James’s philosophy of criticism is marvelously summarized in his intention about the book, which is to demonstrate the truth of his belief that our literary inheritance “is our real and inextinguishable fortune.” This inheritance is something which can be ignored from time to time, or only partially appreciated, but it cannot be lost as long as it is talked about. And I take it that this is what he wants us to do with the contents of Cultural Amnesia - talk exuberantly about the wealth which is there for the taking.

Cultural Amnesia by Clive James | Waterstones

But it gets worse. The section on Sophie Scholl (the German college student who was executed for protesting the Nazi regime) was somewhat more on topic, but took a far stranger turn when James embarked on speculating who should play Scholl in the talkies, speculation that then took him on a long dewy-eyed bout of incontinent praise directed towards actress Natalie Portman. Whether you agree with him or not about Portman, in James’ ardor, poor old guillotined Sophie Scholl gets lost in the Hollywood gush and semi-amateur movie casting. To make matters worse, James dedicates the whole book to Scholl, and yet he spills five times more ink on Tony Curtis. He planned a sixth and last volume of memoirs, “the final chapter of which”, he told one interviewer, “will be dictated while I have an oxygen tent over my head. I wouldn’t like to spare the public my conclusions.” It is a continual concern of the book to demand what moral responsibilities an intellectual should have when faced with totalitarianism. It's this approach which has led to James's much commented-on demonization of Jean-Paul Sartre, who is ‘a devil's advocate to be despised more than the devil’, ‘the most conspicuous example in the twentieth century of a fully qualified intellectual aiding and abetting the opponents of civilization’. Watching him lay into someone like this is great fun, not least because it gives you a few ideas of what to say to the next Sartre-nut who corners you at a party. Sometimes he seems to hold these people up to some very demanding standards: he's convincing on Sartre's feeble response to Nazism, but surely it's a bit much to question why Wittgenstein never mention the Fascists in Philosophische Untersuchungen, a work of pure linguistic philosophy? But even this sort of ideal-worship comes with its cleverly presented twist, as James (convincingly) makes the case for why Natalie Portman should play Scholl in a film version. A lifetime is exactly what it has taken Clive James to read them, and at times this book is presented as being something of a life's work for him. It's arranged alphabetically, from Anna Akhmatova to Stefan Zweig, and the first thing you find yourself examining is who's made the list. Although it putatively focuses on the twentieth century, there are some notable names from rather earlier, including Keats and Montaigne. There are a lot of people you won't have heard of, as well as several surprising absences. Hitler is there, but Stalin isn't. Albert Einstein is not there, but his cousin Alfred is. Michael Mann, bizarrely, is included although there's no mention of Scorsese or Lynch. There is a heavy bias towards writers, and specifically towards European writers: among other things the book is a celebration of the fertile intellectual ground that was the café culture in Vienna and Paris, before the literary scene in those cities was crushed by fascism.Several philosophers appear but their remit is so illogical as to the reference point that their ideologies disappear in a smog of erudite speciosity. I can't remember when I've learned as much from something I've read―or laughed as much while doing it." ―Jacob Weisberg, Slate Note that Cultural Amnesia gets off to an odd start: in the last paragraph of 'A Note on the Text' James thanks Tom Mayer of Norton for ensuring that: "the process of correcting the corrections did not finish off the author along with the book". Edit November 2019: Oh, Clive…rest in peace, you magnificent bastard. You brought me innumerable moments of pleasure and inspiration. Here's to a life well lived and I sincerely hope Margarita Pracatan will be singing at the funeral. Cheers!)

Cultural Amnesia - Clive james

I had known Clive James as a TV & media pundit, lugubrious celebrator of the weird & wonderful, and master of the witty putdown.

Cultural Amnesia: Notes in the Margin of My Time

And if individual essays are often exceptional, the way they fit together in the book as a whole has problems. The main one being that there is almost a theme to the book, but not quite. The theme which looms largest is the way in which the twentieth century can be characterised as a clash between two forms of totalitarianism, left and right. But to really make this work, about a quarter of the essays, the ones which don't bear on this subject, would need to be cut. Alternatively if it's just going to be a random collection of biographies, a different quarter should be cut, namely some of those which do concern totalitarianism. As it is, we are left halfway between, not sure if the book is darting around with general curiosity, or if it's trying to build some kind of cumulative argument.

Cultural Amnesia - Pan Macmillan AU Cultural Amnesia - Pan Macmillan AU

Borges' silence in totalitarian Argentina troubles him, while he seems to have little more than contempt for Saramago. Cultural Amnesia is designed to be dipped into casually, but it can be read from beginning to end if you want to set your scalp on fire. (...) Although he takes aim at literary theory, academic obscurantism, racism, reverse-racism and intellectual dishonesty of every stripe, Mr. James’ recurrent theme is the danger of political ideologies. Signing onto an ideology entails ignoring all evidence to the contrary. It’s a mind-shutting maneuver. (...) Mr. James’ tone ranges from confiding to bombastic, and he’s entertaining at either extreme. His conclusions are brilliantly reasoned, but his relentless focus on World War II, the Holocaust, Stalin’s purges and extreme authoritarianism is enough to convince you that there were no hula hoops, no soap operas, no cupcakes in the 20th century -- in fact, that intellectual seriousness demands that there be no cupcakes." - Regina Marler, The New York Observer Some people call James a show-off. That's a matter of taste. I don't mind show-offs if they genuinely have a lot of knowledge to show off, and you can't fault James on that score. From the evidence of this book, he must have done nothing but read for twelve hours a day every day for the past fifty years. What's astonishing is how much of it he remembers. It would take me a lifetime to read all the writers he can reference within a single essay.the resulting story made Eleanor Roosevelt, whose idea the GI Bill was, into the most effective woman in the history of world culture up until that time, and continues to make her name a radiant touchstone for those who believe, as I do, that the potential liberation of the feminine principle is currently the decisive factor lending an element of constructive hope to the seething tumult within the world’s vast Muslim hegemony, and within the Arab world in particular." A lifetime in the making, Cultural Amnesia is one of the crowning achievements in Clive James's illustrious career. Containing over a hundred essays, this is a definitive guide to twentieth century culture, cataloguing and exploring the careers of many of its greatest thinkers, humanists, musicians, artists and philosophers. From Louis Armstrong to Ludwig Wittgenstein, via Walter Benjamin, Sigmund Freud, Franz Kafka and Marcel Proust, this is a a illuminating and fascinating work of remarkable erudition. The clarity and wisdom of this impressed me greatly, even if I wish Sperber’s autobiography hadn’t been so predictably characterized as being “monumental.” This distrust of extremes while maintaining political passion is one of James’ most appealing traits. His take on Margaret Thatcher, while not exactly brilliant, was at least balanced and made some interesting points (her inability, apparently, to ever let anybody around her ever complete a sentence). He was appointed CBE in 2012 and AO in 2013. In 2008 he was awarded a George Orwell special prize for writing and broadcasting, and in 2015 he received a special award from Bafta for his contribution to television. The1940-1941 band was [Duke] Ellington's apotheosis, and as a consequence maintained the materials of its own destruction, because all those star soloists wanted bands of their own. . . The new boys had to go somewhere. Ellington was too generous not to realize that one of the reasons they went was because of him, so he was careful not to criticize them too hard. He made a joke of it: it don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing. But the joke was true, bad by extension for all arts."