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| Prolific Writer Clive James, Facing Death, Reflects on Getting ‘a Few Things Done’ | Prolific Writer Clive James, Facing Death, Reflects on Getting ‘a Few Things Done’ |
| (about 7 hours later) | |
| LONDON — Clive James is dying, but he’s pretty good-natured about it. A man who found his way from a poor, sewer-free suburb of Sydney, Australia, to become a beloved writer, entertainer and figure in British life, he can look back with astonishment and amusement, and look forward with a trenchant eye. | |
| Asked what he will miss about ordinary life, Mr. James answered, “All of it, alas, even the false steps and the humiliations.” On the other hand, “some deprivations will be over,” he said in an email interview. “I won’t have to miss smoking any more. Nobody smokes where I’m going: It’s like a row of restaurants in California.” | |
| Born Vivian James in 1939 — he was named after an Australian tennis player of the time — Mr. James soon found that the stardom of Vivien Leigh made his first name embarrassing. His mother, widowed in World War II when her husband survived Japanese captivity only to die in a plane crash on his way home, finally allowed the young Vivian to choose a new first name. He picked Clive out of a wartime Tyrone Power film. | Born Vivian James in 1939 — he was named after an Australian tennis player of the time — Mr. James soon found that the stardom of Vivien Leigh made his first name embarrassing. His mother, widowed in World War II when her husband survived Japanese captivity only to die in a plane crash on his way home, finally allowed the young Vivian to choose a new first name. He picked Clive out of a wartime Tyrone Power film. |
| His father hangs over his memories. “I suppose that was the defining effect on my life,” he once told the BBC. “I talk about it even now with difficulty but, yes, he was meant to come home, and he didn’t, and I was on my own with my mother.” | His father hangs over his memories. “I suppose that was the defining effect on my life,” he once told the BBC. “I talk about it even now with difficulty but, yes, he was meant to come home, and he didn’t, and I was on my own with my mother.” |
| At the age of 5, he saw his mother writhing. “I was seeing the full force of human despair,” he wrote in his touching, funny “Unreliable Memoirs,” and “there were no sedatives to be had.” He was both an awkward, mischievous boy and “the man of the house,” and it terrified him. It was not until his mid-30s, he said, that “I got a grip on myself.” | At the age of 5, he saw his mother writhing. “I was seeing the full force of human despair,” he wrote in his touching, funny “Unreliable Memoirs,” and “there were no sedatives to be had.” He was both an awkward, mischievous boy and “the man of the house,” and it terrified him. It was not until his mid-30s, he said, that “I got a grip on myself.” |
| Asked what his 20-year-old self would think of him now, Mr. James responded, “He was such a jerk that he would probably have nodded briefly and muttered, ‘Yep, just as I foresaw.' ” | Asked what his 20-year-old self would think of him now, Mr. James responded, “He was such a jerk that he would probably have nodded briefly and muttered, ‘Yep, just as I foresaw.' ” |
| Once a three-fisted drinker and smoker, Mr. James, 75, was found to have leukemia in 2010, with the added complications of emphysema and kidney failure. He once said he could “use up a lifetime supply of anything in two weeks,” but his decline has been irrevocable. | Once a three-fisted drinker and smoker, Mr. James, 75, was found to have leukemia in 2010, with the added complications of emphysema and kidney failure. He once said he could “use up a lifetime supply of anything in two weeks,” but his decline has been irrevocable. |
| “Physically, I feel like a multiple car crash in the rain,” he responded. “But spiritually, I feel blessed. I’ve had a long life and got a few things done.” | “Physically, I feel like a multiple car crash in the rain,” he responded. “But spiritually, I feel blessed. I’ve had a long life and got a few things done.” |
| Always the critic, pressing his discoveries and praise on others, he continued: “Only the other day I discovered, quite by accident, an exquisitely written and very learned blog by a young lady who will be dying soon, too, having had scarcely any life at all. She calls herself Oblomov.” | Always the critic, pressing his discoveries and praise on others, he continued: “Only the other day I discovered, quite by accident, an exquisitely written and very learned blog by a young lady who will be dying soon, too, having had scarcely any life at all. She calls herself Oblomov.” |
| It is hard to pin down what Mr. James is best known for, having turned his hand to so much. He got himself into Cambridge, began a doctoral thesis on the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and then spent 10 years as the witty television critic of The Observer. | It is hard to pin down what Mr. James is best known for, having turned his hand to so much. He got himself into Cambridge, began a doctoral thesis on the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley and then spent 10 years as the witty television critic of The Observer. |
| He has written volume after volume of memoirs and of television, film and literary criticism. He has written novels and poems and essays and biographies and travelogues. He wrote song lyrics on six albums with Pete Atkin. He has appeared on countless television and radio programs, as host, writer and guest. | He has written volume after volume of memoirs and of television, film and literary criticism. He has written novels and poems and essays and biographies and travelogues. He wrote song lyrics on six albums with Pete Atkin. He has appeared on countless television and radio programs, as host, writer and guest. |
| And he has done all of that with a felicity of style and an easy, if sometimes brutal, wit of the kind that the English savor, once comparing Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Pumping Iron” to “a brown condom filled with walnuts.” | And he has done all of that with a felicity of style and an easy, if sometimes brutal, wit of the kind that the English savor, once comparing Arnold Schwarzenegger in “Pumping Iron” to “a brown condom filled with walnuts.” |
| Like many amusing people, he hopes to be remembered for the serious stuff. He preferred being known as a “freelance writer,” he said. | Like many amusing people, he hopes to be remembered for the serious stuff. He preferred being known as a “freelance writer,” he said. |
| “Even when I was apparently improvising on TV, I was writing it in my head just before I said it,” he said. “The most enjoyable thing I ever did was to go on stage alone for an hour and a half and just make up a show. I think I got quite good at it before I fell ill and had to stop. Naturally, like all writers who write poems, I would like it most if I were remembered for those — but it might not happen.” | “Even when I was apparently improvising on TV, I was writing it in my head just before I said it,” he said. “The most enjoyable thing I ever did was to go on stage alone for an hour and a half and just make up a show. I think I got quite good at it before I fell ill and had to stop. Naturally, like all writers who write poems, I would like it most if I were remembered for those — but it might not happen.” |
| Not for lack of effort. In August and October, he published contemplative poems in The New Statesman and The Times Literary Supplement that were laced with melancholy and humor. In “My Latest Fever,” he compares his fight with his disease to “jazzed-up sequences from action movies” like “Rambo: First Blood” and “Salt.” In “Rounded With a Sleep,” a reference to Shakespeare’s “Tempest,” he talks of his useless regrets about a damaging love affair, which tore his family apart: | |
| But still there is no end, at least not yet: | But still there is no end, at least not yet: |
| No cure, that is, for these last years of grief | No cure, that is, for these last years of grief |
| As I repent and yet find no relief. | As I repent and yet find no relief. |
| “I should have been a more honorable man, but the regrets don’t overwhelm me,” he said. “They’re such a good subject for writing.” | “I should have been a more honorable man, but the regrets don’t overwhelm me,” he said. “They’re such a good subject for writing.” |
| But he finds more solace in poetry. | But he finds more solace in poetry. |
| “The voices who speak to me now, here at the ending of my life, are mainly poets,” he said in the interview, citing his favorites like Andrew Marvell, from “my beloved 17th century,” but more obvious choices, too, like T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. | “The voices who speak to me now, here at the ending of my life, are mainly poets,” he said in the interview, citing his favorites like Andrew Marvell, from “my beloved 17th century,” but more obvious choices, too, like T. S. Eliot, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin. |
| “Finally it’s a matter of going nuts for a phrase,” he said. “Somebody says something, and you can’t get the cadence out of your head. Tina Fey has done that to me several times, the witch.” | “Finally it’s a matter of going nuts for a phrase,” he said. “Somebody says something, and you can’t get the cadence out of your head. Tina Fey has done that to me several times, the witch.” |
| He has just published a book of writing on poetry, “Poetry Notebook,” and he still hopes to live long enough to see a new “Collected Poems,” scheduled for next year, and finish another volume of memoirs. | He has just published a book of writing on poetry, “Poetry Notebook,” and he still hopes to live long enough to see a new “Collected Poems,” scheduled for next year, and finish another volume of memoirs. |
| “At the moment,” he recently told The Spectator magazine, “I am in the slightly embarrassing position where I write poems saying I am about to die, and I don’t. My wife is very funny on that subject.” | “At the moment,” he recently told The Spectator magazine, “I am in the slightly embarrassing position where I write poems saying I am about to die, and I don’t. My wife is very funny on that subject.” |
| But he knows what is coming, and he still seems in a hurry to write a little more, burnish a little more and hope to be remembered. | But he knows what is coming, and he still seems in a hurry to write a little more, burnish a little more and hope to be remembered. |
| “Whether anything will last I can’t be sure,” he said. “But I think ‘Unreliable Memoirs’ possibly might, because both the Australians and the British see it as a vision of Arcadia, although the Americans have never taken to it. They don’t like that word ‘unreliable.’ For the U.S. edition, I should have called it ‘Totally Reliable Memoirs.' ” | “Whether anything will last I can’t be sure,” he said. “But I think ‘Unreliable Memoirs’ possibly might, because both the Australians and the British see it as a vision of Arcadia, although the Americans have never taken to it. They don’t like that word ‘unreliable.’ For the U.S. edition, I should have called it ‘Totally Reliable Memoirs.' ” |
| An afterlife? “Both Virgil and Dante set some of their greatest work in another world,” he replied. “But Shakespeare didn’t, and his is the attitude I prefer. There is enough of heaven in a hedgerow, and enough of hell in the perfidy of man.” | An afterlife? “Both Virgil and Dante set some of their greatest work in another world,” he replied. “But Shakespeare didn’t, and his is the attitude I prefer. There is enough of heaven in a hedgerow, and enough of hell in the perfidy of man.” |
| And asked finally if he was generally satisfied with his life, he responded that the phrase described “a false alternative — Saddam Hussein was probably that.” |