Coda [Paperback]

Simon Gray (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2008

From heartbreaking reflections on his own mortality to characteristically outrageous asides—"everybody knows somebody who knows somebody who was given six months to live, and here they are, only just dead, eight years later or, in exceptional cases, here they still are, eating oysters and boring the shit out of people"—Gray's self-proclaimed "last written words on the subject of myself" records his extraordinary emotional journey. Darkly comic depictions of the medical team are set against joyful accounts of sunlit days with this beloved wife, Victoria, in Crete and a beautiful early summer in Suffolk. Woven into the narrative are arguments with himself, "Dialogue between a Thicko and a Sicko," a shameful childhood memory, and a masterfully tense "distraction," written in real time while waiting for his final prognosis—and smoking one last cigarette. Written with exceptional candor and a poignant reluctance to leave this world behind, Coda is painful and beautiful.

Editorial Reviews

Review

'I can't imagine a finer book for a writer to go out on - An absolutely extraordinary achievement' Front Row 'Few books have ever been more immediate, more rooted in the present tense' Mail on Sunday 'The effortless, rambling style he's accidentally found himself cultivating here reaches its zenith - He finishes not in ugly mid-sentence but clearly, cleanly, perfectly. A casually perfect but unexpectedly painful early full stop to a life and a mind for which we are immeasurably richer' Observer 'His beautifully written, addictively readable, unsparingly honest journals are his greatest achievement - and will survive the test of time' Telegraph 'Those many readers who have enjoyed the three previous volumes of The Smoking Diaries will find this one every bit as compelling: less funny, despite frequent shafts of wit, considerably more moving' Scotsman 'Mordantly funny, unsparing of himself and others, desperately brave, it is both compulsive and agonising to read' Sunday Telegraph An Evening Standard 'Best Book of 2008': 'Wittily digressive, deeply humane and excruciatingly honest' 'An effortlessly astonishing piece of writing that established Gray without a doubt among the great autobiographers' Literary Review

About the Author

Simon Gray (1936–2008) wrote more than 30 plays, including Butley, The Common Pursuit, and Cell Mates, as well as several volumes of diaries and memoir including The Smoking Diaries.

Product Details

• Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Granta UK (June 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1847081002
• ISBN-13: 978-1847081001
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,101,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Superb final installment, December 31, 2008

By 

Sirin (London, UK) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Coda (Hardcover)

Coda is a necessarily bleak book. The white noise of awareness of transient mortality that starts as a feint hum in youth and builds throughout age has now reached screaming point for Simon Gray, to the point where it could obliterate every other conscious thought - he has been diagnosed with terminal cancer, with months to live (he died last August).

Still, a tribute to the wit and courage of Gray, he doesn't hide away from the world and still tries as best as he can to engage with the everyday pleasures of life - a holiday in Crete, a Christening, the discovery of a new author - Sefan Zweig - at a time when he feels he must make every last book count.

Much of his life at this point is taken up with visits to doctors who Gray applies mischevous names - Morgan Morgan, Dr Rootle and so forth as they give him progressively bleak news about the state of his cancer. He much prefers the doctors who convey a broad human sympathy over those formulaic government employees with their tedious health warnings (Gray has smoked 60 a day for most of his life) and lack of vocation - "look at their opposition to Chadwick and his belief in drains, sewers and hygiene in the middle of the nineteenth century".

The wit and pithy observations of modern life are still there such as ruminations on how easy it would be for unemloyed yobs to heave bricks through the window onto diners in a West London restaurant; a hillarious episode where he encounters a female tramp, whose paramour has recently died, and he ends up buying a load of cheese he doesn't want merely to break a £20 note to give her some change; and a bittersweet exchange with Harold Pinter (now also dead) as the two elderly, cancer stricken men chortle over the memory of a cricket match from long ago, which Harold Pinter managed to single handedly lose for his side.

The passing of Simon Gray is emblematic of the passing of literary men of his generation (it is no coindidence that this generation was the last to receive a proper classical education in schools instead of the baleful 'skills' based education us teachers are now expected to deliver). He was a cast of mind, now vanishing, that was broad, witty, generous and formidably intelligent in its breadth. Now it is the turn of younger writers to take Gray's place as commentators on life, but it is hard to think of many who can match Gray for his broad minded, intelligent perceptions on the world.