Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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65 of 67 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Do not be daunted by this book, 19 May 2007
This is an amazing book, unlike anything else Ive ever come across. Dont be put off by its sheer size, by its odd title, by the unfamiliarity of many of the names in its alphabetical list of subjects (writers, film stars, musicians, politicians, you name it), or by the fact that it looks at first glance like a work of reference. A better title would perhaps have been Reliable Memoirs, because what its really doing is filling in the gaps in Clive Jamess sequence of Unreliable Memoirs.
It consists of a hundred or more brief articles based on quotes noted down during a lifetimes extensive reading, any one of which is liable at any point to go off at a tangent on a hugely entertaining digression. Its not meant to be read from cover to cover, but youll have a great time dotting around in it. Guaranteed youll make loads of notes yourself in your own turn memorable quotes, jokes, revelatory perceptions, writers youd never heard of whom all of a sudden you really want to read.
If youve ever enjoyed any of Clive Jamess writing reviews, memoirs, songs, whatever dont hesitate. Its a book to keep with you always and to keep returning to.
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42 of 44 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
My book of the year, 12 Jul 2007
Following some explicit hints to my daughter, I was delighted to receive this as a Father's Day gift. I consider myself a fairly well-read person, but only in the extremely limited sense of having read just about everything Clive James has ever written, ranging from his TV reviews, literary criticism, autobiography, novels and verse to his lyrics for singer-songwriter Pete Atkin. More broadly, what I've read in his books has introduced me to other writers, and it's always been entertaining to see his opinion (particularly when it's not high) on books which I've already read.
There's more of the same in this book, but its scale and structure dwarfs anything he's produced up until now. Some four years in the writing, it's been viewed as the culmination of his life's work (although he's rumoured to have already started work on a second volume). At first glance, it's a collection of more than a hundred critical essays on selected cultural or historical figures, mostly from 20th century Europe. Digging deeper reveals other things, as he uses his ideas about the person as a jumping-off point for musings on other topics such as plagarism, fame, memory, reading, grammar and bibliophilia.
His range of reference is extraordinary, taking in books written in German, French, Italian and Spanish (all of which he apparently reads fluently). There's a strong didactic element running through this work, as he breaks off to give advice on the most profitable way to learn languages, the best dictionaries and translations, and which books are most easily used as a starting point for breaking into a specific language. He also tells stories of the tracking down of books in shops all over the world that are explicit - even loving - in their physical detail as he describes their bindings, typeface and paper, and how they look on his shelves at home.
His main theme here, however, is culture and the struggles of liberal humanism against totalitarianism. This is clearly a big subject, and each one of these essays illuminates it from a slightly different angle until you're left feeling wiser, older and sadder at the heroism and destruction that inspired this work. Along the way, his lively and playful turns of phrase are enough to make you start making notes in the margin yourself - to take just one example at random, on p498 he describes the constant need to refresh our memory of good things that we've read as "a polishing of the pipe, like El Dorado's throat". I'm sure I won't read a better book this year, and perhaps for some time to come afterwards as well.
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23 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A goldmine from a genuine Educator., 30 May 2007
I think that it is well past the time when the blurb on the jackets of Clive James books should no longer make reference to his 'Postcards..' TV series which were made, when?...twenty-five years ago? Being a TV funny man is least of his accomplishments.
James is in the top echelon of critics writing in English. In these short essays his prose is devoid of ornament and pretension and has a concision appropriate to the form. The book comprises entirely of biographies, many of the subjets are obscure artists and academics of the jewish dispora and simmering in the background of all is their persecuction in early 20th century Europe culminating in the Holocaust.
James, generously, doesn't keep his sources to himself and reveals books that I shall certainly seek out myself.
Cultural Amnesia is a genuine education.
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