Here Lies: An Autobiography [Paperback]

Having long been a fan of Eric Ambler's thrillers, particularly the ones written before the war, I looked forward to reading his autobiography - though the dual meaning of the title alerted me to the fact that it might not be as straightforward as that (Here Lies, as in R.I.P., and Here Lies, as in fibber) - I'd read somewhere that Ambler was as fond as Grahame Greene of leading his readers up the garden path where details of his life are concerned.
How right I was to be suspicious. We get slices of autobiography, but written in a way that distances the reader, almost as if he is saying "I don't want you to know this, but read it if you must", which makes one wonder why he wrote it in the first place (money, perhaps?).
It starts with his (partial) memories of a stay in a Swiss hospital following a road accident, fairly late in his life. Partial, because he suffered an element of memory loss as a result of the accident. However, I strongly suspect that he chose to start the book here because he wanted, subconsciously perhaps, to tell the reader that what was followed was also going to partial and highly selective. After this it shuffles, more or less chronologically, from one period in his life to another. He worked for a while as an engineering apprentice, working in London and the Welsh border country. Then he became an advertising copy-writer, following which he embarked upon a career as a full-time writer, spending his time in elegant penury between France and Britain (I'm always very suspicious of people who claim to be living in poverty, but who manage somehow to find the money for a good meal out or, in his case, for the fare to and from Britain and the continent when the fancy took him).
When the war broke out he joined the army, eventually getting into the Army Film Unit. For my money, this is the best part of the book. He records his time spent near Montecassino clearly and not at all archly - I suspect that being confronted with the real horror of war left him unable to be anything but direct when he wrote about it. Particularly gripping and harrowing is the story he tells of finding a bunch of American servicemen who, wounded, had crawled into an abandoned animal hut and died from exposure while waiting for rescue, all huddled up together in an attempt to find warmth and escape pain.
Ambler reminds me very much of William Walton, in that they were both great artists who did their best work before the war. The period up to 1939 was THEIR time and, though both continued to be artistically and creatively productive after 1945, one has the sense that somehow their time had passed. Walton's first symphony (1935) is redolent of the era; his second (1960) palatable enough, but somehow empty and passe. Similarly with Ambler's books; his best thrillers - "Uncommon Danger", "Cause for Alarm", "The Mask of Dimitrios" and "Journey into Fear" (all written between 1937-1940)- have stood the test of time and are as fresh and readable now as they ever were. Those published after 1945 are variable (some good, some indifferent), but ALL have an anachronistic feel about them.
And one senses that Ambler felt this about his own life. He rambles on about what it was like to do book-tours of America and deal with the irritating types of people who would button-hole him after a book-signing, but once the war is out of the way his life loses interest for the reader (at least it did for me), probably because it had lost its interest for himself.
And throughout, I never felt I had a handle on who he was, what he was really like. It is the autobiographer's prerogative to describe himself as he will, but it is also the reader's prerogative to feel frustrated if he finishes the book without ever really knowing who he has just read about.

ABSOLUTELY SPELLBINDING ACCOUNT OF THE LAST DAYS OF THE ROMANOV FAMILY.
HARD IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO PUT DOWN ONCE STARTED - ALL HISTORY BOOKS SHOULD BE LIKE THIS.

FIRST BOOK I HAVE READ BY HELEN RAPPAPORT - THE AUTHOR - BUT I WILL NOW PURCHASE HER OTHER NOVELS.

THANKS AMAZON FOR BRINGING THIS BOOK TO MY ATTENTION.