Hot on the heels of the new book about Germaine Greer, yet another expose' of Australian intellectuals abroad is creating avid interest over here...Ian Britain's ` Once An Australian: Journeys With Barry Humphries, Clive James, Germaine Greer and Robert Hughes' (O.U.P) is attracting very mixed reviews- and it was one of these reviews that changed my mind about whether I liked Clive James as a biographer......or not!
For Clive James writes his autobiography exactly as he speaks- exactly as he scripts his T.V. journeys...in rather alaborate, multisyllabled prose which I found, dare I say it, ( Sorry Clive, my Love), rather pretentious.

But Jill Kitson, reviewing Once An Australian, quotes from a review, by James himself, of Hughes ` The Fatal Shore' in 1987.
Hughes writing, Clive said, was
".... In other words, says Jill Kitson,

"..essentially Australian- the product of an innocent abroad who has consciously enjoyed every stage of his growing sophistication without allowing his barbaric gusto to be diminished..." ..."The Australian expatriot, the stayaway writer, loots the world for cultural references.....he may combine these into a a macaronic, coruscating prose that would be a precious as a canto or an anacreontic odette, if it were not so robust, vivid, and clearly concerned with defining the subject rather than just displaying his erudition...."

"they are showoffs who make you laugh as you reach for the dictionary.."

Clive James, the larrican latestarter, has an undoubted way with words, and his ability to use words to make people laugh, albeit dictionary in hand, was first tested at Sydney University, where he was part of a closeknit group responsible for production of the weekly `Honi Soit' magazine, and the annual University review, whose 1960 cast ALL took off for the brighter intellectual lights of England..and, says Kitson, probably the casts of 1961 and 1962 as well!! Most were to return to Australia when the Whitlam era ushered in new respect for wordsmen, but Clive and Greer stayed away.....expatriot intellectuals. ~Falling Towards England', the second volume of Clive's `Unreliable Memoirs' takes up his story as he leaves the ship at Southhampton in the mild English winter of 1962..with no warm clothes no job, and very little money indeed! But he has his youth and health, optimism, and a sheaf of useful introductions to friends in high academic places and friends with working kitchens.

After some time settling in and quietly starving in a variety of seedy but interesting lodgings, Clive decides he might as well go back to academia, and organizes himself a place at Cambridge...but..and with Clive there is always a catch, in this pre-welfare state era, he must wait three years to qualify for a keep-body-and-soul-together grant; in the meantime, he must work at a variety of tasks to keep himself in beer and cigarettes...other essentials of life, like food and theatre tickets, being mostly taken care of by a succession of obliging and self-sacrificing lady friends.

Once established at Cambridge, Clive was never to look back. From President of Footlights, writing and starring in its annual review, to writing Britain's cleverest and funniest T.V column in the Observer then on to a tongue-in-cheek late night TV show, Clive was also making his name as a serious writer and literary critic. As we now view him.

But 32 years ago,he was a gangling looselimbed, gauche, badly-dressed,horrifically shod, heavy-smoking, frequently intoxicated Australian expat., who, if his own words can be believed , had not much to recommend him at all...other than a quick wit, a way with words...and that optimism mentioned earlier.

Yet the lad must have had something! Time and time again, he is rescued by acquaintances and friends, particularly the long-suffering girlfriends, and there are other women, too, whom Clive worships from afar in a frenzy of courtly love.And the landladies, a breed he observes with surprisingly little malice. And there are the parties, so many parties in that corner of Oz-invaded London....and the jobs he finds along the way, taking care, always, to leave himself time for his `serious' writing....and there is the cold, the bitter English cold that invades a white polyester shirt without mercy.

So...do I heartily recommend Falling Towards England ?
Well, yes and no...
Yes, if you like long words with a joke a paragraph.>BR> No, if you want a book you can skim through with nothing longer than three syllables.
Yes, if you'd savour a picture of that swinging London of the sixties...gone forever, now.

As he sums up his own story, bags packed for Cambridge:

.. The first phase of my career in London ws thus summed up as having had nuisance value and nothing more. I went home to an empty flat..... My suitcase looked eager to be away. Stained white with dried rain, even my shoes were itching to be gone. By now they were Gush puppies, but they would take me to safety. On the flagstones of ancient courtyards they would find sure footing."

Clive, I imagine your latest suit is tailormade on Saville Row, your shoes odorfree, of the softest handworked leather. You say that that your mother HATED the first installment of your memoirs, insisting yours was no misspent adolescence.....but you have done yourself no disservice with this saga of an illfitting youth you have cast off as thoroughly as that ungussetted Singapore suit.
For we have ALL been there, Clive, in that land only the young would care to inhabit, and we are all glad to find ourselves here on the safe island of middle age, survivors of an alien environment.

Oh..and Clive, I don't care WHAT you have on your feet! You can put them under MY table any time you like!!
With love, as ever,
Robin

Want To Check Out Price And Availability?

Look At Last Week's Review Look at Other Reviews Back To Robin's Golden Oldies Back To The Table Of Contents

Reactions, Comments and suggestions to: robink@mail.austasia.net