Moments of brilliance
Enjoying Cultural Amnesia too much to review it. A blog review is simply too ridiculous an exercise for such a magisterial work. Only for a vast sum of money provided by some exclusive magazine with a tiny but influential circulation could one review Cultural Amnesia. Anyway, for those of you who have not yet purchased this essential volume, Clive James has managed to construct a book that contains a moment of brilliance on each of its 856 pages. If you are into reading, the experience of this kind of thing is akin to, well, you know what. A few examples picked at random:
On Marxism (page 355): "Bukharin counted as a thinker among the old Bolsheviks because he could make a general statement about the connection of music to economics: nobody would be able to play the piano, he pointed out, if there were no pianos."
On Gatsby (page 219): "Fitzgerald's prose style can be called ravishing because it brings anguish with its enchantment. He always wrote that way, even when, by his own standards, he could as yet hardly write at all. He could still write that way when death was at his shoulder. He wrote that way because he was that way: the style was the man."
On Mao (page 459): "Mao had so organized his colossal abattoir of a state that information rarely travelled further than a scream could be heard. But that was inside China. Outside China, the story went everywhere, and there was never any excuse for not hearing it. The idea that there was is part of the lie — the part fated, it seems, to last longest."
On De Niro (page 435): "Robert De Niro's standard weapon is to repeat a line half a dozen times with slight variations of emphasis: 'Clean up and go home,' he tells Ashley Judd. 'Clean up and go home.' Hypnotized by this mantra, Ashley Judd cleans up and goes home to Val Kilmer, so thoroughly has her will been sapped. De Niro's power of repetition is a tried and tested standard weapon. A standard weapon, tried and tested, is what it is. Tried and tested. Tried and tested."
Clive James has written 856 pages of this kind of thing!
Comments
After tripping over a pile of books stacked next to my coffee table just last night, I vowed to God and Mother Mary not to go anywhere near a bookstore until I was done with the 20 or so books I've purchased in the past 6 months and haven't yet finshed. I buy books like some people drink or gamble, complusively and at a far faster rate then I can read them. My living room is looking well, pretty bohemian *cough* these days.
But man, this James book is exactly the sort of thing I can't resist. And big, sprawling, well-written cultural history tomes always have plenty of references in them which arouse my curiosity, so I'll probably want to buy at least 10 more books after reading this one.
So to hell with not buying any more books. I'll buy a couple of new bookcases instead.
(Don't tell me about the library. When I love a book, the last thing I want to do is return it! No, it's mine, mine, all mine!)
:-D
Posted by: Donna | May 4, 2007 10:33 PM
856 pages?!? I'm exhausted after only four examples. This strikes me as a book one dives into on a random page only to emerge an hour later sweaty, broke and dazed.
Posted by: bob corrigan | May 6, 2007 03:50 AM
Dear Donna, my kindred spirit:
I sit here in my new apartment and four 36x72 bookcases, staring at 25 boxes of books waiting to be unpacked. I cannot unpack yet , as I cannot find the pegs that hold up the shelves. The unpainted furniture store where I purchased two of the bookcases is being very helpful on getting me replacement pegs. But the other store (large chain) is paralyzed at what seem to them to be an unusual request. I bought the bookcases several years ago, so I am not in their database anymore - - and they seem to think I ought to have my receipt ater 12 years! It is a matter of procedures, apparently. They don't have one!
Posted by: Gina | May 7, 2007 12:10 AM
My sympathies, Gina. May you win the Battle of the Pegs, so you can finally shelf your books. And you know, eventually, those 4 bookcases won't be enough!
Posted by: Gina | May 8, 2007 05:24 AM