What do you think?
The Remake
James, Clive. The Remake. London, Jonathan Cape, 1987. 22 cm x 32 cm. 223 pages. Original Hardcover with original dustjacket in protective collector's mylar. Excellent condition with only very minor signs of external wear. Joel Court has problems. He's lost his wife, his mistress, quite possibly his career as an astronomical wizard, and has ended up living with Chance Jenolan, to whom success is a way of life, and whose Barbican fortress is protected by a maze that would shame the Minotaur. To make matters worse, there is the Mole. Her heavenly body outshines all the celestial manifestations Joel has ever seen. Pretty soon, he will not be able to bear having her out of his sights . . . 'The Remake is a consideration of the artistic and the media-star lifestyle, full of brilliant observation.' London Evening Standard Magazine 'As sharp as a tack and as clever as eleven wagonloads of monkeys.' Guardian 'The reader is kept busy catching the glancing reflections, fitting together bits of puzzle and enjoying jokes. There is much that cries out to be quoted. Clive James's latest book is funny, serious, challenging, annoying, iconoclastic, elitist, erudite and erotic.' Adelaide Advertiser 'The Remake truly floored me. Very few books have forced me to compare form and content as powerfully as this novel and I use the word novel with caution. Dialogue, description, plot and situation, Clive James has mastered them all. Eloquent and erudite, he uses words with such ease, grace and effectiveness that levels of language and meaning are grasped in gestalt; a phrase can be a word.' Jerusalem Post (Amazon)
- GenresFiction
Paperback
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Clive James
105 books294 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.
An expatriate Australian broadcast personality and author of cultural criticism, memoir, fiction, travelogue and poetry. Translator of Dante.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 23, 2011
Joel Court had problems. He’d lost his wife, his mistress, quite possibly his career as an astronomical wizard, and had ended up living with Chance Jenolan, to whom success was a way of life, and whose Barbican fortress was protected by a maze that would shame the Minotaur. To make matters worse, there was the Mole. Her heavenly body outshone all the celestial manifestations Joel had ever seen. Pretty soon, he would not be able to bear having her out of his sights . . .
July 13, 2018
I have never heard of this Australian author and found him out through a review on a book by another author so decided to check him out .
It was a delightful discovery because this guy can really write and write very cleverly . I found myself struggling in some case not quite getting everything but I got most and it was an enjoyable challenge to understand it . It’s almost like one of those authors who try to sound so intelligent by writing so many witty things only in this case it didn’t come of like that . Nothing pretentious just damn good clever writing .i breezed through it.
It was a delightful discovery because this guy can really write and write very cleverly . I found myself struggling in some case not quite getting everything but I got most and it was an enjoyable challenge to understand it . It’s almost like one of those authors who try to sound so intelligent by writing so many witty things only in this case it didn’t come of like that . Nothing pretentious just damn good clever writing .i breezed through it.
January 7, 2022
I don't know that James ever aspired to be a novelist properly-so-called. This one is, in many ways, like his autobiography (brilliant read): it feels like he's novelising real life rather than using real life as inspiration. So it's a comedy, une comédie de moeurs, a savagely sarcastic take and write-up of a certain world, of a certain class - a world and a class James knew very well, of course.
One could probably recognise people in there, although I'm not sure it's really that type of novel. What it is is funny, ironic and sarcastic, critical and ferocious - and very funny.
One could probably recognise people in there, although I'm not sure it's really that type of novel. What it is is funny, ironic and sarcastic, critical and ferocious - and very funny.
May 30, 2023
It's tough to navigate in parts but ultimately rewarding - stylish and witty throughout. The best bits are James' veiled mockery of celebrity culture, while at the same time mocking himself for being obsessed by celebrity culture, and one particularly wild party scene where gossip and booze flow as fast as his machine-gun prose can illuminate them.
July 22, 2017
Uproariously, sledgehammer funny and cleverly subtle all at once. Clive James' writing is always a joy and I loved this. I sometimes felt that being better educated would further unlock some facets. But not many. Overall, what a hoot.
January 11, 2020
Dense passages based around astronomy and literary criticism are a bit of a slog, and some parts haven't dated well, but there is enough fun to be had and genuinely funny lines to make this a worthwhile read.
April 10, 2024
It appears that I have read - or nearly read - this book more than once.
On one read (the second?) I did not finish the book and posted the review below (number 1). On the next attempt I did not enjoy it much, but persisted, finished, and wrote another review (2).
I would send the book to Oxfam, but it's in a poor state, so perhaps recycling. That way I won't read it again :-)
------------------------
(1)
I really like and admire Clive James... however.
I felt like reading something of his, so I pulled this from my bookshelf. The fact that it was there implies that I have read it before. I have no memory of this (not unusual these days), but on picking it up (again?) I am not sure why I read it - and kept it.
This book is full of allusions to literature and films that I have not read or seen, which hence meant nothing to me. Probably even if I had read/seen them I would not understand the significance. I tended to skip over those bits. That did not leave much. There was a kind-of love story - was it love, or lust? Either way it was unrequited (at least it was up to the point that I gave up).
The book is written in the first-person, so you might assume it is quite autobiographical, that James is describing the way he lives. However, he cuts off that interpretation by including Clive James as a character in the story. He is a minor character - and the depiction is not particularly flattering. Perhaps James is not a bit of a dirty old man?
Like I say, I like Clive James, so I would not want to put any potential readers off, but you might be more likely to appreciate it if you are more of a literary reader than I am.
-------------------------
(2)
I often question in these reviews to what extent the books are autobiographical, especially when written in the first person. I would be tempted to assume that this one was quite automatic, given that the narrator is an Australian, resembling Clive James. However, he has cleverly side-stepped that possibility by including himself, Clive James, as one of the minor characters. He partially explains: ‘Good gimmick for a novel. Author gets so sick of his image that he puts it into the book as a character. So the character with his own name is the one least like him.’
This was a book I picked from my shelves as something different to read, so I must have read it before. However, I found it hard-going. Did I enjoy it more last time?
The basic story is a bit Lolita. The protagonist, Joel Court, is an older man who becomes obsessed with a young woman. She is a woman, though, adult and so not a Lolita, as such. The woman - known as the Mole - is unattainable, although they can be friends. The third side to this triangle, is Chance Jenolan. Chance and Joel have been friends since university. Chance has become very much more successful than Joel, working in films, but also a writer. Chance remains a friend and to some extent looks after Joel. Chance is also the part-time lover of the Mole. Joel is an academic, an astronomer who appears regularly on television.
That’s the basic story - how will Joel and the Mole’s relationship develop? Beyond that, though, there is a lot of discussion about literature, which went right over my head.
Throughout, Joel is writing a diary, or is it a book, and the twist at the end is that perhaps this is that book - and it was Chance who wrote it up.
On one read (the second?) I did not finish the book and posted the review below (number 1). On the next attempt I did not enjoy it much, but persisted, finished, and wrote another review (2).
I would send the book to Oxfam, but it's in a poor state, so perhaps recycling. That way I won't read it again :-)
------------------------
(1)
I really like and admire Clive James... however.
I felt like reading something of his, so I pulled this from my bookshelf. The fact that it was there implies that I have read it before. I have no memory of this (not unusual these days), but on picking it up (again?) I am not sure why I read it - and kept it.
This book is full of allusions to literature and films that I have not read or seen, which hence meant nothing to me. Probably even if I had read/seen them I would not understand the significance. I tended to skip over those bits. That did not leave much. There was a kind-of love story - was it love, or lust? Either way it was unrequited (at least it was up to the point that I gave up).
The book is written in the first-person, so you might assume it is quite autobiographical, that James is describing the way he lives. However, he cuts off that interpretation by including Clive James as a character in the story. He is a minor character - and the depiction is not particularly flattering. Perhaps James is not a bit of a dirty old man?
Like I say, I like Clive James, so I would not want to put any potential readers off, but you might be more likely to appreciate it if you are more of a literary reader than I am.
-------------------------
(2)
I often question in these reviews to what extent the books are autobiographical, especially when written in the first person. I would be tempted to assume that this one was quite automatic, given that the narrator is an Australian, resembling Clive James. However, he has cleverly side-stepped that possibility by including himself, Clive James, as one of the minor characters. He partially explains: ‘Good gimmick for a novel. Author gets so sick of his image that he puts it into the book as a character. So the character with his own name is the one least like him.’
This was a book I picked from my shelves as something different to read, so I must have read it before. However, I found it hard-going. Did I enjoy it more last time?
The basic story is a bit Lolita. The protagonist, Joel Court, is an older man who becomes obsessed with a young woman. She is a woman, though, adult and so not a Lolita, as such. The woman - known as the Mole - is unattainable, although they can be friends. The third side to this triangle, is Chance Jenolan. Chance and Joel have been friends since university. Chance has become very much more successful than Joel, working in films, but also a writer. Chance remains a friend and to some extent looks after Joel. Chance is also the part-time lover of the Mole. Joel is an academic, an astronomer who appears regularly on television.
That’s the basic story - how will Joel and the Mole’s relationship develop? Beyond that, though, there is a lot of discussion about literature, which went right over my head.
Throughout, Joel is writing a diary, or is it a book, and the twist at the end is that perhaps this is that book - and it was Chance who wrote it up.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
November 25, 2012
James has written an indecent number of good and even brilliant books; this, like his other three novels, is not one of them.
December 20, 2016
A brainless romp, with too much Clive James, too little substance, too little editing. This book is exactly like its characters: fun, stars, successful in various ways, empty.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews