Cultural Cohesion (87 page)

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

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
, recounting 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.”

—
Times Literary Supplement

Copyright

Copyright © 2013, 2003 by Clive James

All rights reserved

Printed in the United States of America

First published as a Norton paperback 2013

Previously published under the title
As of This Writing: The Essential Essays, 1968–2002.

“The Dreaming Swimmer,” “Snakecharmers in Texas,” “Primo Levi's Last Will and Testament,” “Mark Twain, Journalist,” “Casanova Comes Home Again,” Hitler's Unwitting Exculpator,” “Bertrand Russell Struggles After Heaven,” “Pier Paolo Pain in the Neck,” “Mondo Fellini,” and “Who Was that Masked Man” were originally published in
The New Yorker
.

“Go Back to the Cold!” reprinted with permission from the
New York Review of Books
. Copyright © 1977 NYREV, Inc.

“Castalia” reprinted with permission from the
New York Review of Books
. Copyright © 1980 NYREV, Inc.

“Waugh's Last Stand” reprinted with permission from the
New York Review of Books
. Copyright © 1980 NYREV, Inc.

“Sherlockology” reprinted with permission from the
New York Review of Books
. Copyright © 1975 NYREV, Inc.

Manufacturing by the Haddon Craftsmen, Inc.

Book design by Jam Design

Production manager: Julia Druskin

The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:

James, Clive, 1939–

As of this writing: the essential essays, 1968–2002 / by Clive James

p.m.

Includes index

ISBN 0-393-05180-3

ISBN 978-0-393-34711-1 (e-book)

I. Title.

PR9619.3.J27A6 2003

8298'.914—dc21

2003041257

ISBN 978-0-393-34636-7 pbk.

W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10110

www.wwnorton.com

W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., Castle House, 75/76 Wells Street, London W1T 3QT