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In this spirited memoir John Mortimer, an esteemed barrister as well as novelist, playwright, and journalist, relates all the paradoxes and pleasures of his double life. With wit and style, Mr. Mortimer takes you from his unusual childhood (his father, a blind barrister, insisted that his wife read the sordid details of his divorce briefs in public) to the dilemmas of his life as a barrister (one of his clients indignantly declared, “Your Mr. Rumpole could have gotten me out of this, why show more the hell can’t you!”). Filled with laughter and a sense of the absurd, Clinging to the Wreckage makes it clear why John Mortimer has been called Noel Coward, P. G. Wodehouse, and Evelyn Waugh rolled into one. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
A highly articulate English gentleman with a great sense of humour. Good company and plenty of laughs. I actually think this autobiography is better than his fictional creations (although I admit that I do not have a comprehensive knowledge of them).
This reads like fiction, like a Rumpole story, which makes it an enjoyable, not an insufferable, autobiography.
Having just finished Mortimer's other biography, Murderers and Other Friends, Another Part of Life, I found this one very much the same - short little stories about specific experiences and people in his life. While the experiences and people in this book are not the same as those described in the other book, it seemed like they were. I just couldn't get started with it and gave up after only 30 or 40 pages.
title may be the best part - could read it again though - might change my view
A man from another age, now passed. Plenty of LOL's in there for me.
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John Mortimer’s book has a thoroughly misleading title. It is designed to enlist a little pathetic sympathy for someone carried along like a piece of flotsam without the courage or determination to strike out for the shore. It would be difficult – judging from the book itself – to find anyone less shipwrecked than John Mortimer and less likely to pursue this policy if shipwrecked. At show more every stage Mr Mortimer demonstrates a firmness of intention which makes the title slightly fraudulent. show less
added by John_Vaughan
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370 works; 67 members
Author Information
146+ Works 15,677 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- Clinging to the Wreckage
- Original publication date
- 1982
- Epigraph
- 'For the absurd man it is not a matter of explaining and solving, but of experiencing and describing. Everything begins with lucid indifference.' Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus, translated by Justin O'Brien
- Dedication
- For Penny and Sally, Jeremy and Emily Mortimer, the survivors
- First words
- A man with a bristling grey beard came and sat next to me at lunch.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)I have written all I can write about it now, and these are the things that stayed with me for a while, before they left to go into a book.
- Blurbers
- Waugh, Auberon
Classifications
- Genre
- Biography & Memoir
- DDC/MDS
- 828.91409 — Literature & rhetoric English & Old English literatures English miscellaneous writings English miscellaneous writings 1900- English miscellaneous writings 1900-1999 English miscellaneous writings 1945-1999 Individual authors
- LCC
- PR6025 .O7552 .Z465 — Language and Literature English English Literature 1900-1960
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 417
- Popularity
- 73,909
- Reviews
- 5
- Rating
- (3.86)
- Languages
- English
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 11
- ASINs
- 9
