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Visions Before Midnight: Television Criticism from the "Observer", 1972-76 (Picador Books) (Paperback)

by Clive James (Author)

5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

Paperback: 176 pages
Publisher: Picador; New edition edition (11 Sep 1981)
Language English
ISBN-10: 0330264648
ISBN-13: 978-0330264648
Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 1.2 cm

Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 391,189 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Colemanballs, 26 Jul 2006

By	S J Buck (Kent, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

You may have to be of a certain age to appreciate this, because if you never watched Softly Softly, heard David Coleman or Harry Carpenter, then a book of TV reviews may be a struggle.
However James does it with such style, panache, intelligence and above all wit, that you'll probably still love it anyway.
Its very very funny and if you are of the appropriate age you will love James's shredding of BBC sports commentators - Frank Bough "Harry Commentator is your carpenter"!
Absolutely priceless stuff, and it can be re-read over and over its that good.

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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How much has changed ... and how little., 4 Nov 2003

By	Silas (London, England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Visions Before Midnight: Television Criticism from the "Observer", 1972-76 (Hardcover)

The first thing to say is that it is sometimes quite astonishing to realise, while reading this collection of television reviews for the Observer, that they were written thirty years ago. The writing is still amazingly fresh, witty and insightful, although the programs cited are now flickering and cracked pieces of TV history.

So long has passed since these reviews were written, that Clive James has had his own career on television begin and end, starting out with freshness and his inimitable humour as he examined television's strange alien forms around the world, but ultimately descending into irrelevancy and the lowest common denominator.

As a writer, however, James is absolutely in the top rank, and every word of this volume has been sweated over.

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Life Before Television, 3 Jul 2006

By	Alan Coady (Edinburgh) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I have just read this book (July 2006) and enjoyed it immensely for three reasons. Interestingly none of these had to do with vaguely remembering the programmes - I was 12-16 during the period covered.

1. The quality of distilled prose is unbeatable:

"...a work of art is the most intense possible revelation of the assumptions which inform it."

2. There is a prescient quality to some of the ideas. This is not because James is a seer but because, as opposed simply to writing about television, he is writing about life as portrayed through television, and life has a tendency to repeat itself:

"One of the great lessons of his (Solzhenitsyn's) life and work is that the only thing ensured by giving up freedoms for a greater good is that the greater good will be evil when it arrives and the freedoms will be impossible to retrieve."

3. James' throwaway lines are better than most people's showcase lines:

"....that happiness is not a worthwhile aim in life, and can exist only as a by-product of absorption."

Much of the writing is more humorous than the above quotes might suggest - but more context would be required than a short review should carry.

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