less enamoured of his speaking voice than his writing one. So my expectations of this book weren't high before I started it. As it turned out, however, I ended up enjoying it a lot - in fact, somewhat more than the previous volume of his memoirs, North Face of Soho, which deals with his entry into the London media world.
I think one of the reasons for this is that there's more going on: the scouring of the world's TV output for the peculiar or amusing (culminating in - or rather, beginning with - his exposure of the Japanese game show "Endurance"), the trips to cities around the world for the "Postcard" series, the celebrity interviews and the end-of-the-year show. He describes the work that goes into putting the programmes together, highlights what can go wrong when some important detail is missed, and is always careful to acknowledge the efforts of his colleagues (the producers, the editors, the researchers) lest anyone think that all he had to do was turn up and start talking. He also describes how much time all this takes, and how he tried to find space in a packed schedule in order to write essays and reviews (collected together in books like Snakecharmers in Texas and The Dreaming Swimmer), novels such as Brrm! Brrm! and The Silver Castle and, indeed, earlier volumes of his memoirs (a self-reference which reminds me of a hall of mirrors, or a serpent eating its tail).
The jokes don't come as thick or fast as in some of his other books, and certainly not as much as the first instalment (Unreliable Memoirs) which is one of the funniest books I've ever read. Instead, there's more of a sober assessment of what he's (tried to) produce, and a consciousness of the passing of time (this book was published on his 70th birthday). The valedictory note becomes more prevalent at the close, when he muses on colleagues and friends - including the Princess of Wales - now departed. The limits of time and energy are what we all have to work within, but not all of us transcend them as well as this most adept of writers. Even as he lays down the final word on p325 ("I've always been a lucky man") he characteristically anticipates the reaction of a reader who thinks they've detected his swollen head: "Try to forgive me if I pay myself the compliment that I was wise enough to know it".
Originally reviewed 8 February 2011
December 24, 2021
Two for the price of two and my orgy of reading Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs comes to a close.
Surprisingly, it was an emotional close. He relates his grief when Princess Diana dies, rattles off a list of literary lunching companions as they shuffle off in turn and there is a touching moment when he is in Hong Kong for the 1997 handover to the Chinese and, when asked why he is even remotely concerned about what the Chinese are going to do to the place, replies that his father is buried there. (Clive James' father was captured by the Japanese in WWII and died in a plane crash when he was being repatriated)
Throughout the final two books there is an obvious wrestle between him doing the work he loves (writing, literary criticism, essays, poetry) and the work that pays (television programs about travel, television and Japanese students with underpants full of cockroaches trying to win cash prizes). He sees it as a struggle as the work that pays erodes his reputation for the work he loves.
Finally, he ends up with the wherewithal to do the work he loves.
There's another theme in these books.
James' weakness for beautiful women. In the books they float in, capture his heart and imagination and, after keeping his hands where you can see them, he dutifully trudges home alone to the bosom of his family. It transpires that during the time he was writing this last memoir he was having an affair with a former model and socialite, Leanne Edelstein. It seems a weakness that was of some probable longstanding.
So, he wasn't superhuman. He is the first to admit it. But he was affable, avuncular ("stick with Uncle Clive and you'll never commit suicide again!"), clever, well-read and pursuer of art for art's sake. His output was prodigious too: that he wrote 40 books is staggering and I am envious of his talent.
He's gone now.
Leukaemia got him.
As he saw the end of his life approaching he wrote this.
Japanese Maple
Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:
Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?
Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.
My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that.That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:
Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.
Surprisingly, it was an emotional close. He relates his grief when Princess Diana dies, rattles off a list of literary lunching companions as they shuffle off in turn and there is a touching moment when he is in Hong Kong for the 1997 handover to the Chinese and, when asked why he is even remotely concerned about what the Chinese are going to do to the place, replies that his father is buried there. (Clive James' father was captured by the Japanese in WWII and died in a plane crash when he was being repatriated)
Throughout the final two books there is an obvious wrestle between him doing the work he loves (writing, literary criticism, essays, poetry) and the work that pays (television programs about travel, television and Japanese students with underpants full of cockroaches trying to win cash prizes). He sees it as a struggle as the work that pays erodes his reputation for the work he loves.
Finally, he ends up with the wherewithal to do the work he loves.
There's another theme in these books.
James' weakness for beautiful women. In the books they float in, capture his heart and imagination and, after keeping his hands where you can see them, he dutifully trudges home alone to the bosom of his family. It transpires that during the time he was writing this last memoir he was having an affair with a former model and socialite, Leanne Edelstein. It seems a weakness that was of some probable longstanding.
So, he wasn't superhuman. He is the first to admit it. But he was affable, avuncular ("stick with Uncle Clive and you'll never commit suicide again!"), clever, well-read and pursuer of art for art's sake. His output was prodigious too: that he wrote 40 books is staggering and I am envious of his talent.
He's gone now.
Leukaemia got him.
As he saw the end of his life approaching he wrote this.
Japanese Maple
Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:
Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?
Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.
My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that.That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:
Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.
April 8, 2023
I loved Clive James when I was growing up.
He looked like a slightly terrified koala bear who had been crammed into a too-small blue suit, his physical awkwardness contrasting sharply with his deadpan observations and humour so dry that it made the Gobi Desert look like the Florida wetlands.
His programs, especially Saturday Night Clive, were the last bastion of intelligent humour on TV, and I miss it. He could have intellectual giants such as Germaine Greer and Jonathan Miller on and have hilarious conversations on the most innocuous subjects.
So it was a joy to read that sardonic loquaciousness that he was famed for. It was as if he was in the room speaking his mind which was refreshing.
He speaks about learning the craft of television whilst worrying about time that it took away from his chosen career path of writing, and from his family too. The book follows the trajectory of his decision to enter television up until he left because he could see how things were going.
He was wise to leave when he did because anyone who has seen his internet based "Talking In the Library" interview series will see a man finally comfortable in his own skin and doing what he did best: having erudite conversations with his intellectual equals whilst surrounded by books. (It's a fabulous series and the videos are on YouTube if you want to see them).
Like most people I had no idea that James was primarily a writer, I only found out when aged 15, there was an extract from one of his reviews included in a set of English Past Papers that I used to revise for exams. As an adult, I shame to say that this is the first book of his that I have read too. That is going to change. What made James engaging on television is also what makes him engaging in print: his unique way with words. It's just a pity that he is no longer with us.
He looked like a slightly terrified koala bear who had been crammed into a too-small blue suit, his physical awkwardness contrasting sharply with his deadpan observations and humour so dry that it made the Gobi Desert look like the Florida wetlands.
His programs, especially Saturday Night Clive, were the last bastion of intelligent humour on TV, and I miss it. He could have intellectual giants such as Germaine Greer and Jonathan Miller on and have hilarious conversations on the most innocuous subjects.
So it was a joy to read that sardonic loquaciousness that he was famed for. It was as if he was in the room speaking his mind which was refreshing.
He speaks about learning the craft of television whilst worrying about time that it took away from his chosen career path of writing, and from his family too. The book follows the trajectory of his decision to enter television up until he left because he could see how things were going.
He was wise to leave when he did because anyone who has seen his internet based "Talking In the Library" interview series will see a man finally comfortable in his own skin and doing what he did best: having erudite conversations with his intellectual equals whilst surrounded by books. (It's a fabulous series and the videos are on YouTube if you want to see them).
Like most people I had no idea that James was primarily a writer, I only found out when aged 15, there was an extract from one of his reviews included in a set of English Past Papers that I used to revise for exams. As an adult, I shame to say that this is the first book of his that I have read too. That is going to change. What made James engaging on television is also what makes him engaging in print: his unique way with words. It's just a pity that he is no longer with us.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
October 2, 2021
I missed the fourth volume of this series but I adored the first three. It was a surprise then that this one was a little disappointing. It has the self-deprecating observations of his own capabilities that I loved in the earlier books, the brushes with fame and the snatch of defeat from the jaws of victory and vice versa. What was missing was the energy and zest that the earlier books had. Or maybe it was the fact that this was the first book of Mr James’ that I’d read since he passed away. I know that mortality creeps into this book insidiously as it is written under the shadow of the passing of many of his friends and colleagues: Clive reaches an age in this book familiar to those of us left behind where mentors, friends and colleagues begin to fall away through illness, accident or misadventure and it is reflected in the tone of a lot of it. There’s a lot that is very entertaining in this book - I was reminded very vividly of a lot of things that he did in the timespan of this volume - but it does get a little grim in places, too. I think, too, that I started to feel that he was protesting too much in some places: he spends a lot of time worrying about finances and whether or not he can provide for his family but they still go away for several weeks every year to skiing and sunbathing (at different locations, obviously) and takes several non-work-related trips himself. It’s an uneven book at worst, really, and hugely entertaining at best. Just not as good as the earlier ones, alas.
February 15, 2019
Another excellent volume of Clive James' brilliant unreliable memories. This volume takes in the time when I got to know James and his work.
We start with the just plain funny of Clive James on TV (and, of course, Endurance which had everyone at school in stitches), move into the cleverer territory of his "Postcards from" films, that awakened a certain wanderlust in me, and always find Clive trying to reconcile the populist demands of TV with his more intellectual pursuits of poetry and literary criticism.
In his previous memoirs, James reveals his high brow leanings but he is smart enough to leave cultural snobbery behind and recognise that popular doesn't (always) mean stupid. In The Blaze of Obscurity, James finds success with the latter but is able to work his more artful skills into his programmes.
This is another excellent journey through James' life, but (like the previous books) also throws light on the changing cultural landscape of the times he's lived through without being too smart for its own good.
We start with the just plain funny of Clive James on TV (and, of course, Endurance which had everyone at school in stitches), move into the cleverer territory of his "Postcards from" films, that awakened a certain wanderlust in me, and always find Clive trying to reconcile the populist demands of TV with his more intellectual pursuits of poetry and literary criticism.
In his previous memoirs, James reveals his high brow leanings but he is smart enough to leave cultural snobbery behind and recognise that popular doesn't (always) mean stupid. In The Blaze of Obscurity, James finds success with the latter but is able to work his more artful skills into his programmes.
This is another excellent journey through James' life, but (like the previous books) also throws light on the changing cultural landscape of the times he's lived through without being too smart for its own good.
March 21, 2020
What can you say about Clive, except to love him to pieces. The writing in this one about his television years is all over the shop, but the writing still shines through with creative expression and sage wisdom. I am not sure how many of Clive I have read, but I have downloaded a few more on my Kindle in case I have missed one in the past. At times he sounds like a professional Australian (which he was) but that in itself seems to being an anti-British establishment position which seems independent, impudent and refreshing. I heartily recommend this to anyone who wants a highly entertaining book to read.
June 1, 2022
Another of Clive James's memoirs, this one about his television years. Fascinating, witty, incisive, staggeringly articulate, as usual. If you want or need to have a rollicking, tears running down your face laugh, at least read Chapter 4, "Elephant Walk" about the safari to Africa.
Here's just one of many examples about his encounter with a buffalo:
"The shock of suddenly seeing the buffalo's foaming nostrils and mad red eyes from so very close is with me still. It was like turning over a Sunday colour supplement and finding, on its cover, Donatella Versace after her latest encounter with the collagen."
Sadly, I doubt we will never see his like again.
Here's just one of many examples about his encounter with a buffalo:
"The shock of suddenly seeing the buffalo's foaming nostrils and mad red eyes from so very close is with me still. It was like turning over a Sunday colour supplement and finding, on its cover, Donatella Versace after her latest encounter with the collagen."
Sadly, I doubt we will never see his like again.
January 7, 2019
Another rich instalment in Clive James' (hopefully) ongoing memoirs, sumptuously charting his apprenticeship and gradual mastery of the mainstream television presenting format, with a few juicy insider portraits and written with James' usual bon viveur grace.
July 6, 2019
The fifth volume of Clive James's memoirs and, in my opinion, one of the best. A real insight into documentary making with all of James's wit and acute observations. He is also a thoughtful and reflective writer and never dull.
August 19, 2020
Some good writing and some funny bits but mostly as boring as Brisbane. However he did mention a piece he wrote about the death of Princess Diana for the New York Times ("Requiem"). That was very good.
6.5/10
6.5/10
September 17, 2023
This is Clive James and therefore 5 stars to me. It makes me sad to know he's no longer around. Love hearing his voice. His writing makes me continuously chuckle. Brilliant.
If you are to young to know CJ listen a little and read a lot.
If you are to young to know CJ listen a little and read a lot.
May 17, 2019
Clive has a gift for writing seriously funny and revelatory prose. This look back on his television years is a great read.
December 22, 2019
Of course it’s brilliant. It’s Clive James.
January 16, 2020
An enjoyable listen with some laugh out loud moments. A reminder of a dry witty man lost to us
January 29, 2020
Mr Wolf, gone, but not forgotten :~(
September 11, 2020
Entertaining style but a bit 'full of himself'
June 15, 2015
In 1982 Clive James migrated to television full time. Before that he had led a charmed, if precarious, life in Grub Street, eventually landing a job as the Observer's TV critic. This, the fifth volume of his Unreliable Memoirs, is the story of what happened next.
In the first volume in the series, James warned us we were getting a novel disguised as an autobiography. But by the time you get to the fourth volume, North Face of Soho, fact seems to have elbowed fiction aside. That's no bad thing, for fiction just wouldn't have kept the pace - and it's something critics forever peddling the 'that-bighead-Clive James' line would do well to consider.
TV, in James's account, seems just like theatre on a larger scale: i.e. its natural state is impending disaster somehow turning out just fine. The smallest things take days of painstaking preparation. Linking shots, satellite interviews and Billy Connolly's suits are to this volume what Kogarah's spiders and snakes were to the first one. As before, stories that might be cruel on the first read are saved by generosity. Read his account of interviewing Tammy Faye Bakker, wife of the 'gate-mouthed television evangelist' Jim Bakker, to see what what I'm talking about. For readers who knew James as a TV personality first, the pleasure of these anecdotes - and the ones about Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Kate Winslett, Peter O'Toole and Princess Diana - can only be greater.
But that's not to say his sympathy is without limits. If there's one good thing to say for Hugh Hefner, it's that he pushes James's satire towards the heights of his 'Edward Pygge' parodies and classic essay, 'Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Masses'. A warning: if your wife is like mine, don't read chapter 22 (regarding Jason Donovan) aloud, unless you have a comfy sofa to sleep on.
If not as assured as Unreliable Memoirs or as wise as North Face of Soho, it's still a rewarding read, and more so for describing what happened where we could all see it. It'll be a sad day when the series' sixth and final volume is published.
In the first volume in the series, James warned us we were getting a novel disguised as an autobiography. But by the time you get to the fourth volume, North Face of Soho, fact seems to have elbowed fiction aside. That's no bad thing, for fiction just wouldn't have kept the pace - and it's something critics forever peddling the 'that-bighead-Clive James' line would do well to consider.
TV, in James's account, seems just like theatre on a larger scale: i.e. its natural state is impending disaster somehow turning out just fine. The smallest things take days of painstaking preparation. Linking shots, satellite interviews and Billy Connolly's suits are to this volume what Kogarah's spiders and snakes were to the first one. As before, stories that might be cruel on the first read are saved by generosity. Read his account of interviewing Tammy Faye Bakker, wife of the 'gate-mouthed television evangelist' Jim Bakker, to see what what I'm talking about. For readers who knew James as a TV personality first, the pleasure of these anecdotes - and the ones about Jeremy Irons, Don Johnson, Kate Winslett, Peter O'Toole and Princess Diana - can only be greater.
But that's not to say his sympathy is without limits. If there's one good thing to say for Hugh Hefner, it's that he pushes James's satire towards the heights of his 'Edward Pygge' parodies and classic essay, 'Little Malcolm and His Struggle Against the Masses'. A warning: if your wife is like mine, don't read chapter 22 (regarding Jason Donovan) aloud, unless you have a comfy sofa to sleep on.
If not as assured as Unreliable Memoirs or as wise as North Face of Soho, it's still a rewarding read, and more so for describing what happened where we could all see it. It'll be a sad day when the series' sixth and final volume is published.
January 16, 2019
The Television Years
My second reading of this book - a recommendation in itself. The subject matter being Clive and his career in television, the book takes us down many different roads. There isn't much about the private man, but that doesn't make this a tour de force of name-dropping, so much as an account of a man who worked among the famous, and whose work defined his life. Not to say that there are no personal moments, but the general impression is one of a driven man. Literate and witty, and for those of us old enough to remember the "Postcard From....." and New Year's Eve round-up programmes, a procession of happy memories, but also a reminder of the sad day when television had changed so much that there was no longer room for a man like Clive James.
My second reading of this book - a recommendation in itself. The subject matter being Clive and his career in television, the book takes us down many different roads. There isn't much about the private man, but that doesn't make this a tour de force of name-dropping, so much as an account of a man who worked among the famous, and whose work defined his life. Not to say that there are no personal moments, but the general impression is one of a driven man. Literate and witty, and for those of us old enough to remember the "Postcard From....." and New Year's Eve round-up programmes, a procession of happy memories, but also a reminder of the sad day when television had changed so much that there was no longer room for a man like Clive James.
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