North Face of Soho

Unreliable Memoirs #4

by Clive James

We left our hero sitting beside the River Cam one beautiful 1968 spring day, jotting down his thoughts in a journal. Newly married and about to leave the cloistered world of Cambridge academia for the racier, glossier life promised by Literary London, he was, so he informed his journal reasonably satisfied.
From Fleet Street to Clive James on TV, from Russian department stores to Paris fashion shows, writing plays, poetry, lyrics, reviews, essays, articles, and novels - as well as Unreliable Memoirs volumes one, two, and three - Clive James was never not insanely busy. Throw in fatherhood, some killer bees, and a satire starring Anne Robinson as Mrs. Thatcher, and you still don't have the half of it.

Genres: Biography, Nonfiction, Humor, Memoir, Autobiography, London

264 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Librarian 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.

Reviews

[Graham · Rating 5 out of 5]

A photo on the back of the jacket reveals the author sporting lavish sideburns, a tonsorial arrangement which artfully combines baldness with long hair, and a hideous cravat, so you know immediately that it was taken in the 1970s. James says he had an entire rack of cravats ‘of a chemically derived material printed with a paisley pattern’. He describes the period as ‘an era of dandies without taste’. This ability to sum up a subject or person in one witty sentence is evident throughout the book.

The fourth instalment in the Unreliable Memoirs series, North Face of Soho covers about fifteen years from the late ‘60s to the early ‘80s. It starts with James having a nervous breakdown after being fired as director of an Oxbridge revue and ends with another theatrical disaster. In between he is building his career, or perhaps that should be careers, and nowhere near as famous as he would become later in the ‘80s when millions came to know him simply as a television performer rather than the brilliant critical essayist he also was. Consequently it’s much more interesting than the final volume, which dealt with the years of TV fame, the ascent always being more fascinating to read about than the Olympian view from the summit.

Although the quantity of his output during these years is impressive, it’s the variety that is really striking. When he wasn’t establishing a reputation as a heavyweight literary critic in the pages of the TLS, The New Review and the The New York Review of Books, he was doing impressions of Henry Kissinger on late night satirical TV shows. Or furnishing singer-songwriter Pete Atkin with literate lyrics. Or helping future Factory Records boss Tony Wilson present an off-beat rock show called So It Goes. Or writing a groundbreaking TV review column for the Observer newspaper. Or writing poetry. I could go on, but you get the picture. This is a book full of anecdotes involving people who don’t belong in the same book: Peter Sellers & Robert Lowell, Barry Humphries and Martin Amis, Ian Hamilton and Johnny Rotten. The common factor is the Zelig-like kid from Kogarah.

James was a postmodernist before postmodernism was a thing, and long before the thing became a cliche. I’m not sure if he was consciously breaking down barriers between art and entertainment or if he just couldn’t help finding everything interesting. Perhaps he wasn’t sure either. Most intelligent people are interested in lots of different stuff. Unlike many, certainly fifty years ago, James wasn’t afraid to say so. He made the world of ‘serious literature’ seem accessible to the general reader and gave you the courage to enjoy alleged trash without feeling stupid. If someone as obviously clever as Clive James thought Star Trek was good fun, then it was okay for you to do so. Culturally omnivorous rather than populist he was the personification of the idea of a genuinely democratic culture, neither highbrow or lowbrow: ‘everything created should be composed on the assumption that it can be enjoyed by anybody, even if not by everybody’.

All of this was exemplified by his TV reviews written between 1972 and 1982. My paperback collections of the columns fell apart long ago through excessive reading. These mesmerising pieces were so funny that some concluded they weren’t criticism at all. James, however, proved that being funny and being serious were the same thing. When he made fun of the indefatigable patriotism of the BBC sports commentators at the 1972 Olympic Games (‘And Wilkins quite content with his fifth place. He can build on that’) he was telling you about Britain’s reluctance to accept that it was no longer an imperial power. Usually mainly remembered for hilarious put-downs of the famous his TV columns were really a celebration of the bewildering variety of 1970s British television, even if the compliments had a tendency to be distinctly backhanded. He wrote with an admirable lack of snobbery, taking popular fare like sit-coms as seriously as the supposedly prestigious productions, and frequently finding them more rewarding. Never intimidated by reputation he was always willing to point out that the Famous Playwright wasn’t wearing any clothes. And he didn’t just review the programmes: he also reviewed the adverts, the continuity announcers unable to get through a single link without fluffing, and the weather forecaster resplendent in a wildly strobing jacket while prattling about something called ‘a freezing fog situation.’ For Clive James television was a riotous carnival of eccentric characters and bizarre juxtapositions erupting into your living room. His reviews were often more enjoyable than the programmes and remain worth reading even though many of the programmes have been forgotten.

This is a wonderfully entertaining memoir, it zips along with tremendous energy and is full of wit and wisdom. It’s also full of the kind of finely honed and assiduously polished prose that dullards dismiss as slick. The kind of prose that is easy to read and almost impossible to achieve. James was a poet whose best poetry was written right across the page. He is honest about the ambition that drove him (‘I seemed less ambitious for anything in particular than for everything at once’) and avoids false modesty while taking delight in detailing his many failings. His failings are on such a grand scale they sound like achievements in themselves. For instance, he didn’t just smoke he ‘smoked so much that I needed the hubcap of a Bedford van as an ashtray’. Classic comic exaggeration, I thought. I then came across an article by Russell Davies in which he recalls both being in the street with James when he found the hubcap and how alarmingly quickly it filled up with cigarette butts.

Not everything Clive James did was good. There was quite a lot of dross among the gold. He mentions, without a flicker of embarrassment, a sequence of putatively comic epic poems with awful alliterative titles like Peregrine Prykke’s Pilgrimage through the London Literary World. Some of his programmes were more entertaining than envious fellow journalists allowed but there is no doubt that he was much better writing about television than appearing on it. His finest work is on the page: the reviews, essays, and memoirs like this one. A fashionable view is that he was a split personality fatally divided between his desire to be a famous jester and taken seriously: fashionable and false. This book, like all his best writing, demonstrates the truth of something he once said: ‘A sense of humour is just common sense, dancing. Those who lack humour are without judgement and should be trusted with nothing.’

[Ian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clive James, better known in the UK as 'Clive James on Television', is an Australian polymath who has made England his home. This book, the fourth instalment of his 'Unreliable Memoirs' series, covers the period from when he became a jobbing writer on Grub Street (the precursor to Fleet Street) right through to the beginnings of his TV stardom, mostly via a Soho pub called The Pillars of Hercules.

This is my favourite book of the series, probably because it deals with his struggles in becoming a professional writer. Fresh out of Cambridge at the beginning of the book, James was ready to take on the world; the trouble was, he found the world was not only ready for him, but it had chewed up and spat out his type many times before.

As he goes along James tries out most vices, recounting his battles with booze (Arthur explained to me that Granada was dry at Lord Bernstein’s insistence. He had some old-fashioned idea that people worked harder if they weren’t pissed.), and even some dabbling with drugs when amongst fellow creatives (At the time there was a catchy Californian expression: ‘Don’t Bogart that joint.’ I not only Bogarted that joint, I Lee Marvined it. In about ten minutes it was gone, and in about twelve minutes so was I.) Like an Australian bull in a china shop, the author crashes around from job to job with little sense of direction while learning the ropes, the reader is left in no doubt that he really did learn 'to do the right thing only by doing all the wrong things first'.

There are celebrity stories. Clive recounts interviews he did with the likes of Peter Sellers, Richard Burton, Robert Mitchum and Burt Lancaster, there are details of his adventures into theatre (In the West End, where some of the theatres are tightly packed together, there were several cases of a pissed actor going on at the right time but in the wrong play.) and of him negotiating his own deals before he had an agent (‘What can we do to persuade you to come to us?’ Mentally I replied that a large salary would help. Then I heard myself saying it. ‘A large salary would help.’)

The prose is peppered with James' wit (There were no big advances in those days, but the sum he proposed was more like a retreat. I would practically be paying him.) and the book rockets along under its propulsion. As a reader you feel that here is an author who is enjoying reliving the time, and that shows in the speed at which the pages rumble by.

An unexpected bonus is that there are plenty of nuggets of advice for the aspiring writer in amongst the tales of being part of the scene in 1970s London. I was surprised at how relevant some of the advice is today, given the changes in the literary/media landscape since. Clive James knows his stuff, he's lived it, and he doesn't mind passing it on to those willing to open this book. Always a poet at heart, the author gives clear instruction that you do not always end up where you'd like to be, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. His own career (Wikipedia lists him as an 'author, critic, broadcaster, poet, translator and memoirist') is a testament to that.

The last paragraph in this entertaining read includes a line that is a fitting end to this review, again it is aimed at writers, '…failure has a function. It asks you whether you really want to go on making things.' I'm glad Clive James continues to 'make things' well into his seventies.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is quite sad. He is book-ending his life and the tone of being aware of impending mortality never leaves the page. I love you Clivy, don't go...

[Martin Samuels · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the first three volumes of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs in 1990, so was delighted to discover he had written a fourth volume (and I recently spotted that a fifth volume has just been published). His writing style remains a real pleasure - easy to read, immediate, full of wit and wry comment, while at times profound. James comes across well, as someone with a definite talent as a writer and observer, yet with an almost equal talent to mess things up by a combination of laziness, pigheadedness, and blind enthusiasm. The picture of someone succeeding despite his own best efforts to wreck it all is highly engaging (and James is explicit that this is what he is trying to show us). Where this volume is more difficult than the others is that it shows James moving out of obscurity and into the public media - James mentions a great many names of famous figures, and assumes that the reader knows many / most of them already. Having been still at school during the period covered by this volume, these passing references sometimes left me a little frustrated as I don't have the necessary background knowledge. Yet James could hardly have been expected to explain who everyone was, as this would have been equally frustrating. This is, however, just a minor quibble. I look forward to reading the fifth volume (and assume that I will have a better background knowledge of the period!).

[Andrew Tattersall · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you've read any of the Clive James autobiographies you know what you are getting. An entertaining look back at his life told well. This is no different covering the time from him getting into journalism up to the time he got big time into TV. Interesting along the way to see the 1970's remembered as a side thought.

[Sarah England · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great as ever. Indeed, was sorely disappointed upon finishing that I didn't have the next in the series lined up. Erudite, laugh-out-loud, and fascinating insight into that bygone era of journalism. And polyester fashion ;)

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

My plan to read all of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs volumes continues apace. It's been a while since I read the first three, so this fourth is like an unexpected visit from an old mate.

In this volume, Clive is – in the polyester-and-beard '70s – married and attempting to shift towards a more stable income. However, that's not as simple as one would expect, and the pages detail epic poems, poet-bashing, too-smart songwriting and a dinner (with surprise trumpet interlude) with Spike Milligan.

The action, though it trots around the UK (and as far afield as the then-Soviet Union), is mostly based in London, in idea if not in actuality. There's a sense of literary community and solidifying relationships, and James plays up his role as a Boswell of sorts, except with Fleet Street and a cadre of what would now be considered Important Authors (Amis, Hitchens, Barnes et al) as his Johnson.

Though he boozily congregates with famous poets, performers and pen-pushers, the author continues in his winningly self-deprecating mode, coupled with some pinpricks at apt junctures. Hollywood stars are treated as the rara avis they are, though with the acknowledgement that they, too, need to shit somewhere. (It's just the accompanying staff that differentiate them, you see.)

I felt old when I was young, and feel young now I am old. I have never had a very well-developed sense of chronology. I just know that the dice roll and the river flows. I didn’t know, while the period recorded in this book was going by, that some of the best things in it were already on their way out, never to return.

There are two things that drive James through this instalment, though: a dedication to writing – whether poetry, prose, ribaldry or review – and a sense that life is getting on and that he should be getting a bit more done with his life. The curious state of being in a position to write his biography when, as his agent pointed out, he hadn't done much yet, is covered in this episode of the author's life, and it's cheering to realise that he's just like you or I: wondering when the fuck things start to feel like they're worthy enough to be counted.

(The scene in which James visits his war-killed father's grave is poignant: already, the writer was ten years older than his old man.)

There's a continual drive to do things that are worthwhile, here, and though he doesn't hit the mark every time, he's got a pretty good aim. Throughout, there's a lot of points on writing and editing that make particular sense to me, having worked at same for my adult life. I mean, there's hardly anyone writing who wouldn't benefit from this little nugget:

On a charitable view, faults of tone are the inevitable consequence of early exuberance: only a dullard is infallibly decorous from his first day. On a less charitable view, faults of tone are the deadly product of a tin ear working in combination with a loose mouth.

And that's him writing about himself.

Ouch.

By the end of North Face of Soho, Clive James is famous, though not nearly as famous as he would become. We're getting to that. He hints that Pavarotti turns up in the next book – a sonorous name-drop if ever there was – but I'm interested to see how he handles the transition from critic to one to be criticised.

It'll be funny, however it goes.

[Tom Bennett · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm an unashamed fan of Clive James, and of his poetry, essays and other writing.

As always, my copy of this book is covered in pencil marks, and many of the pages are turned down at the corner to help me rediscover another unforgettable aphorism.

Brilliantly funny, beautifully written, genuinely interesting.

[Jonathan Corfe · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two for the price of two and my orgy of reading Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs comes to a close.
Surprisingly, it was an emotional close. He relates his grief when Princess Diana dies, rattles off a list of literary lunching companions as they shuffle off in turn and there is a touching moment when he is in Hong Kong for the 1997 handover to the Chinese and, when asked why he is even remotely concerned about what the Chinese are going to do to the place, replies that his father is buried there. (Clive James' father was captured by the Japanese in WWII and died in a plane crash when he was being repatriated)
Throughout the final two books there is an obvious wrestle between him doing the work he loves (writing, literary criticism, essays, poetry) and the work that pays (television programs about travel, television and Japanese students with underpants full of cockroaches trying to win cash prizes). He sees it as a struggle as the work that pays erodes his reputation for the work he loves.
Finally, he ends up with the wherewithal to do the work he loves.
There's another theme in these books.
James' weakness for beautiful women. In the books they float in, capture his heart and imagination and, after keeping his hands where you can see them, he dutifully trudges home alone to the bosom of his family. It transpires that during the time he was writing this last memoir he was having an affair with a former model and socialite, Leanne Edelstein. It seems a weakness that was of some probable longstanding.
So, he wasn't superhuman. He is the first to admit it. But he was affable, avuncular ("stick with Uncle Clive and you'll never commit suicide again!"), clever, well-read and pursuer of art for art's sake. His output was prodigious too: that he wrote 40 books is staggering and I am envious of his talent.
He's gone now.
Leukaemia got him.
As he saw the end of his life approaching he wrote this.
Japanese Maple
Your death, near now, is of an easy sort.
So slow a fading out brings no real pain.
Breath growing short
Is just uncomfortable. You feel the drain
Of energy, but thought and sight remain:
Enhanced, in fact. When did you ever see
So much sweet beauty as when fine rain falls
On that small tree
And saturates your brick back garden walls,
So many Amber Rooms and mirror halls?
Ever more lavish as the dusk descends
This glistening illuminates the air.
It never ends.
Whenever the rain comes it will be there,
Beyond my time, but now I take my share.
My daughter’s choice, the maple tree is new.
Come autumn and its leaves will turn to flame.
What I must do
Is live to see that.That will end the game
For me, though life continues all the same:
Filling the double doors to bathe my eyes,
A final flood of colors will live on
As my mind dies,
Burned by my vision of a world that shone
So brightly at the last, and then was gone.

[Jeremy Walton · Rating 3 out of 5]

A change of pace
It's been a long time since the last instalment of Clive James' Unreliable Memoirs appeared in 1990; the previous one came out five years before then, and the original volume (from which the series takes its title) five years before that. So there's been a change of pace, and there's a change of style as well. Much of the appeal of the first three books came from the stories of how a well-respected, intelligent, prolific media figure started out in life; the contrast between his tough public persona and - say - the defecating, masturbating, over-consuming child depicted in the first volume was particularly striking. The air of self-deprecation (if not brutal honesty) hung over the second and third instalments, as he sought to make his way to England, and established himself at Cambridge.

Although this instalment follows on immediately from the end of the last one (where he was just about to leave Cambridge following his marriage), everything changes here. Being more an account of how he found his way into London's media scene (where he became preeminent), he's left out the self-deprecation, preferring to tell the story straight. Part of this appears to be a sharing of his experiences in an attempt to instruct any reader who has ideas about following in his footsteps. This is doubtless a worthy cause, but it has the effect of limiting the range of appeal for the book - certainly when compared to the original volume, which (as he acknowledges here) has become the most popular of all his books.

So lovers of his wit and humour won't find much to admire here. They also won't find many examples of his brilliantly coruscating style - indeed, parts of the writing appear to be somewhat rushed, as he makes promises to return to subjects in a way that's almost chatty, and certainly not up to his usual standards of construction. The hubris that he's sometimes accused of breaks through here and there as well, as when he attempts to excuse his poor listening skills by noting that "they used to accuse Scott Fitzgerald of the same thing". However, there are still memorable examples of his characteristic knack for finding exactly the right image, as on p150: "If all the accomplished but not especially interesting would-be writers became schoolteachers and taught grammar, the country would be on the road to recovery. The sky has more stars than it knows what to do with, but it can't do without gravity."

Originally reviewed 7 Sep 2007

[Simon Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

The dry, sardonic wit that made Clive James such a wonderful observer and commentator on life in his tv programmes, is much in evidence. The key difference is that on television that turn of phrase was gone in an instant as he moved onto the next comment. Set in writing you can savour the art and craftsmanship that underlies each finally honed sentence and paragraph.
His honesty about his own failings and shortcomings and praise for talented fellow writers, editors and filmmakers reveals a sharp analytical mind.
Although not a particularly long book it was one I tried to savour to enjoy the writing and the humour.

[Rusty · Rating 4 out of 5]

The fourth volume of James' memoirs. Details the successes, and more often, the comic screw-ups, of James as he lives on Grub Street.

There are excellent insights into life as a freelance writer making a desperate living, then gradually making contacts that lead to better opportunities. James writes about highs and lows in his life and career, always with a great dash of the humour for which he was famous.

[Jeremy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Having watched some of his tv programs, I have a soft spot for Clive James and his self-deprecating style of delivery. Although he overdoes it at times in this, vol 4 of his memoir, it is more than offset by his boundless irreverent humour and the sage advice and genuine wisdom contained within many of his homilies.

[Derek Bridge · Rating 4 out of 5]

The public record prevents this volume of James's memoirs from being as enjoyably unreliable (fictionalized) as the previous volumes. And this perhaps makes it less funny. It's still highly confessional and ties together high and low culture as he did in his public career. He writes almost too well: you have to slow yourself down to note its erudition.

[Nicola Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyable book about Clive James' early working life. Not as funny as "Unreliable Memoirs", which I read many years ago, and the writing and successful launch of which is described in this book; but interesting.

[Mike Taylor · Rating 4 out of 5]

You can hear Clive James through his words. You have to read it fast because that was how he spoke. Biographies are much more interesting when you know of the characters involved. A few chunks of this book are about the London Literati which left me a bit cold. On the whole a good read.

[Peter Burton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Te usual affair- clever witty writings about the next stage of his life and career.Such a likeable man ( I hope) and so assured.although he insists this has been hard won by experience.Good reading but will make more sense to UK readers who can remember and relive his shows on TV

[Anita · Rating 2 out of 5]

Didn’t finish it

[Wayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

An ok read if Clive James resonates with you

[Cally Clifft · Rating 5 out of 5]

The 'Postcard from' series undoubtedly contributed to my love of travel. Funny and brilliant writer reads his own memoir in the way only he can.

[James · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good fun but makes me wish I had been a succesful journalist in the 1970s

[David Highton · Rating 4 out of 5]

James leaves Cambridge and builda a career in literary and TV criticism and some TV programmes

[Steve Chilton · Rating 3 out of 5]

Always enjoy the work of Clive James. He manages to play down his own achievements without being annoying. This is the period of his life when he was 'making it' in television, although the path was not exactly even. He has some classic de(con)structions of the myths of those he came in contact with. When I finished this one I bought the next instalment of his memoirs (The Blaze of Obscurity), to put by and read in a few books time.

[Colin · Rating 5 out of 5]

The fourth volume of Unreliable Memoirs finds Clive James forging his early career as a critic and journalist, with a bit of theatre and television on the side. Less immediately funny than the previous volumes, but as he acknowledges, more truthful and accurate, it's a fascinating insight into the enormous amount of work he took on in order to earn a living and the London literary world of the seventies and early eighties. What shines through, as it did in May Week was in June, is his increasing ability to learn from his mistakes - about which he is invariably brutally honest. It almost got without saying that his prose sparkles with wit and perception, and there is never a dull sentence. I'd read anything this master of prose (and poetry, come to that) has written.

[Boyd · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adore Clive James's work and think he's truly brilliant, so it pains me to give this autobiographical volume only three stars. As in *Unreliable Memoirs*, there's a great deal of terrific writing here, particularly when James positions himself as a spectator and comments wittily on the doings of Martin Amis, Richard Burton, and other luminaries. As in the earlier work, however, he turns a tin ear on himself. His toe-scraping false modesty wouldn't fool a dog, and only serves to make the reader more aware of the very high regard in which Clive James holds Clive James. Nothing wrong with that, of course: only wrong to try to dodge the rap for it .

[Darren Gore · Rating 4 out of 5]

I recently re-read North Face Of Soho for the third time in about three years, and like Clive James's previous volumes of autobiography it's still good fun.

This time, we see Clive in the first decade of what would become his world-famous multimedia career, and after some early intimidating failures in print and on screen he survives and ultimately thrives.

Every now and then, Clive trips over too many words at once - but when his prose works, it works very well.

North Face Of Soho is engrossing, moving and laugh-out-loud hilarious.

[Robert Boyle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anyone who can quote you a thought from Katherine Whitehorn - 'You can recognise the people who live for others by the haunted look on the faces of the others' - is worth a read. And there's a lot here to interest writers. Yes, the words do run away from him, quite often, but he's the first to admit to doing so. And (another sentence starting with and) through it all you are struck by the high work ethic, the refusal to throw in the towel when one of his projects failed.

[Polly Tiller · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book. Clive James humour is unique. His dry wit made his book a thoroughly enjoyable read. What went on behind the scenes was fascinating, cutting and splicing tapes that had been recorded for his telly programme. How many hours it took to edit tapes that can now be done in a fraction of the time. Reading his book, it's like I could hear his voice talking. Clive James has his own unique humour that nobody has managed to copy effectively.

[Jennifer · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. I have happy memories of reading and sharing 'Unreliable Memoirs' so it was good to catch up with the 4th instalment even though accounts of life in the meeja have bags of potential for insufferable tedium. I am sure there are plentiful flaws in the man and plentiful flaws in this work but I chose not to look too closely and just enjoy the ride.

[Hilary · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another enjoyable instalment of Clive James's memoirs examining his early years establishing himself as a newspaper columnist, TV presenter, and poet. Told with the same self-deprecating sense of humour and introspection as his previous volumes, this is an enjoyable read full of entertaining anecdotes and wisdom. Love his writing