James - Unreliable Memoirs

Unreliable Memoirs: Always Unreliable, Clive James, Picador, 1980.

This first book of James' memoirs covers his childhood and first go at University.


James calls his memoir 'unreliable', right in the title. James is telling the reader that this is a fictive memoir, a recollection of actual events and people but combined with fiction. True stories may be exaggerated or expanded upon with fiction elements, some tales may be invented, depictions of people may be acurate or partially or entirely fiction. It is assumed though, that even with a generous dose of fiction, the essence, the main body of the tale, gives a genuine insight into the life and character of the person writing the memoir. In fact, the use of fiction is meant not to obfuscate the past, but to help reveal it by providing detail, a focus, a contrast.

Most of the book concerns James'childhood in Australia in the fourties and fifties. Tale after tale recounts James' adventures as a child. They are largley comic, and no doubt exaggerated versions of real events. Many of the stories depict James behaving badly. At times funny, at times irritating, but always readable. The reader continues turning pages to see what happens next even while cursing James the child for being a nasty little shit.

According to these memoirs, James was an unusually self aware child. James tells us that he frequently made deliberate calculations in behavior to ensure acceptance at school. For example, when almost labelled as a 'brain' or even worse, a 'teacher's pet', he set fire to his desk to provoke a beating from the school disciplinarian and thereby ensure his acceptance as one of the bad kids. Other similar calculations follow. In his last years of school, he observed that he was now one of the smaller kids instead of one of the largest. Therefore he reionvented his persona, changing his behaviour from bad kid to class clown, and by making others laugh avoided being bullied.

There is much humor in this book, some of which has not aged well, but that is often the case with humor. There is also pathos in this book, and moments of reflection, and constant apologies from James for being such a rotten kid. He writes that he knew better even then, but did not change his behavior. But he would improve eventually, years later, he assures the reader.

Another interesting characteristic is that of false modesty. James makes a point of telling us his very high IQ score, then self-deprecatingly states that it means nothing. Yet he did make a point of telling us.

The final section of Unreliable Memoirs tells of James' first crack at University. Though the smallest section it is the most interesting. Here we meet characters more realized than the shadowy companions of his childhood. We witness James' attraction to the avant-garde, and to literature and the literary life, all presented in a sequence of amusing tales. He tells of his early love of books, of the counter-culture as it was in the fifites, of his early writing, of his freinds and schoolmates. James writes once or twice that he had few freinds, yet he never lacks for company. Perhaps 'few', like 'some', is a relative term to be taken relatively. All through his schooling James insists he neglected his studies, yet he always has high marks. In University he also neglects his reading, his work, his classes, yet he manages a degree.

Following his degree James quickly finds work at a newspaper. He seems to take to it well. But he abruptly decides that England is the place to be so he loads up his trunk and heads across the sea. He says goodbye to his girlfreind (who along with others reapears in later sequels to this memoir) and boards ship headed for England, circa early 1960's. The bad behavior toward other people and things continues during his University years right to the memoirs end, but, James insists, his behaviur improved, eventually.

Green - Paper Towns

Paper Towns. John Green. Dutton Books. 2008.

Quentin 'Q' Jacobsen and Margo Spiegelman share a wild night of pranks and adventure. The next day, Margo is not at school. She has disapeared. No one knows where she went or why, or whether she is alive or dead. Q and his freinds try to uncover what happened to her. They find what they belive are clues to her disapearance, left by Margo herself for Q.

The novel develops the main cast through events in and around the last three months of their final year of High School. In the time off from school they follow the clues. Margo had been the most popular girl in High School. But as Q and his freinds dig, they discover that no one really knew Margo. Each person who knew her had a different idea of her personality. She was a reflection of their own ideas, their own biases and assumptions, and on her part Margo played the role she was given. But her own personality remained seperate and hidden form everyone. An irony here is that enough is given about Margo for each reader to make their own idea of who Margo is, based on their own reactions to the story and their own biases and personalities and past histories. Thus one of Green's themes extends beyond the page into the reader's world.

As the young characters search they learn more about the real Margo. Q in particular is obsessed with knowing the truth and with finding her or what happened to her. The novel ends with a furious race against time across the country to where they believe they will find Margo. What they discover you need to read the book to find out.

Of all the Green teen books, this is possibly the best, and the most accesible to an adult audience. The themes of identity, friendship, and so on resonate with all readers.

Hay - Late Nights on Air

Late Nights on Air, Elizabeth Hay, McClelland and Stewart, 2007.

A group of characters work together at a radio station in the summer of 1975. Harry Boyd, Dido, Eddy, Eleanor, Gwen, Ralph.

These are the main five characters, but others appear occasionally, each crisply drawn and given life. The book chronicles story of their lives together working at the station over a year. The reader experiences their shifting friendships and loyalties. Each major character is given time as the viewpoint character. Their personalities and motives are explored, their feelings toward the world around them and of the other characters is revealed. But little is certain. Feelings grow between some characters and then fade, or emotion lurks beneath the surface then grows as the year or years pass. The interplay between these characters shifts and remains complex. Even among friends an opinion, a judgement, may differ on a third character. This richness and variability are the novels strengths. The characters seem real, nothing between them is pat or too easy.

The main characters are arguably Gwen and Harry. Gwen is a rookie in the radio business who drove to Yellowknife alone. Harry is a former radio star who bombed in a try at television and took the radio job as a sort mutual favor slash exile. But arguments could be made that Dido and Eleanor, and in the final part of the book Ralph are equal characters. Yet the view point we see more often is either Harry or Gwen.

Eddy is present throughout much of the novel and is given a brief time as the view-point character, letting us only briefly inside his head. His personality does not travel much beyond the belligerent, ambitious, and talented character he appears to be at the novel's beginning. We do not learn why he is so relentlessly hostile to Harry. That Harry has failed at tv and is back where his career began is part of it. Perhaps that is all the explanation the author intended. But it is insufficient.

Dido is described as broad shouldered, with narrow hips and big hands. In short, she is described as a man. Why the author has done this is a mystery. All the men find her irresistible, yet in real life they would not. Her physical description is not an attractive one. Is there meant to be a hint ofe form the book's beginning. She is said to have a attractive voice, and that is something, but not enough given her mannish appearance and unlikeable personality. Still, in real life a woman friend said she thought Dido 'sensual'.

Another character is the land itself. Hay writes as someone intimately familiar with Yellowknife and the northern landscape. The land's smells, its sights, its feel. All come alive in careful evocative detail. The presence of the land is a force, a living character, throughout the book. The second to last section concerns a long trip into the back country by four of the characters. It sets up like the novel's pentultimate section, but it is not. There are important developments on that trip, it changes several lives, but more story remains. The book continues to follow and develop several characters, and leads finally to a (too long to be believable) long-delayed realization for two of them.

Death pervades the book. Not always on stage but as a lurking presence. A few of the characters die. But beyond that, death is always referred to. Either offstage deaths of relatives, or the repeated theme of a long lost, long dead, arctic explorer and his entire party. It could be argued that death is another central character. Though not always center stage, it or its possibility is ever present, a part of the landscape, a part of life in the north country, as envisioned by the author.


Harry takes the job as a temporary position. This gives him leeway to experiment and try anything he likes since he doesn't expect the job to last anyway. In radio he has great confidence. Remember first, this is the seventies. He gives increased responsibility to women as radio personalities, reporters, newsreaders. Some of the men are angry. Harry experiments in other ways. Some things work, some do not. Many of his staff become angry and plan rebellion. This portrayal of seventies society is yet another well-drawn and interesting part of this excellent novel.

Harris - You Comma Idiot

You comma Idiot, Doug Harris.

You Comma Idiot is a comedic novel about a directionless guy drifting through life who suddenly has several problems hit him at once, disrupting the rut his life had become. It is written in the second person, which isn't used often. The book isn't hilarious, but it is amusing. And yes it does take place in Montreal, so you Montrealers out there will recognize the locales portrayed in the story.

The narrator is the idiot of the title, but after a few pages of self-deprecation reveals that he considers himself more intelligent than those around him. His actions do not back that up however, and often his much-maligned side-kick demonstrates more sense.

The narrator does show some growth by book's end, but very little,extremely little, probably less than the author intended. That is, my impression is that the author thought his main character was much more impressive in those final scenes than he actually is. But it is after all a set of character types set in a Montreal milieu the author is very familiar with, for comic effect. I would suggest that the city of Montreal is actually the main and best - developed character.