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Not Entitled: A Memoir

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Kermode, who introduced the English-speaking world to French post-structuralist theory when he was teaching at the University of London, is far less interested in such effete and rarified (not to say, obtuse!) things than in relating his childhood, youth and early adulthood to the later course his life took. Born on the linguistically isolated island of Mann, his recollections of those early years suggested nothing of the extraordinary literary-critical future that awaited him. His service in the Royal Navy puts to rest the common conviction that anyone who served in that war must be a hero. On the contrary, he considered the whole outing a total waste of time (something that anyone who's served in the military will recogize as fundamentally correct!). A narrow measure of his prodigious critical output may be found in another AMAZON offering of Kermode's: _The Uses of Error_

I was not acquainted with the writing of Frank Kermode but read his obituary in the "Times" Magazine. After learning he had been born on the Isle of Man, yet held a foremost role as a major art critic and writer, I sent for his autobiography.
Because Mr. Kermondy was born on a small, isolated island, I assumed his sense of community would be developed, but his is an odder story than that. He never says so, but his mother was most likely illegitimate, and, so, he never found out any family background on her side of the family. It was "off limits" to ask, and he grew up with only his parents, his father being from Scotland. It is as if Kermody were isolated on an already isolated island. The voice of the book is lonely, but not self-pitying: ironic.
The author's adventures during the Second World War in the British Navy are down-to-earth and unsentimental. The title for the book: "Unentitled" comes from his seaman's experience. When a man went to the bursur's to be paid, he would lay his cap down. If he had received enough demerits that pay period, the bursur would call out, "Unentitled!" meaning the man had no salary at all. All the poor fellow could do, according to the author, was to salute smartly, pivot and leave, or he might just get another demerit.
I felt the author was disillusioned, but he does not easily give out his secrets, but delves into the lives of others. He has a certain impenetrable qualilty, which is not in evidence in his other books.

Kermode is one of the rare scholar-critics of our time whose analytical brilliance has not obscured from him his own humanity. This memoir, along with--or perhaps heading the list of--his distinguished titles, The Sense of an Ending, The Genesis of Secrecy, Shakespeare's Language, and many more, guarantees his place in the canon of classics chosen by those who read for pleasure.