Customer Reviews

North Face of Soho (Unreliable Memoirs)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I approached the book with anticipation, having enjoyed "Unreliable Memoirs" (Volume One).This latest volume, which brings us up to James' post-Cambridge early career, is unbelievably tedious: solipsistic, self-absorbed, full of endless references to literary editors, TV producers, buddies from the London literary world - most of whom no-one has ever heard of, though the big names, like Martin Amis, get grovelling accolades. James tries to justify his frantic, over-achieving persona by suggesting that he is presenting a cautionary tale from which the willing reader can learn. Don't believe it. The book is unutterably boring, lacking the verbal wit we once enjoyed from this former media celebrity. He should have quit while he was ahead with the fatherless little boy from Kogarah riding his billycart down that hill.

It's a decade since I read the first instalment of these Memoirs but the contrast effect is strong nevertheless. I remember the first book was funny and well written but I don't remember it having much point. In fact that was the point: "...someone who had done nothing writing a book about how he had prepared himself for not doing it...". Reading the fourth volume is like being given sound advice from a much admired uncle: try to learn from your mistakes so you can do better next time. James illustrates this theme by stuffing up over and over again while his career somehow manages to assemble itself around him. Eventually he even manages to learn from his mistakes. There are dull moments, or at least moments that are dull if you neglected to have a literary career in London during the 1970s, but these are easy to plough through because you know it won't be long before Martin Amis walks into the next pub. On the whole I smiled a lot. Sometimes I laughed loud enough to frighten the chooks, and I cried on the last page right on cue. One thing I didn't do was put it down.