- Hardcover: 896 pages
- Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (18 May 2007)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330481746
- ISBN-13: 978-0330481748
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 15 x 6.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (26 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 299,855 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time
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More About the Author
Product Description
Booklist, 15th Feb, 2007
'James not only preserves culture and nurtures humanism but also
revitalizes the beauty and power of the English language.'
revitalizes the beauty and power of the English language.'
Review
For non-fiction, there was one stupedous starburst of wild brilliance: Clive James's Cultural Amnesia. It crackles with epigrammatic mischief and reminded me of Charles Dantzig's great Dictionnair egoiste de la litterature francaise, a book that features a devastating skewering of Sartre and a spirited defence of the adjective, plus essays on ignorance, cliches, therapy (against it) digressions (for) and lettres. Will someone please get this fabulous box of tricks translated? -- Simon Schama
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
64 of 68 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
85 of 91 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
The form of this book is compelling - superficially it's a collection of a hundred short biographies. But each biography is paired with a short essay in which James develops a theme, not always specific to the biography it follows, sometimes just loosely related. If you read this book, you mustn't pick and choose. Read the whole thing from cover to cover. As the essays accumulate in your mind, themes begin to develop. The plight of the Jews, freedom of thought, obscurity. Many of James' subjects will be well known to you, some, I am sure, will be completely unknown. But the complete work is an enormously powerful statement. James is a breathtaking writer, and this is his version of the last century, and I think it's one that must be told for centuries to come.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
"The spontaneous yearning after the totality of knowledge."
Clive James seems to be faithfully fulfilling the subject yearning. He credits the quote to a philologist, Menéndez Pidal, in his article on another philologist, Pedro... Read more
Published 27 days ago by John P. Jones III
"... it relies on the conviction that nothing creative should be...
Those who know of Clive James only from his television work will probably be surprised to learn of his extraordinary erudition and accomplishments as a critical essayist. Read more
Published 6 months ago by Grr
The weight of knowledge
Cultural Amnesia is definitely a different beast from previous books I've read. Depending on the route you've taken through Mr. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Belochka
about one of james' picks: heda kovaly
Clive James devotes a chapter to Heda Kovaly and her memoir Prague Farewell which was originally published in the US as Under a Cruel Star. Read more
Published 21 months ago by Helen Epstein
Much Ado About Nothing
A vastly over rated, hugely self regarding collection of essays by a writer who has been described by one literary critic as "clever, but not an intellectual".
Published 23 months ago by Dr Dee
Cultural History -- The James Version
I'm still reading and re-reading Clive James's Cultural Amnesia. It's a scintillating A-Z of his own takes on characters who, for good or ill, have helped to shape the world we... Read more
Published on 30 May 2010 by B. J. Walsh
Rich, diverting, interesting
"Cultural Amnesia" is a selection of colourful, jewel-like essays on people, music, writing and thought, some of it mainstream, some of it obscure, at least to me. Read more
Published on 11 May 2010 by Nanyang Parkway
What a polymath!
Clive James is a wonderful critic. The depth of his erudition and the range of his reading are astonishing. I savored every page of this magnificent collection of essays. Read more
Published on 8 Jan 2010 by John P. O'Byrne
For those who want to swim in the (very) deep end
This is worth 5 stars only because it stands almost alone in the canon of modern writings. And, because it is excellent. Read more
Published on 23 Nov 2009 by Dr John N Sutherland
Cultural Amnesia, Clive James
Physicaly a big book and not one that could easily slipped in the rucksack but the content and the tone really make you want to be able to carry Clive James and his considerations... Read more
Published on 4 Oct 2009 by David Lewis
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