1.) Clive James has returned to TV criticism. He was poached out of retirement by the Telegraph who proudly billed their latest catch as the ‘world’s greatest TV critic’. It sees
him resume where his groundbreaking Observer column, written between 1972-82, left off. Widely cited as turning TV criticism into serious art, James collected his weekly musings into three volumes
of TV criticism: Visions Before Midnight, The Crystal Bucket and Glued to the Box. A compendium volume, On Television, was published in 1990. All are available
here.
2.) James is a man of many genres. He has published verse (most recently Opal Sunset: Selected Poems 1958-2008), four novels, five autobiographies and numerous collections
of essays (including the magnum opus, Cultural Amnesia). His forthcoming volume, A Point of View, collects the produce of his stints in front of the
Radio 4 mike. Meanwhile, his TV series, Talking in the Library, has notched up five series with guests including Martin Amis, Stephen Fry, Jeremy Irons and Emma Thompson.
3.) Unlike many of his literary contemporaries, James is no technophobe. His website www.clivejames.com is a cultural treasure trove.
Out-of-print books, new poetry, a comprehensive list of reviews, audio and a valuable section called ‘Prose Finds’ all jostle for position. With updates each month, and an exhaustive
archive, wannabe Boswells need not apply. Posterity already has its hands full.
4.) Though not conservative politically, James is no liberal when it comes to language. In his article ‘Insult to
the Language’, James claims that Britain is the place where the language is ‘falling apart fastest’ and that the ‘typical prose of the present has no past.’ He is
also a polyglot, famously salting his works with references to the numerous European languages at his command. He has even been reported as learning Japanese. Though such braggadocio, one imagines, has little purchase at the James breakfast table. His wife is
a modern languages don, teaching Italian and boasting her own impressive backlist of publications and translations. As he puts it
in the poem about her, ‘Book Review’: ‘I knew my place’.
5.) When taking a break from his impressive intellectual labours, James has an unexpected passion for dancing. His enthusiasm is for the tango, with the upstairs of his house
converted into a ballroom. And, polymath that he is, few would bet against him being
as twinkle-toed on the dance-floor as he is on the page.
Matthew Richardson
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