Jonathan Meades

Museum Without Walls collects essays, articles and TV scripts by Jonathan Meades. And it is an immensely enjoyable read. Meades' obsession is with Place and how it shapes and influences us.

Meades is a brilliant writer, skewering his targets with deadpan, razor wit. His special ire is reserved for Architects and the insipid buildings they inflict upon us. A great architect can inspire and transform the people who live in their buildings. A poor one can inflict bland mediocrity upon us.

The writing here ranges from examinations of the buildings of Hitler and Stalin to the strange charm of shacks in the Severn Valley; from suburban Britain to our fascination with all things Victorian.

Meades is opinionated to be sure, but its hard to disagree with him when he makes his arguments with such persuasive prose. And it is always backed up by the wealth of knowledge he has gathered over the years.

The only part of the book that didn't work for me is the inclusion of some of his TV scripts. Meades is brilliant in front of the camera, subverting the conventions of the usual TV talking heads with his deadpan delivery. You really need to see the TV programmes to see these scripts come to life. A judicious search on YouTube show you what I mean. All his TV programmes are there.

Otherwise, a brilliant, informative, funny, opinionated (in the best sense) book. Go read.… (meer)

I'm a big Jonathan Meades fan so I'm biased. He's not yet a national treasure, like Alan Bennet, but he should be. The problem is that he's not easily classifiable - other than being an iconoclast. He's best known for his writing and TV programmes on architecture. But, a few years ago, he made a documentary on his 1950's childhood in Salisbury and about his father, a sales rep for a biscuit company. It was great. And now, here is his childhood autobiography.
Any book that starts with a section called 'Abusers, Sexual' and apologises for the fact that he was never sexually abused as a child and then goes through, in great detail, all the cliched sexual abusers (most notably the euphemistic 'friend of the family') has to capture your interest.
Even so, I must issue a warning. Meades is overly in love with language and will use the most obscure vocabulary whenever he can. Sometimes, reading him is like eating a whole pile of cream cakes. I especially found his childhood experiences fascinating as I was also a child of the 5os and 60s and so could wallow in his memories of sweets, toys, pop music and films. His cast of characters is unbelievably huge and yet each one of them is described in exhaustive Dickensian detail. As a writer, he uses a range of original metaphors which I'd love to steal. I particularly liked his search for a suitable term to describe himself in his late sixties. He finally settles on calling himself a 'pre-dotard'.… (meer)