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Loading... From the Land of Shadows (1982)by Clive James
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'Delightful writing. One of the liveliest writers on the scene' Bernard Crick, New StatesmanThese literary-critical essays are compact with wit and penetration but also have a kind of freshness about them, as if the author has never got over his first rapture of enjoyment at the sheer thisness of poetry and prose. James is in the tradition of Hazlitt, Bagehot, and Desmond MacCarthy, with a gusto worthy to succeed theirs and a philosophy well set out in his own introduction. "Literature", he writes, "says most things itself, when it is allowed to." Criticism like this expands that allowance and adds to its pleasure' John Bayley, Observer 'His outstanding talent is as a cicerone, guiding the ignorant traveller with patience, knowledge and wit round some favourite literary edifice and communicating his own admiration of it to the goggling and fascinated visitor . . . the lasting impression is of our critic's truly amazing breadth of reference' Times Literary Supplement 'Mr James is hungry for - and not unworthy of - engagement with important issues. A collection of dignity and coherence . . . tellingly timely' Sunday Times No library descriptions found. |
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From The Land Of Shadows focuses on James’ literary criticism of the late 70s and early 80s. The risk with books of this nature is that they’ll date badly. Critical judgments will have been rendered null by the dead hand of posterity, great works being egregiously ignored and too much attention lavished on books now long forgotten. This is an inevitability, and one which is most obvious here in the last of the four sections, which concentrates on Russian literature. James paid a great deal of attention to literary works dealing with Soviet Russia, mainly by dissidents. Unarguably it was important at the time, but unforeseeable historical shifts dictate that they now don’t carry the apparent import they did then. But where the subject matter has faded, the critical mind is imperishable. James is able to divine deeper insights from these works, meaning the modern reader isn’t simply wading through reams of now irrelevant prose about obscure works. In dealing with the art of Soviet Russia he’s able to condemn the art produced, whilst remaining entirely compassionate about the very human reactions of artists to circumstances. Somehow his verdicts can be all the more cutting for that.
It’s not all a desperate desire to educate about Russian literature and now obscure poets though. Unlike many of his fellow critics, he’s capable of understanding both why Judith Krantz was a technically terrible writer but enormously popular. What still makes these pieces so readable, even after more than thirty years, is that James knows that boring the reader is equally a sin of writer and critic. Hence his treating writing as a performance piece, replete with gags, epigrams, stylish turns of phrase, and punchlines that mean even his old writing remains relevant. Hence even the slightest pieces remain worth reading, and when a full blown routine comes off, such as in his takedown of the official biography of Brezhnev, it’s as entertaining as any contemporary comic routine.
Ultimately, James’s greatness lies in his generosity, the strand that unites his best work. He takes the critic’s role as that of a guide as to the merits (or otherwise) of art, not someone who tells you what to think about things. It’s why there’s infinitely more merit here than in (say) AA Gill’s entire career. The likes of Gill show contempt for things they don’t understand, or dislike, and sheer volume dilutes their venom and neuters them as a critic. James always engages with the medium he’s criticising, always appreciates the possibilities of that medium and, crucially, can still see why appeal to a mass audience bypasses the standards of criticism. It means his disappointment carries more weight than either a Gill-ish snob or a lowbrow tabloid reviewer. We’re really going to miss him when he’s gone. ( )