Always Unreliable

Always Unreliable by Clive James (2001 Picador softcover 537pp)

For people around my age Clive James seemed to appear fully-formed in the late 1980s as the jocular host of TV programmes like “Saturday Night Clive” and the later “Postcards From...” travel shows. I had little idea of his history or previous works and it wasn’t until he became ill in his later years that I started to realise that he had a whole other existence as a critic, novelist and poet. After his death in 2019 I decided to fill in the gaps in my knowledge by reading his memoirs. This book, “Always Unreliable” is an omnibus volume containing “Unreliable Memoirs” (1980), “Falling Towards England” (1985) and “May Week Was in June” (1990) all of which were originally published separately.

In a new introduction to the combined edition, James warns us about believing everything that you might read in memoirs and autobiographies before mentioning a few events and people he feels like he overlooked or maligned.

The first section “Always Unreliable” follows the young Clive (originally called Vivian) through his accident and incident-prone childhood in suburban Australia. He makes himself out to have been a terrible handful to his doting mother and generally unlikeable. It ends with him a young man boarding a ship to England, then always the promised land for those seeking a life in the arts or culture.

“Falling Towards England” mainly details the unravelling of his plans once he reaches the UK. He intends to work a menial job to support himself as he writes in the evening. However, he seems to be unable to keep a job for more than five minutes and does nothing to help himself. In the end he has an associate gain him entrance to Cambridge University but then discovers he has to live in England for at least 2 years before he’s eligible for a government stipend. His impressions and experience of 1960s UK life and culture is a joy to read and quite eye-opening – a lot grittier and grimy than the multi-coloured swinging love-fest we’re so often shown.

“May Week Was in June” takes a slightly smaller scope covering pretty much only his life as a student in and out of Pembroke college. He joins the famous Cambridge Footlights society and discovers a new life in the field of entertainment. But his self-sabotage continues as he fails to do much actual study towards his actual University courses. I found this section started to drag a bit for me. Although its written with the equivalent of a twinkle in his eyes, the cheeky-chappie cad-about- town thing grew somewhat tiring. He paints detailed word portraits of his fellow students and friends, in particular the Australians, Americans and those in the film industry. The problem is none of them come out sounding like someone you’d want to spend hours with let alone years. Eventually somehow, he sorts his life out, he achieves good marks (but eventually drops out of Cambridge) and starts to sell his writing. The book ends with him marrying one of his many girlfriends and stating he is done with writing memoirs – two further volumes followed...

On the whole I enjoyed the ride in James’ skin, the first 2/3 being more enjoyable to me. He was obviously a great talent but struggled for a long time to put that to practical use. It makes him more relatable but also alienates the reader when he revels in it – you feel like yelling at him to see the obvious before its too late. I look forward to catching up with the next couple of decades in his life when I eventually read further.