by Clive James
Photography in the Twentieth Century (Tausk), 582–83
Photography of Max Yavno, The (Yavno), 591
Piece of My Mind, A (Wilson), 373–74, 383
Pieces of Time (Bogdanovich), 562
Planck, Max, 477
Playing for Time (Miller), 269–70
Plumed Serpent, The (Lawrence), 175
Podhoretz, Norman, 408
Poems (Auden), 5, 9, 10, 11
Poems and Journeys (Johnston), 204–16
Poésies (Mallarmé), 29
Poetry and the Age (Jarrell), 84–85, 87
Poirier, Richard, 389
Polgar, Alfred, 516
Pontecorvo, Gillo, 534, 544
Poodle Springs Story, The (Chandler), 211
Porter, Peter, 254
Pound, Ezra, 74, 129, 130, 131, 133–35, 137, 381
Praise to the End! (Roethke), 92, 96, 97
Prelude, A (Wilson), 373, 374
Preoccupations in Australian Poetry (Wright), 157
Prévert, Jacques, 559
Prime alla Scala (Montale), 456–65, 463
Primo Levi (Thomson), 276–82
Prince and the Showgirl, The, 404
Princess Daisy (Krantz), xx, 236–44
Private History of a Campaign That Failed, The (Twain), 309
Private Life of Sherlock Holmes, The (Starrett), 196
Private Pictures, 581–82
Prokudin-Gorskii, Sergei, 580
Protocols of the Elders of Zion, The, 225
Pudd’nhead Wilson (Twain), 310, 311
Pushkin, Aleksandr, 4, 102–16, 117–21, 250, 451–52
Pybus, Cassandra, 152–53
Rajasthan: India’s Enchanted Land (Singh), 594
Ransom, John Crowe, 85, 98
Rathenau, Walther, 486
Rauschenberg, Robert, 598–99
Ray, Satyajit, 557, 594
Raymond, Vicki, 148
Raymond Chandler Speaking (Chandler), 201, 204
Reawakening, The (Levi), 263, 267
Rebozo, Bebe, 413
Red Desert, 543
Reds, 564
Reich-Ranicki, Marcel, 272, 491, 492
Renoir, Jean, 545, 557
Required Writing (Larkin), 79–81
Resnais, Alain, 268
Resurrection (Tolstoy), 215, 216
Return of Moriarty, The (Gardner), 196
Return of Sherlock Holmes, The (Wilson), 191, 193
Revel, Jean-François, 225
Rhetoric of Fiction, The (Booth), 443
Riboud, Marc, 595–96
Rilke, Rainer Maria, 33
Rizzoli, Angelo, 545–46
RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon (Nixon), 409–20
Road to Serfdom, The (Hayek), 294
Road to Wigan Pier, The (Orwell), 287
Robert Rauschenberg Photographs (Rauschenberg), 598–99
Robinson, Roland, 142–43
Roethke, Theodore, 90–101, 440
Rogers, Ginger, 278, 523
Rosen, Charles, 588
Rosenberg, Samuel, 197–98
Rosenthal, Raymond, 259, 263–67
Rosi, Francesco, 544
Roth, Joseph, 490
Roth, Philip, 396
Rougeul, Jean, 546
Rushdie, Salman, xiii, xiv, 38
Rushing, Jimmy, 50
Russell, Bertrand, 502–17
Russell, Pee Wee, 52
Russian Empire, The, 580
Russians, The (Sichov), 596
Russia under Soviet Rule (de Basily), 296
Sad Heart at the Supermarket, A (Jarrell), 87
Sainte-Beuve, Charles-Augustine, 120
Saintsbury, George, 301
Salieri, Antonio, 120–21
Salinger, J. D., 181
Sam Haskins/Photo graphics (Haskins), 599–600
Sarris, Andrew, 542
Sartre, Jean-Paul, 529
Satanic Verses, The (Rushdie), 38
Scènes de la Vie de Bohème (Murger), 193
Schaefer, A. L. “Whitey,” 577, 601
Schama, Simon, 470
Schnitzler, Arthur, 335–37, 339, 487, 492–93
Schwartz, Barth David, 525–38
Scrolls from the Dead Sea, The (Wilson), 373
Scruples (Krantz), 236
Sea and Sardinia (Lawrence), 172
Second Life of Art, The (Montale), 463
Second Life of Art: Selected Essays of Eugenio Montale, The (Galassi, ed.), 456–65
Self-Portrait with Friends (Beaton), 575
Se Questo È un Uomo (Levi), 266
Sereny, Gitta, 474–75, 480
Seven-Per-Cent Solution, The (Meyer), 197
Seven Steps to Heaven (Davis), 51
Shakespeare, William, 126, 301–2, 308, 340–46, 442
Shape of the Fire, The (Roethke), 92, 96
Shaw, George Bernard, 301, 304, 315
Shelley, Percy Bysshe, 105, 110–11
Sherlock Holmes (Baring-Gould), 196
Sherlock Holmes Detected (McQueen), 195–96
Sherlock Holmes Scrapbook, The (Haining), 198
Shoah, 268
Shock of Recognition, The (Wilson), 373, 378
Shores of Light, The (Wilson), 373, 377, 378, 379
Sichov, Vladimir, 596
Siegel, Don, 564
Sign of Four, The (Doyle), 191, 192, 193–94
Sinatra, Frank, 404, 523
Singh, Raghubir, 594
Singin’ in the Rain, 521
Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, l’homme et l’oeuvre (Nordon), 191
Sleepless Nights (Newton), 578
Slessor, Kenneth, 138–42, 149, 150, 152, 157
Small Back Room, The (Balchin), 233
Small Town in Germany, A (le Carré), 227
Smith, Alys Pearsall, 505–7, 508
Smith, Mary, 506
Smith, Stevie, 123–28
Snode, Chris, 580
Snow, C. P., 191, 193
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr, xx, 214–26, 260, 280
Some Like It Hot, 398, 399–400
Sontag, Susan, 358–61, 568, 581, 583–84, 585
Sordi, Alberto, 534
Southern, Terry, 188–89
South of My Days (Brady), 154
Speak, Memory (Nabokov), 122
Special Collection 24 Photo Lithos (Newton), 578
Speer, Albert, 474–75, 480
Spender, Stephen, 598
Spy Who Came in from the Cold, The (le Carré), 227, 228, 229–30, 232
Staatsstreich (Fest), 482
Stalin, Josef, 160, 218, 221, 223, 286, 288, 292, 296, 388, 419, 490, 531
Stamp, Terence, 534
Stardust Memories, 541
Starrett, Vincent, 196
Star-Shaped Key, The, 267
Steichen: The Master Prints, 1895–1914, 573
Stevens, Wallace, 86, 440
Stevenson, Adlai, 412, 413
Stevie: A Biography of Stevie Smith (Barbera and McBrien), 123–28
Stewart, Douglas, 149, 151, 157
Stewart, Harold, 151
Stieglitz, Alfred, 571, 572, 582
St. Mawr (Lawrence), 177
Strand, Paul, 572, 593
Stratten, Dorothy, 563, 565
Strictly Ballroom, 524
Struve, Gleb, 296
Study in Scarlet, A (Doyle), 191, 192, 193
Stürmer, Michael, 489, 494
Such is Life (Furphy), 156–57
Sudek, 573–74
Sulla Poesia (Montale), 53–54
Summoned by Bells (Betjeman), 81
Survival in Auschwitz (Levi), 260, 263, 283
Sutherland, Donald, 555
Svevo, Italo, 460–62
Swift, Jonathan, 309
Sword of Honor (Waugh), 428, 430, 431
Symons, Julian, 191, 193
Szarkowski, John, 570, 585, 587, 589–90
Talbot, William Fox, 568
Tales, Sketches, Speeches, and Essays (Twain), 305
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br /> Tausk, Peter, 582–83
Taylor, A. J. P., 488
Tchaikovsky, Pyotr, 120, 122
Teorema, 534
Thalberg, Irving, 392
Things of This World (Wilbur), 437, 441
Thin Man, The (Hammett), 392
This is Orson Welles (Bogdanovich), 562
This Side of Paradise, 180
Thomas, Dylan, 95–96, 97
Thomas Hardy and British Poetry (Davie), 71–76
Thomson, Ian, 276–82
Through the Looking Glass (Auden), 10
Thurber, James, 307
Thwaite, Anthony, 38, 39, 43
Time Exposure (Beaton), 575
Time in New England (Strand), 572
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (le Carré), 227
Tognazzi, Ugo, 544
To Live!, 549
Tolstoy Leo, 215–16, 223
To the Bitter End (Klemperer), 273
To the Finland Station (Wilson), 382
Towards Mozambique (Johnston), 102, 104
Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (Wittgenstein), 512
Trask, Willard R., 329
Tresckow, Henning von, 483
Trilling, Lionel, 375, 378
Triple Thinkers, The (Wilson), 112
Trouble is My Business (Chandler), 208
Truce, The (Levi), 267
Truffaut, François, 557, 562
Truman, Harry S., 412, 485
Tucker, Larry, 555
Turner, L. Roger, 580
Tutti a Casa, 534
Twain, Mark, 187, 231, 305–27
Twelfth Night (Shakespeare), 126
Twilight in Italy (Lawrence), 169–72
Tynan, Kathleen, 497–501
Tynan, Kenneth, 497–501
Tyranny of Distance, The (Blainey), 256
Una Vita Violenta (Pasolini), 530, 533
Unfinished Woman, An (Hellman), 387, 388–89
Upstate (Wilson), 370–74
Vaghe stelle dell’Orsa, 548
Valéry, 29, 450
Valley of Fear, The (Doyle), 191, 192, 194, 199
Velázquez, 588–89
Verdi, Giuseppe, 463
Vidal, Gore, 421–26
Vile Bodies (Waugh), 429–30, 433
Violent Life, A (Pasolini), 530
Visconti, Luchino, 533–34, 548
Visions of China (Riboud), 595–96
Vivere!, 549
von Stauffenberg, Claus Graf, 483
Vreeland, Diana, 576–77
Wagner, Richard, 486
Waking, The (Roethke), 92–93, 96
Wallace-Crabbe, Chris, 159
Walter, Bruno, 487
Wandering Islands, The (Hope), 139, 156
War and Peace (Tolstoy), 215, 216, 223
Warhol, Andy, 360, 414
Wassermann, Jakob, 492
Waste Land, The (Eliot), 353
Water’s Edge (Callahan), 573
Waugh, Evelyn, 69, 105, 301, 427–35
Wax, Bill, 580
We (Zamyatin), 296
Weaver, William, 530
Webb, Francis, 145–46, 161
Welles, Orson, 498–99, 557, 561
Weston, Brett, 592
Weston, Edward, 570, 592
What’s Up, Doc?, 562, 565
White, E. B., 390
White, Minor, 582
White, Patrick, 156
Whitehead, Alfred North, 506
Whitehead, Evelyn, 506–7
White Women (Newton), 578
Whitlam, Gough, 249, 250
Whitman, Walt, 85–86
Whitsun Weddings, The, 39, 42, 43, 55, 57, 59–60, 62, 67–68, 75
Who the Devil Made It (Bogdanovich), 561, 563
Wilbur, Richard, 88, 436–42, 593
Wilder, Billy, 398
William Klein (Klein), 596–97
Wilson, Angus, 191, 193, 196–97
Wilson, Edmund, xvi, xvii, 112, 121–22, 305–6, 370–86, 423
Wilson, Woodrow, 420
Window on Russia, A (Wilson), 112
Wise, Kelly, 574
Wittgenstein, Ludwig, 502, 512
Women on Women, 579
Woodward, Bob, 420
Words for the Wind (Roethke), 93, 96, 99
Working Forest, A (Murray), 158
Work of Atget, The (Atget), 589
Wouk, Herman, 422
Wound and the Bow, The (Wilson), 379
Wright, Judith, 147, 149, 153–57, 159
Wyeth, Jamie, 414
Wylie, Elinor, 441
Yeats, W. B., 15–16, 46, 72–76, 93, 95–96, 355, 380, 438
Yorke, Henry, 429
Yosemite and the Range of Light, 571
You Only Live Twice (Fleming), 230
Zabriskie Point, 543
Zamyatin, Y. I., 296
Zanuck, Darryl, 400, 401
Zerner, Henri, 588
Zolotow, Maurice, 395
Zweig, Stefan, 493
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Clive James was born in Sydney, Australia, in 1939 and educated at Sydney Technical High School and Sydney University, where he was literary editor of the student newspaper Honi Soit and also directed the annual Union Revue. After a year spent as assistant editor of the magazine page of the Sydney Morning Herald he sailed in late 1961 for England. Three years of a bohemian existence in London were succeeded by his entry into Cambridge University, where he read for a further degree while contributing to all the undergraduate periodicals and rising to the presidency of Footlights.
His prominence in extracurricular activities having attracted the attention of the London literary editors, the byline “Clive James” was soon appearing in the Listener, the New Statesman, the Review and several other periodicals, all of them keen to tap into the erudite verve which had been showing up so unexpectedly in Varsity and the Cambridge Review. Yet the article that made his name was unsigned. At the invitation of Ian Hamilton, who as well as editing the Review was assistant editor of the Times Literary Supplement—which was still holding at the time to its traditional policy of strict anonymity—the new man in town was given several pages of the paper for a long, valedictory article about Edmund Wilson. Called “The Metropolitan Critic” in honour of its subject, the piece aroused widespread speculation as to its authorship: Graham Greene was only one of the many subscribers who wrote to the editor asking for their congratulations to be passed on, and it became a point of honour in the literary world to know the masked man’s real identity.
Embarrassed to find himself graced with the same title he had given his exemplar, Clive James rapidly established himself as one of the most influential metropolitan critics of his generation, but he continued to act on his belief that a cultural commentator could only benefit from being as involved as possible with his subject, and over as wide a range as opportunity allowed. The Sunday newspaper the Observer hired him as a television reviewer in 1972, and for ten years his weekly column was one of the most famous regular features in Fleet Street journalism, setting a style which was later widely copied.
During this period he gradually became a prominent television performer himself, and over the next two decades he wrote and presented countless studio series and specials, as well as pioneering the “Postcard” format of travel programmes, which are still in syndication all over the world. His major series Fame in the Twentieth Century was broadcast in Britain by the BBC, in Australia by the ABC and in the United States by the PBS network.
But despite the temptations and distractions of media celebrity, he always maintained his literary activity as a critic, author, poet and lyricist. In 1974, his satirical verse epic Peregrine Prykke’s Pilgrimage was the talk of literary London, many of whose leading figures were disconcerted by appearing in it, and more disconcerted if they were left out. In the same year, The Metropolitan Critic was merely the first of what would eventually be six separate collections of his articles, and in 1979 his first book of autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, recou
nting his upbringing in Australia, was an enormous publishing success, which has by now extended to more than sixty reprintings. It was followed by two other volumes of autobiography, Falling Towards England and May Week Was in June.
In addition there have been four novels, several books of poetry—a complete edition is planned—and a collection of travel writings, Flying Visits. His literary journalism became familiar in the United States through Commentary, the New York Review of Books and The New Yorker. His fourth novel, The Silver Castle, the first book about Bollywood, was published in the United States in 1996.
Collaborating with the singer and musician Pete Atkin, he wrote the lyrics for six commercially released albums in the early 1970s, and the partnership resumed with two more albums after the turn of the millennium, culminating with a hit appearance for their two-man song-show on the Edinburgh Fringe in 2001 and a tour of Britain in 2002. Extended tours of both Britain and Australia are planned for 2003. After helping to found the successful independent television production company Watchmaker, Clive James retired from mainstream television to become chairman of the Internet enterprise Welcome Stranger, for which he now broadcasts in both video and audio on www.welcomestranger.com, the first webcasting site of its type. He is currently completing a long study of cultural discontinuity in the twentieth century, under the title of Alone in the Café, and has begun work on a dance operetta based on his passion for the Argentinian tango. In 1992 he was made a member of the Order of Australia, and in 1999 an honorary Doctor of Letters of Sydney University.
Further praise for
CULTURAL COHESION
“Clive James is in the tradition of Hazlitt, Bagehot, and Edmund Wilson, with a gusto to succeed theirs.”
—John Bayley
“[Clive James’s] outstanding talent is as a cicerone, guiding the ignorant traveler with patience, knowledge, and wit round some favorite literary edifice and communicating his own admiration of it to the goggling and fascinated visitor.”
—Times Literary Supplement
“The timelessness, acuity, and humanism of James’ criticism is everywhere evident in this scintillating collection.”
—Donna Seaman, Booklist
Praise for Clive James
“James’s prose is . . . comic, inventive, above all, energetic.”
—New York Times Book Review
“Clive James is a brilliant bunch of guys.”—The New Yorker
“[James] writes like a prophet and he can satirize folly in high places with a touch as elegant as Oscar Wilde.”
—Daily Mail
“In a world where knowledge is becoming more fragmentary and specialized every day, Clive James can write about the high, the middle and low alike with astonishing facility and erudition.”