Unreliable Memoirs [Paperback]

Clive James (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 18, 2009

A best-selling classic around the world, Clive James’s hilarious memoir has long been unavailable in the United States.

Before James Frey famously fabricated his memoir, Clive James wrote a refreshingly candid book that made no claims to be accurate, precise, or entirely truthful, only to entertain. In an exercise of literary exorcism, James set out to put his childhood in Australia behind him by rendering it as part novel, part memoir. Now, nearly thirty years after it first came out in England, Unreliable Memoirs is again available to American readers and sure to attract a whole new generation that has, through his essays and poetry, come to love James’s inimitable voice.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Do not read this book in public. You will risk severe internal injuries from trying to suppress your laughter. . . . What’s worse, you can’t put it down once started. Its addictive powers stun all normal decent resistance within seconds. Not to be missed. (Sunday Times )

About the Author

Clive James, author of the best-selling Cultural Amnesia and of Opal Sunset, writes for the New York Times Book Review and The New Yorker. He lives in London.

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company (May 18, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0393336085
• ISBN-13: 978-0393336085
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #754,752 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #61 in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Ethnic & National > Australian

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Feel the need to balance the case, July 4, 2010

By 

Devon (Indianapolis, IN United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Unreliable Memoirs (Paperback)

I have owned this book since it first came out, have read it multiple times over the years, and have all the subsequent four books in the Clive James autobiographical series (plus a few others of his). I hadn't planned to write this review, but having just read the five others on this page I feel the need to do something to help balance things out. The other five reviewers all appear to be Americans, which means they are unlikely to know much about Clive James, who is a household name in Britain and Australia. Nor are they likely to understand childhood in the old Empire in the times about which James is writing. And the comments from the mothers are a sad reflection of the way in which so many people now feel the need to shield their children from everything that could possibly cause them even the slightest harm. (I have two young sons and resolutely refuse, for example, to have them wear those dippy helmets when they are on their bikes.)

You have to understand this book both in the contaxt of the place and of the times. People in Australia, and even to some extent in the US, did this kind of stuff in the 1940s and 1950s. The criticisms of James as a person are hopelessly misplaced. And I can understand the comment about the inside jokes, but I was brought up in Kenya in a British expatriate household in the 1950s and 1960s, so much of what he says rings true to me. Although I live in the US I also lived in London for a long time and well remember James' excellent TV column. This book is one of my ten favourite of all time. It is funny, poignant, self-effacing, and well written, and a valuable record of a time and a set of attitudes long gone (not always necessarily a bad thing). Anyone who takes it too seriously, or who reads it completely out of context, like several other reviewers on this site, will never really understand either the book or the author.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great...if you get the jokes, February 28, 2010

By 

J. Morse "CajunDodger" (Los Angeles) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Unreliable Memoirs (Paperback)

As a person unfamiliar with Australian geography and even less familiar with Australian cultural references, I merely liked this book. Clive James does a fantastic job in setting up many of the anecdotes he relates in the various chapters here. However, as an American who is merely semi-well traveled, I did not get many of the inside jokes. It is easy to see how funny this book could be if you really were tracking with the culture he grew up in.

This, however, is more of the reader's problem rather than the writer's. The tales related range from sadly familiar (dead father, incredibly caring mother, indifferent son) to some of the truly funniest writing imaginable (trying to tackle a world class rugby player; a chapter entitled The Sound of Mucus). James is really great. There are stories in here that everyone can relate to and it is all told in a way that is sharp in sensational details and vague on everything in between. If I could dump my memories into a book, this is probably what it would be like; only less funny and more stupidly written.

Broaden your horizons and read the book. It is a short read and will have you looking something up in Wikipedia at least once every few minutes.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A hoot!, August 27, 2010

By 

Mary Contrary "Mimi" (Austin, TX United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Unreliable Memoirs (Paperback)

Loved this book although it is not an easy read. The Aussie slang and the vocabulary made me run to the dictionary more than once. But I like that sort of thing. Clive James talks about his youth in Australia, mostly after his father died at the end of World War II. He ran rings around his mother and pretty much ran wild. Not an easy read vocabulary-wise, but worth the effort.