Book description
‘I was never alone except in the toilet, where I soon found that
locking myself into a cubicle was not much protection from hearing
myself talked about by young men standing at urinals. (“Jesus, he’s
looking rough.” “And it’s only Monday.”)
Reviews for Clive James’s fourth volume of memoirs, North Face of Soho
, included several that specifically requested a further volume; Clive
James duly obliged and here, in all its glory, is ‘Unreliable Memoirs
V’, otherwise known as The
Blaze of Obscurity
.
Perhaps his most brilliant book yet, The Blaze of Obscurity
tells the inside story of his years in television: part Clive
James on TV
and part Clive James on TV, it shows Clive James on top form - both
then and now.
‘In the case of many people who attempt an autobiography even a single
volume is one too many . . . In the case of Clive James, the volumes now
in existence are too few. If the final tally puts him up there with
Marcel Proust, so much the better’ Financial Times
Clive James is the author of more than twenty books, including four
previous volumes of autobiography (Unreliable Memoirs
, Falling Towards England
, May Week was in June
and North Face of Soho
), collections of literary and television criticism, essays, travel
writing, verse and novels. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of
Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins memorial medal
for literature.
