Customer Reviews

Unreliable Memoirs

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

 

 

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.

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.

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.

As one who grew up in the 50s and who had a blast growing up in that carefree era before political correctness, bicycle helmets and seat belts, I had thought that I would enjoy this book. I most emphatically did not. Any book that puts as much emphasis on mucus (and painful operations to correct the problem) as this one did will never, ever take up valuable space on my bookshelves.

If you're looking for an entertaining book along the same lines, but which is actually amusing, read "The Thunderbolt Kid" by Bill Bryson, or, if you just want something well-written and funny, read anything by P. G. Wodehouse.

I would definitely recommend that everyone who is thinking of buying this book read the positive reviews before buying, and if you can identify with those reviewers and their comments, go for it. Based on their comments, one needs some special background to enjoy it, and they seem to concur that "you either get it or you don't". Certainly, this is a fair assessment of just about any book, particularly one that is meant to be humorous. Of course, the fact that I didn't like this book shows that I "don't get it." I have no problem with that, and I hope the rest of you who didn't like it feel the same way.

I bought this book because it was well reviewed by many credible reviewers and was said to be "laugh out loud" funny. Perhaps I should have been suspicious when such a tiresome cliche was used. This is a fairly typical story of a young boy in a time when children could run loose and endanger their own and others' lives. This one happens in Australia and follows the author through our equivalent of grade school to college, living with his widowed mother. Most of the very young years are tales about how he and his friends did incredibly stupid things while the adults were either very dense or just assumed that dangerous play was the best way to weed out the keepers. Happily, this book was written before we publically pilloried authors for "improving" the story. Nonetheless, I really found the whole thing quite boring and began to hope he would kill himself. As he went off to school, I found it funnier, but only made it up to a smirk, not even a chuckle. However, I did finish the book.
I think that this book would have been enjoyed more by someone who had been less cautious as a child and wasn't a mother now. Forgive me, I know this is genderist, but I could see many men recognizing themselves in this book and maybe they are the people who were laughing. It wasn't me.

I was told that as a mother of a young boy I needed to read this book. I anxiously awaited for it to arrive in the mail a few weeks ago but have yet to finish it. I lost interest. I thought it was hard to get through with all of the Australian slang. It did make me smile the couple of times I could understand it. Who knows, maybe I will finish it when I run out of other things to read!

Mildly funny ,but in a painful way also sad.Can't really recommend, keep in car in case of traffic jam or unforssen doctor's visit?

I just finished reading Unreliable Memoirs. I can't say exactly why I kept at it past halfway. I found it fairly unfunny, sex-obsessed ( just how much do we really need to know?), unkind, and obscure. Okay, I don't have the incredible literary background and knowledge to understand all the abstruse references, and I did not grow up in Australia, and I was never a 13-year-old boy, so that leaves out all the touch points. Just saying he's spoiled and thoughtless doesn't magically make it all right. I would not care to meet Mr. James, if this book is any indication of who he really is.