Always Unreliable (2001) is a collection comprising Australian critic Clive James’s first three memoirs, Unreliable Memoirs (1981), Falling Towards England (1986), and May Week Was in June (1991). The first volume covers James’s 1940s childhood in Kogarah, Australia. The second volume follows James through his first three years in England, and the third describes James’s experiences as a graduate student at the University of Cambridge. Throughout, James stresses the unreliability and inaccuracy of his memoirs. He tells his story for comic effect, although he also offers characteristically erudite digressions on literature and the arts. James was born in 1939, the year World War II broke out. His father—a mechanic and upholsterer—enlisted shortly afterward and spent most of the war in a Japanese prisoner-of-war camp, surviving that experience only to die when the plane bringing him back to Australia was brought down in a typhoon. James grew up with only his mother and occasional visits from elderly relatives. To the absence of his father, James attributes his “tiresomely protracted adolescence” of amoral and self-destructive behavior. In a humorously self-deprecating tone, James presents himself as a wayward child, insensitive to his mother’s struggles and unable to accept authority. He was also lonely. He finds the beginnings of his future career as a writer and critic in his lonely child’s habit of endlessly re-reading back issues of popular magazines and newspapers for want of other material. Otherwise, James’s childhood was typical of the time and place. He recounts constructing trenches and other earthworks throughout his neighborhood (Kogarah, a suburb of Sydney), imitating his favorite comic book characters, and falling in love with the young woman who ran his Cub Scout group. Many of James’s anecdotes involve scrapes and shenanigans in which adults came off worse. On one occasion, he created a train of pushcarts, which careened out of control, destroying the prize poppy beds of a local spinster. On another occasion, the “dunny man” whose job was emptying the neighborhood’s privy tanks tripped over James’s bicycle and covered himself in ordure. When he was 10, James scored highly on an IQ test and was placed in a school for “gifted” students. This progressive institution allowed its students to devote much of their time to pursuing personal interests, and James spent his hours constructing model planes and battlefields. At 11, he could recognize every plane ever built, but he struggled—in his own account—with basic math. As he grew into adolescence, James’s pranks became more severe, as he and the neighborhood boys formed gangs and got up to mischief. James also discovered girls and sex became his overwhelming preoccupation. Much attention is given to an escalating series of sexual escapades, culminating in group sex with a girl known to James and his peers as the “town bike.” James attended the University of Sydney, where he started to become serious about writing and literature, reading the canon for the first time. He began to dabble in poetry, and upon graduation got a job at a newspaper. In volume two, Falling Towards England, James arrives in Southampton, England, freezing cold in his Australian clothes. At first, he finds lodgings in Earl’s Court in London, but he is embarrassed to find that all his neighbors are Australian, so he moves across the river. His boss at the Australian newspaper where he finished volume one has furnished him with a reference, which he takes to an English newspaper. The editor asks him why they should hire him to do a job an Englishman could do. After that, he moves from job to job, trying to fake his way into positions as a wine expert and metal worker. Invariably he fails comically to hold onto his employment. At one point, James recounts, he contemplated suicide—or at least return to Australia. Another recommendation, from a former professor at Sydney University, helps him win a place at Cambridge, but first, he must wait three years to become eligible. He moves into a bed and breakfast in Swiss Cottage, London. He practices the Twist in front of the mirror, tries to write poetry, and worries about his clothes. More jobs follow, including a more successful stint as a librarian. Meanwhile, he continues to behave as badly as he did during his adolescence in Australia, shamelessly chasing women (who, however, are rarely interested), and betraying friends for the sake of a Woodpecker cider. The volume ends as James travels to Italy to visit his girlfriend, Francoise. Seeing himself through the eyes of jealous local men, he realizes he is passing as a cosmopolitan Londoner, and he feels proud. Volume three, May Week Was in June, finds James at Pembroke College, Cambridge. He studiously resists his academic work, preferring just about any other activity. He performs in the Footlights review, writes film reviews and poetry, and chases more young women. More productively, he edits the student literary journal Granta and publishes articles in British intellectual magazines. As President of the Footlights, he takes a touring show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. He begins to grow intellectually, reading widely and deeply and taking his own writing seriously for the first time. The volume culminates in the University’s “May Week,” which is, in fact, two weeks long and takes place in June. James is on the path to adulthood: he marries his girlfriend and secures a grant for a PhD.

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Clive James

Adult

Autobiography / Memoir

Nonfiction

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