Review: Unreliable Memoirs by Clive James

Forty-something years ago when I was a penniless student I would head to the Student’s Union every Sunday morning to commandeer the library’s copy of The Observer. The first article I turned to was Clive James’ TV review. These columns were, in my youthful opinion, both the funniest and most intelligent pieces of writing to be found in the British press. So when Unreliable Memoirs appeared in about 1980, I devoured it in a single sitting.

I was not disappointed: the book had me in stitches from beginning to end but was leavened with a grown-up appreciation of just what a little shit the young Master James had been. All written in a somewhat regretful tone that implied life’s lessons had ultimately been absorbed. That transition seemed to be underway in the last chapters of the book where Clive, having survived the best effort’s of The Lucky Country’s educational and military Establishment, heads to London to find his destiny.

James was born in 1939 – as he notes another ‘big event’ started that year, World War 2. That war took his father, most cruelly when his plane crashed on the way home to Autralia after the defeat of Japan.  Thus was the scene set for the central pillar of James’ story, the desperate attempts of his mother to bring the boy up to be a decent human being. His obstinate determination to resist her ministrations supplies the tragi-comic narrative drive. 

Reading the book again – a lifetime later and with Clive James at death’s door, it remains undeniable that he is one of our great comic writers. Despite trying to soberly evaluate the text for this review I was unable to resist spontaneous outbursts of incredulous guffawing as another brilliant anecdote was detonated by a perfectly timed punch-line. 

The action progresses from the young Clive’s hair-brained schemes to relieve the boredom of life in the Sydney suburbs, to his discovery of girls, a pretentious coming-of-age and ultimate (probably) enlightenment. The younger generations will scarcely believe the freedom accorded young children in those far-off days; but it all rings true to me as my childhood was much the same.  Particularly during summer holidays, we were shown the door after breakfast and not expected back until dark. Clive was more inventive than we were – there was no Flash of Lightning down my street – and more destructive.  Nor can I say I really remember the exhausting battle-of-wills with mothers that Clive always managed to win. Perhaps I was just less perceptive.

For me the book really came alive with the dawning of Clive’s self-consciousness. His obsessing about the shape of his head, the size of his tool and the steps he took to disguise them seem to me absolutely true as well as hilarious. It immediately reminded me of sitting in Chapel aged probably about ten with my school mates. Bored with the sermon I cast my eyes around at the array of bare knees projecting from the shorts of the surrounding boys.  It seemed to me that they all had bigger and better defined knee-caps than I had. I slid my hands over mine to hide my deformity and worried about it for days. Such are the concerns of tiny minds. 

James is more hilarious still when he gets on to his attempts to captivate the opposite sex. For a while I was sure he had read my mind as he skewered the adolescent feelings of desperation, inadequacy and hopeless longing. The useless strategies to get noticed particularly resonated with me. His performance as the ‘short, swiftly moving philosopher’ made me go red with recognition of similar stupidities.

For me the book loses its edge when Clive leaves school – perhaps it did for him to as this section of the book is relatively brief – the chapters on National Service feel imported from another story. So too the University career seems somewhat contrived and formulaic. Was he really the uncaring pretentious prat of these later chapters?  If so the implied transformation to mature author of the Memoirs seems too miraculous.

A solution to this last point may be that the transformation was not as radical as James believed. His subsequent TV career illustrated a surprising (to me) taste for trivia and celebrity. He has continued to write some great stuff but also some ponderous rubbish. He is still a wonderful critic. My take is that he has been too desperate to be perceived as part of the literary firmament. Hence, for example, he has tended to load his work with literary allusions which may not always enlighten the reader. A good example is the epigraph to Unreliable Memoirs ; an extract from The Iliad wherein Andromache laments the difficulties she will face in bringing up her son after the death of her husband Hector. Pretentious ? Moi ?