As of This Writing: The Essential Essays, 1968-2002 [Hardcover]

Clive James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2003

"Clive James is in the tradition of Hazlitt, Bagehot, and Edmund Wilson, with a gusto to succeed theirs."—John Bayley

It is impossible not to be awed by the remarkable range and massive erudition of Clive James, one of the greatest literary critics of our age. In the tradition of Edmund Wilson, James is a brilliant stylist so perceptive (and funny) that he renders the twisted literary terrain of the twentieth century remarkably accessible. In As of This Writing James has assembled his most ambitious and expansive collection to date, a book that features forty-nine essays on poetry, film, culture, and fiction written between 1967 and 2001. Whether commenting on poets like Auden or Jarrell, novelists like D. H. Lawrence and James Agee (not to mention Judith Krantz), or filmmakers like Fellini or Bogdanovich, James delights his readers with his manic energy and critical aplomb. This volume is a literary education that few recent books can rival.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Over the course of almost 50 essays, cultural pundit James only occasionally wears out his welcome, and very infrequently misses his mark. Four essays on Philip Larkin cover much the same ground, a piece on Twain, when it tries to rope in Vietnam and Kissinger, seems dated. Most often, however, James is either insightful (a study of Orwell) or else entertaining (a dismantling of Judith Krantz), and quite often he's both. Essays dealing with poetry and literature feature pieces on Robert Lowell, D.H. Lawrence, and Solzhenitsyn, while a section on culture and criticism comments on the life and works of Lillian Hellman, Evelyn Waugh and Betrand Russell. An additional pleasure are the postscripts where James comments on and provides explanations of (and sometimes excuses for) the ideas contained in these previously published essays. Through these illuminating and entertaining notes, the reader is given a kind of bifocal view, first through the myopic range of the original topic and then the wider view of James's critical hindsight. For instance, commenting on an essay on Auden, James writes, "The word `immediately' is used twice, which is twice too often...." It would be wrong to say that these afterthoughts are more enjoyable than the essays they comment on, but in many places, James's thoughts on his own thoughts are as penetrating as the thesis that sent his critical imagination wandering in the first place. A broad companion to Even as We Speak: New Essays 1993-2000 (which came out in paper last September), this latest collection acts as a prism through which to view James's entire career.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

What qualities make a critic's work worth reading long after the newspaper or magazine in which it first appeared has been pulped? Style, of course, and a firm grasp not only of the particulars of a book or film but also of the wider world in which it is created and absorbed. Australian-born and Cambridge-educated, James writes with fluent wit, remarkable warmth, deep knowledge, and an exhilarating sense of mission. His discussions of Ezra Pound, Galway Kinnell, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Raymond Chandler, Mark Twain, and James Agee are startlingly illuminating; his take on Australian literature is invigorating and enlightening; and his response to Judith Krantz is absolutely hilarious. And within each finely choreographed critique shimmer such striking observations as "a culture can never flourish as a hedge against the world. It isn't a bastion for nationalism, it is an international passport." James is also a poet, novelist, memoirist, lyricist, and television performer, practices that contribute mightily to the grace and magnetism of his essays. The timelessness, acuity, and humanism of James' criticism is everywhere evident in this scintillating collection. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 640 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; 1 edition (June 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393051803
• ISBN-13: 978-0393051803
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,054,349 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As for me, September 6, 2003

By 

Kim F. Hill (Rockford, IL. United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As of This Writing: The Essential Essays, 1968-2002 (Hardcover)

I thought this book was a wonderful collection of brilliant essays. I am very impressed with his range of subjects and feel inlightened by them.

This book features forty- nine essays on poetry, film, fiction, and criticism from his writings between 1968 and 2002. many with a up to date Postscript.

From Marilyn Monroe to Gore Vidal, Clive James help to expand your world

7 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 600 pages of engaging the reader, December 14, 2003

By 

Peggy Vincent "author and reader" (Oakland, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: As of This Writing: The Essential Essays, 1968-2002 (Hardcover)

Wow, this is a long one, but it holds one's interest. At least, it held mine most of the time. Also, being a collection of 35 years of essays, it's possible to pick and choose. I mean, it's not like you have to read from p. 1 to p. 600 without a break. Clive James is a critic, one who writes for the NY and London Reviews of Books, the New Yorker, etc., etc. he's made a name for himself by becoming one of the central voices of literary criticism, and this collection of his essays shows how and why he's become the icon of our times. It's a keeper.

11 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A mixed collection, December 9, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: As of This Writing: The Essential Essays, 1968-2002 (Hardcover)

James gets three stars for having a good lively prose style and for penning a very good essay on Nixon instead of the one star warranted by the crudity of his views about poets. The worst parts of this book are the little afterwards he writes to his essays, in which he often puffs up his chest with pride at the critical establishment's supposedly coming around to his views, as if that makes any difference to any position's actual merit (or indicates how such opinions might ultimately change). James too often just writes about larger literary figures, superficially examining or recycling prevelant views, and has little to say about anyone a thousand more in-depth essays haven't been written about alreadly. He perpetuates the English academic's grotesque overestimation of that dated period poet W.S. Auden and attacks Theodore Roethke--a poet so beyond Auden it's almost laughable--so it's a disgrace when James dismisses Roethke as an Auden imitator. He may be right that Roethke DID imitate parts of Auden and others, but the fact that he took whatever techniques he learned from other poets, enlivened them and developed them farther than their originals ought not to escape the notice of an intelligent reviewer. That Roethke didn't stagnate and decline like Auden or Lowell, but changed and developed, often radically, is evidence for James that Roethke was a mere imitator. In other words, it's pure and shallow bunk. His essay on Heaney is good, if a bit fawining and unoriginal, and it's diminished somewhat by the familiar self-congratulations in the post-script. The Nixon stuff, however, actually does present an original and thoughtful perspective on a topic many have preconceived notions about--exactly what we want from an intelligent essayist--so it's definitely worth a read.