16 July 2015
Clive James: ‘Sentenced to Life’
by J R Thomas
Clive James is one of those extraordinary figures who seem to pop up in every civilised society to make their fellow occupants of the planet feel insufficiently talented and inadequately driven. A true modern Renaissance man, he was a constant figure in the lives of most of us who were around in the last quarter of the twentieth century and the early years of this one. There seems to be no manifestation of words that James has not mastered during his long progression from the poor suburbs of Sydney to the intellectual streets of Cambridge, his present resting place and spiritual home. From the spoken word to song lyrics, poetry to interviews, comedy to novels, he has never rested from explaining our world to us.
James left Australia in 1962, aged 23, to seek his fortune in England, travelling in the opposite direction to many Brits who were going east to seek new lives in the Australian sun. Intellectually and (one suspects) socially ambitious from childhood, he needed a larger stage than Australia offered him. In spite of the carefully-cultivated public aura of Aussie ‘blokiness’, the academic and intelligent only son of a young widowed mother maybe did not fit well into the hearty, matey, beer-swilling Sydney of the early 1960’s. That he was christened Vivian Leopold and changed his first name to “Clive” in boyhood suggests a struggle to fit in, more easily resolved in swinging London.
What has made him a celeb and generally popular person in the public eye is his long-running series of TV shows, sardonically examining television itself, poking fun particularly at the wilder shores of TV from other countries (always a viewing winner with the British public). His Australian accent and knowing grin added an especially sharp cutting edge to his commentaries. Like so much of his work – and one sees the constant thread in all his written and spoken creativity – the TV commentaries work on two levels: a populist, sharp, even cruel wit; but then a deeper, wry and affectionate commentary on and understanding of the human condition. He has held up to us for more than 40 years a mirror for us to examine ourselves, twisting and turning it so we may both admire ourselves and laugh at ourselves – especially when the mirror distorts our appearance so much that we don’t see that it us we are laughing at.
His writing has been widespread and prolific (five volumes of autobiography indicate the scale) and, whilst it has always been television that fascinates him, perhaps the true voice of the Clive James soul is heard in his poetry. His published work in this medium has been comparatively modest but includes song-writing and a remarkable translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy.
Now he has published a new slender volume of poetry, “Sentenced to Life”, a work also expressed on two levels. On one take, a slightly bitter, occasionally mawkish musing on illness, loss, failure, death; but on another, a love of humanity and freedom that reflects the joy of nearly eighty years of exploring the rich variety of life.
This is a volume best dipped into, not read in marathon late night sessions or on long train journeys, best kept in the office, or in the loo, even in the kitchen, so a poem may be snatched whilst the water comes to the boil or the microwave does its work. Good poetry such as this is like the finest cakes, rich and complex and best taken in small slices, both to avoid indigestion and to make the treat last longer. And unlike cakes, there is no danger of James’s poetry going stale. It deepens and fascinates more with each reading, each drilling down reveals more about the human condition and the good and evil that men do. Here is a collection of simply written but powerfully crafted pieces, mostly short – thirty seven poems in fifty six pages (apologies to those who like more words for their currency and buy their art by the square foot, but you will find your investment continues to pay off for many years).
He ranges in this volume from the minutiae of the daily struggle – “Too Much Light” sees the world through cataract-ridden eyes – to high politics. “Asma Unpacks Her Pretty Clothes” is unlikely to get past the current state censor in Baghdad. For those who do not know of James’s current circumstances, “Change of Domicile” tips the wink:
“…what I miss was just the bric-a-brac
I kept with me to blunt my solitude,
Part of my brave face when my life was wrecked
By my gift for deceit”
For after a long, successful, award-studded and acclaimed life, James’s golden years have gone somewhat wrong. In 2011, after long media speculation, he confirmed that he was suffering from a progressive and incurable form of leukaemia. The following year his long marriage to the academic and Dante scholar Prue Shaw shattered after cruel revelations of an affair and he was ejected by her from his Cambridge home (though there is word of a reconciliation). Recent interviews with him have been from a small, spartan, terraced house in backstreet Cambridge, symbolic (perhaps deliberately) of a life stripped bare. But if adversity generates creativity, then maybe in some small way his current setbacks have done us all a favour by giving a further jog to his talented elbow.
This is a work that should be bought as an insight into one of the dazzling minds of our generation, a polishing laid before us as last words, filtered through a prism of physical and mental pain. James is very clear, in conversation, in the foreword to this book, and in the poems themselves, that his words are more than anything else an apology to his wife and daughters for the pain of recent years. But this is not just about the closing years of one who has enlightened and delighted two generations; it is about all of us, our foibles, weaknesses, reflections, delights, regrets. May it not be his last work; but if it has to be, it is a truly magnificent exit.
Clive James: Sentenced to Life; published by Picador, is available now.
