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March 28, 2024, 09:18:07 AM

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Clive James

Started by Icehaven, November 27, 2019, 04:08:10 PM

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Icehaven

...has died, after threatening to for years.

imitationleather

Ah man. This is a big shame.

A lot of people dying today, aren't they? Damn you 2016 etc.

Beagle 2

It seems like we did all the reflecting when his original diagnosis was announced, it's weirdly shocking for something that has been in the post for this long. I'm glad he soldiered on for as long as he did. I was always allowed to stay up and watch Clive James when I was a kid, just the sound of his voice is evocative of sitting in my pyjamas watching grown up TV.

Crabwalk

Bloody hell, Clive James and Jonathan Miller (and Gary Rhodes) on the same day. Harsh.

Jackson K Pollock

Oh wow, I have literally just finished listening to this week's RHLSTP where Herring made a joke about Clive James still being alive after threatening to die such a long time ago. Not criticising Herring for the gag or anything, just noting that it's one of those spooky/sad coincidences that you get sometimes, I guess. RIP.

kalowski

Margarita Pracatan mourns...

Glebe

RIP... a familiar face during childhood with Clive James on TV and the like.

Shaky

Sad news, but on the other hand it's fantastic that he got so many more years of life after his diagnosis.

Actually saw him give a talk in Belfast many moons ago and my abiding memory, apart from his general ease and good humour, is his description of Michael Keaton as the worst person he ever interviewed! I've never looked at Keaton the same way since.

Twit 2

His poetry was mostly awful and his opinions on poets mostly awful.

RIP

BlodwynPig

Quote from: Glebe on November 28, 2019, 04:04:40 AM
RIP... a familiar face during childhood with Clive James on TV and the like.

Another "i know who posted this without eyes left"

Who can we celebrate in his wake? Rylan...will Rylan be this era's Clive James.

A huge loss

Urinal Cake

Quote from: Twit 2 on November 28, 2019, 06:47:55 AM
His poetry was mostly awful and his opinions on poets mostly awful.

RIP
But he would like to be remembered as a poet not just as a mere writer or personality. He's going to haunt you now.


Gurke and Hare

His TV reviews for the Observer remain peerless - the collection is available on Kindle for a fiver, and is well worth it.

TheMonk

There's a lot of his stuff on YouTube.
This 2 part bit of TV made me very nostalgic... just lovely telly.

https://youtu.be/TkxC2bGNlzI

Revelator

#14
Quote from: Twit 2 on November 28, 2019, 06:47:55 AMHis poetry was mostly awful and his opinions on poets mostly awful.

His poetry was quite good and quite moving, especially in his last years (Sentenced to Life is a good place to start), and his poetry criticism, like his other literary criticism, was pleasurable and incisive. He wrote from a formalist perspective on poetry, but there's nothing wrong with that. I'm looking forward to purchasing his collected essays on Larkin.
Add together his later poems, Cultural Amnesia, his memoirs, and his TV criticism (collected in On Television) and you get a very impressive legacy. He also wrote lyrics for Pete Atkin, and the resulting albums are some of the best hidden treasures of the 70s. James's novels were not masterpieces, but some were pretty good: I can recommend Brilliant Creatures and The Silver Castle. His TV work was mostly in light entertainment, but he brought literary flair to it, and Fame in the 20th Century, along with some of the commentary for Clive James on Television, continue to hold up well.
I can't think of any other modern literary figure who excelled in so many areas as Clive James. Because most of us are understandably suspicious of jack-of-all-trades, the range of his virtuosity was often suspected or derided ("A TV show host who writes good poetry!? Impossible!"). But it was real nevertheless.

P.S. Here is James's last published poem:
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/poetry/2019/07/floral-clock

Glebe

I remember Alexei Sayle having a pop at him in one of his shows, over his 'laughing at foreigners' or summit, prolly because of the Endurance clips James used to feature.

Mel Smith did an impression of him in the first series of 'Alas Smith And Jones'.

Clive James did later interview Alexei Sayle on his website.

Twit 2

Quote from: Revelator on December 02, 2019, 10:44:10 PM
P.S. Here is James's last published poem:
https://www.newstatesman.com/culture/poetry/2019/07/floral-clock

Sorry, I genuinely think that reads like trite, local paper-tier poetry. I'm sure he was a lovely guy, he was undoubtedly well read and knowledgeable. His TV work and criticism was before my time so I don't know much about that. Hell, maybe he was even a genius. But I really don't think he was a good poet. I've read a shit load of poetry and his does nowt for me. I don't think I've ever seen his stuff crop up in any decent anthologies, either. "Opinions on poets awful" is a bit of an exaggeration; I'm sure he's a great critic and likes some great stuff (I know he translated Dante). But I have read him dissing some wonderful poets like RF Langley, which rang alarm bells.

Revelator

Quote from: Twit 2 on December 03, 2019, 06:45:50 AM
I've read a shit load of poetry and his does nowt for me.

I have also read "a shit load" of poetry, but have the opposite opinion.

QuoteBut I have read him dissing some wonderful poets like RF Langley, which rang alarm bells.

You're thinking of this piece: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/articles/69762/techniques-marginal-centrality
James was something a formalist and tough on poets whose technical command, whether formal or informal, he considered lacking.

checkoutgirl

Must dig out his postcards series from another laptop. They were good crack. Can't get the image out of my head of him dressing up in leather to go to a nightclub in New York with a socialite in her seventies. He was prepared to make himself look daft for a joke.

I'm no poetry cricket but the bits and bobs I've read of his seemed very good.

pigamus

Quote from: Twit 2 on December 03, 2019, 06:45:50 AM
Sorry, I genuinely think that reads like trite, local paper-tier poetry.

Then you really, really don't know what you're talking about. Sorry about that!

buzby

Quote from: Revelator on December 02, 2019, 10:44:10 PM
His TV work was mostly in light entertainment, but he brought literary flair to it, and Fame in the 20th Century, along with some of the commentary for Clive James on Television, continue to hold up well.
Fame In The 20th Century is excellent, as is the book he wrote to accompany it. I think all 8 parts are up on Youtube.

Twit 2

Quote from: pigamus on December 03, 2019, 07:59:18 AM
Then you really, really don't know what you're talking about. Sorry about that!

Or perhaps I just have a different opinion.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: buzby on December 03, 2019, 08:12:33 AM
Fame In The 20th Century is excellent, as is the book he wrote to accompany it. I think all 8 parts are up on Youtube.

Good call. This is why I stick with CaB for years.

steveh

Quote from: Glebe on December 03, 2019, 04:35:06 AM
I remember Alexei Sayle having a pop at him in one of his shows, over his 'laughing at foreigners' or summit, prolly because of the Endurance clips James used to feature.

Years since I read his first autobiography, but I think in that he was very anti-Japanese because of their treatment of his father as a prisoner of war and for taking him away from him as a child. You can still see that view continue in his later TV and newspaper work, if softened slightly.

I passed him in the street around five years ago and did a double take because he looked so small and frail like he was about to expire at any moment. He packed a lot into those remaining years.

Revelator

I'm not sure about that. As far as my memory serves, James blamed chance for his father's death, not the Japanese, especially since his father died after the war ended, in an American plane. James was certainly fascinated by Japan, as his two-part program from there and his novel Brrm Brrm indicate, but I don't those works are guilty of anything more than slight exoticism. As for Endurance, Clive James on Television mocked TV from all over the world, including the UK and America, and if Endurance tends to stick in people's memory, that's probably because it really was more intense than any other program around at the time (and parts of it are still jaw-dropping today). James wrote in his later memoirs that shows from Japan were fair game, given the country's modern status, but he drew the line at including several ineptly-made African programs, since it would have been unfair to laugh at material produced by impoverishment.

pigamus

Quote from: checkoutgirl on December 03, 2019, 08:43:18 AM
Good call. This is why I stick with CaB for years.

Seconded, thank you very much for flagging this

EDIT: Ep 8 blocked though, bugger

wosl

Quote from: Twit 2 on December 03, 2019, 06:45:50 AMSorry, I genuinely think that reads like trite, local paper-tier poetry. I'm sure he was a lovely guy, he was undoubtedly well read and knowledgeable. His TV work and criticism was before my time so I don't know much about that. Hell, maybe he was even a genius. But I really don't think he was a good poet.

I don't like his poetry much either, but it's a bit spiteful to come into a thread created in the wake of the man's death to comment solely on the one thing you think he did badly.  I happen think he had a blind spot for painting and the plastic arts, as well (his late career opus, Cultural Amnesia, is packed with short but dense and vibrantly subjective essays on all sorts of cultural figures, but there's not a single one on a painter, as far as I remember), but as he's only just left us (after a long and stoic battle with illness), I'd prefer to focus on the good things he did rather than the bad (specific example: this brilliant piece on Sandy Denny).  If you pass up the chance to grab a copy of On Television or the individual volumes that comprise it (vintage hardback copies are currently still available for relative peanuts on eBay, etc.), you're denying yourself some brilliantly funny and life-affirming reading.  It's hard to credit that reviews of decades gone television broadcasts can remain so entertaining and vivid and satisfying, but the pieces in those books manage with ease: cockles-warming art of a high order, created by processing a mass culture traditionally dismissed as low culture.  (Charlie Brooker says it better.)

pigamus

Great post wosl. Obviously it's fine not to like Clive James's or anybody else's poetry, and I can perfectly understand why people wouldn't. But to compare it to the kind of doggerel you get in the Shropshire Advertiser or whatever - that's just an insult to his level of craft.

Incidentally the Kindle version of On Television is just a fiver - hell of a bargain.

Twit 2

Fair enough and duly noted. I was exaggerating and, yes, it is a lot, lot better than local paper shite. I do still find it trite, though, and I remain staggered that he can't see the greatness of Langley. But yes, I shouldn't have focussed only on his poetry, that was indeed unfair and insensitive. Ultimately, I haven't read much of the stuff that he's celebrated for but I do respect he was a talented man with a lot of ability in lots of areas. Even though I think his conclusions about Langley are way off, the article it comes from is brilliantly wide-ranging and readable. He does seem like a great critic and journalist.