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'Arriving in Cambridge on my first day as an undergraduate, I could see nothing except a cold white October mist. At the age of twenty-four I was a complete failure, with nothing to show for my life except a few poems nobody wanted to publish in book form.' Falling Toward England - the second volume of Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs - was meant to be the last. Thankfully, that's not the case. In Unrelaible Memoirs III, Clive details his time at Cambridge, including film reviewing, writing poetry, falling in love (often), and marrying (once). 'Every line is propelled by a firecracker witticism' London Review of Books 'He turns phrases, mixes together cleverness and clownishness, and achieves a fluency and a level of wit that make his pages truly shimmer... May Week Was In June is vintage James' Financial Times… (meer)
If I might borrow from football punditry, this was definitely a book of two halves. The early chapters detailing Clive James's time as an undergraduate at Cambridge during the 1960s are very entertaining. James had secured a place at Pembroke College to read English Literature and went up in about 1965. Having already secured a degree back home in Australia he was able to study for the Tripos in just two years, and he set about making sure that he enjoyed every moment of his time in Cambridge. His recollections of his time in the Footlights are highly amusing and include detailed insights into figures later famous in their own right such as Eric Idle (subsequently a mainstay of Monty Python's Flying Circus) and 'Romaine Rand' (a notably transparent avatar for James fellow Australian, Germaine Greer).
James tells his tale with a pleasing lack of modesty, though he never subsides into rank bragging either. He certainly managed to keep an impressive number of plate spinning on different poles during his time as an undergraduate (working for the Footlights, writing poetry, reviewing films, reading Proust, slowly, in French and even briefly editing Granta were just a few of the stings to his bow), though these activities naturally threatened to impinge upon his academic responsibilities. He cartainly makes Cambridge in the mid-1960s sound a beguiling place.
The second part of the book, though, seems slightly dislocated and I found myself struggling to find the will to continue. It seemed to me as if he was including accounts of adventures (or perhaps misadventures) that befell him because he thinks that they could or should be funny, but lacked the physical or spiritual energy to apply the final gloss to make them so.
The positive certainly more than outweighed the negative but he did rather sell me the dummy with this one. ( )
This may have fewer laugh-out-loud moments than its predecessors but it describes the period when he encountered many of the people who have since shaped our national cultural landscape and it does so with Clive's distinctive panache and erudite wit. Like the man himself, there is a brash shyness here: we are given parts of stories but the presentation is so stylish taht it is hard to see through to the core. ( )
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
"I realise very well that the reader has no great need to know all this; but I need to tell him." - Rousseau, Les Confessions
"I wear a suit of armour made of nothing but my mistakes." - Pierre Reverdy, quoted by Ernst Jünger in Das zweite Pariser Tagebuch, 21 February 1943
"I've never made any secret of the fact that I'm basically on my way to Australia." - Support Your Local Sherrif
Opdracht
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
in memoriam Mark Boxer and Tom Weiskel and to Gabriella Rosselli del Turco where she lies sleeping
Eerste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
Somebody once said that a trilogy ought ideally to consist of two volumes.
Citaten
Laatste woorden
Informatie afkomstig uit de Engelse Algemene Kennis.Bewerk om naar jouw taal over te brengen.
In that respect, I had flown half a million miles before I moved an inch, and these three volumes are just the rattling the side of my cot made when I climbed over, on the first stage of that long, momentous journey across the carpet, towards the light of the open door.
'Arriving in Cambridge on my first day as an undergraduate, I could see nothing except a cold white October mist. At the age of twenty-four I was a complete failure, with nothing to show for my life except a few poems nobody wanted to publish in book form.' Falling Toward England - the second volume of Clive James's Unreliable Memoirs - was meant to be the last. Thankfully, that's not the case. In Unrelaible Memoirs III, Clive details his time at Cambridge, including film reviewing, writing poetry, falling in love (often), and marrying (once). 'Every line is propelled by a firecracker witticism' London Review of Books 'He turns phrases, mixes together cleverness and clownishness, and achieves a fluency and a level of wit that make his pages truly shimmer... May Week Was In June is vintage James' Financial Times
)
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3
James tells his tale with a pleasing lack of modesty, though he never subsides into rank bragging either. He certainly managed to keep an impressive number of plate spinning on different poles during his time as an undergraduate (working for the Footlights, writing poetry, reviewing films, reading Proust, slowly, in French and even briefly editing Granta were just a few of the stings to his bow), though these activities naturally threatened to impinge upon his academic responsibilities. He cartainly makes Cambridge in the mid-1960s sound a beguiling place.
The second part of the book, though, seems slightly dislocated and I found myself struggling to find the will to continue. It seemed to me as if he was including accounts of adventures (or perhaps misadventures) that befell him because he thinks that they could or should be funny, but lacked the physical or spiritual energy to apply the final gloss to make them so.
The positive certainly more than outweighed the negative but he did rather sell me the dummy with this one. (