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Page 1: Clive James

26 | November 6, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

Writer, presenter,poet and nationaltreasure, CliveJames is nothingless thanimpressive, andrather lovely toboot. On the eveof a rare publicappearanceat CambridgeLiterary Festival,ELLA WALKERvisits him at hisCambridge home.

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the critical listThis week’s entertainment highlights

IMUST admit, I was born too lateto remember watching Clive Jameson TV.He says as much as soon as he

opens the door to his Cambridgehome, built more out of books thanbricks: “You’re very young.”

My already jangling nerves jangledsome more.

It is a daunting thing, interviewingthe man who spent decades quizzingthe giddily bright and famous for ITVand the BBC. “Well, I’m a dauntingperson,” he says wryly when I admitmy fears. “I’m so threatening, haha.”

The Australian author, whocelebrated his 75th birthday inOctober, has gently grilled everyonefrom Stephen Fry and Billy Connollyto Frank Sinatra and the Spice Girls,wielding a mastery over the realm oftelevision throughout the 80s and 90sthat was only ever challenged by theprowess of Parkinson.

“I was hoping to interview [Fidel]Castro but it didn’t come off. On thewhole I met them all,” James recalls.“I’d had enough by the end, I can tellyou that.”

You wouldn’t have guessed it, buthe was always more comfortablepresenting straight to camera, and israther happier being the intervieweethese days.

“I was always pretty embarrassedabout interviewing people. I couldnever ask them awkward questionsand I didn’t like being asked awkwardquestions myself,” he remembers.“Interviewing was hard work.Sometimes the ‘customers’ as Iused to call them, were as nutty asfruitcakes.”

James doesn’t fit the term ‘nutty’himself – he’s funny, engaging andfantastically bright – but his careerhas had elements of the madcap to it(not limited to his launching of Cubannovelty singer, the perpetually happyMargarita Pracatan, on The CliveJames Show).

He has been culture critic at TheObserver, TLS and the New YorkReview of Books, was great friendswith Princess Diana, has written fivememoirs (most notably UnreliableMemoirs – he has plans for a sixth),spools of arts criticism, numerousforays into fiction, as well as a recent,much-applauded translation ofDante’s Divine Comedy.

Prolific doesn’t begin to coverit; neither does the term ‘nationaltreasure’. “Haha, which nation isthat?” he says self-effacingly. “I thinkI was a national treasure in NewZealand once, which was a bit odd.”

When we meet it is to discussthe release of Poetry Notebook, abeautiful edition of James’s critical

Clive James:HOT TICKETS WHAT’S ONWHAT’S ON HOT TICKETSHOT TICKETS WHAT’S ONWHAT’S ON HOT TICKETS

Cambridge Literary Festival: CliveJames, Cambridge Union Chamber,Friday, November 14, at 8.30pm.SOLD OUT.

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Cambridge News | cambridge-news.co.uk | November 6, 2014 | 27

THE HEADLINER: CAMBRIDGE LITERARY FESTIVAL

thoughts, essays and snatched musingson poetry from the past 50 years,which he’ll be talking about during arare public appearance at CambridgeLiterary Festival. He promises to recitea few of his own poems on the night,as well as answering questions, andexplains it’ll be a “sit-down stand-uproutine” because he hasn’t got his“usual energy”.

Born Vivian James in 1939, andnamed after a tennis player, thewriter first came to Cambridge in1964 to study English literature atPembroke College (“I used to readoff the course and 50 years wentby and I’m still doing it”). Despite alacklustre approach to lectures, heswiftly became president of Footlights(“Shamefully extracurricular activitieswere what I did best”), and made theUniversity Challenge team: “I won formy team in the first week supplying acrucial answer and in the second weekI messed it up, supplying the wronganswer at the crucial time. Itake the blame!”

He was persuaded toreturn to the city for goodby his eldest daughterafter being diagnosed withleukaemia and emphysemain early 2010. Clive James isdying, you see, and has beenfor some time thanks to an energeticabuse of booze and fags in his youth(he once claimed to smoke 80cigarettes a day).

He needs to be close toAddenbrooke’s (“which I think isthe most marvellous place, they’vesaved my life three or four times”),where he goes every three weeks tohave his vanished immune system

recharged and replaced, but, he says,it’s no true hardship being confined toCambridge: “It is astonishingly lovely”.

Death is not something Jamesdiscusses in hushed tones. In fact,he speaks about it so candidly thatthe finality of it seems like the muchdelayed punchline of a long-runningjoke that is far funnier than its finale.In fact, dying has given him a “wholenew topic to write about”, and he’ssurprisingly jolly about it.

“A lot of my poems are about howill I am and how I probably won’t livebeyond next week. I publish a poemand everyone says ‘cluck cluck, howwonderful, how brave’, but thenembarrassingly I’m still here! You seethe problem?” he laughs. “Approachingdeath doesn’t scare me, just that Iwon’t be able to write about it anymore.”

Physically, his voice is more fragile,his face less rounded and his ears lessamenable (“I am awfully deaf”) thanin the YouTube footage of him I’dmainlined in the run-up to our chat,but he is just as sharp, just as wittyand just as determined to keep onworking.

“Everything I ever did was writing,”he says forcefully. “Nothing will stopme except one thing and until thenI appear to be writing unstoppablyabout it. It’s a natural event, I’m verylucky that it’s a natural event.

“There’s nothing brave about itbecause one’s had a life. Also I havea version of my diseases that doesn’thurt, which is a great stroke of luck.But I was born into a time, the 1940swhen the Second World War was on

When I finally gotout of hospitalin 2010, I had todecide whether tojust lie down, eatsome grapes andhave a drink, orwhether I would geton with my work.I chose the secondcourse and I don’tregret it

>

Poetry

Notebook,

published by

Picador, is out

now priced

£14.99.

‘I’d quitelike to writemy obituary.What thehell, I’vehad a goodspin.’

Turn to page 28

Page 3: Clive James

28 | November 6, 2014 | cambridge-news.co.uk | Cambridge News

and young people were gettingkilled by the million in Europe. Inever forgot that and I think it’s agreat blessing to have been given alife to lead that’s lasted so long.”

He adds thoughtfully: “I don’tseem to have deserved so muchluck. That’s why I don’t like luck,it’s not fair.”

What he sees as luck, most wouldsee as sheer hard work, regardlessof his protestations that he’s“actually a lazy chap”.

James’s still-rising poetic profileis a case in point. It’s been subjectto a “late flowering” in the wordsof The Spectator, thanks to his mostrecent poem, the crushing, heartwrenching Japanese Maple (“Yourdeath, near now, is of an easy sort”).James laughs that he’s alreadygetting a taste for “posthumousfame”.

“That tree’s famous now,” hetells me, nodding towards thegarden, where fronds of orange andred lick against the window. “It’salready changing its personality; ithad sweet simplicity when I firstmet it and now it’s carrying on likeLindsay Lohan! I’m afraid that famedid the same to me, but I try andcontrol it.”

Aside from Poetry Notebook, acompact piece, jauntily and brightlywritten, full of insight that knowinglypoints out how he will not allowhis mortality to hamper his writing,James is as prolific as ever with “acouple of books on the go”, andhas plans for a flurry of new worksnext year: the sixth memoir, a shinynew edition of his Collected Poems,called Sentenced To Life (“It’s on theschedule even if I’m not,” he quips),a sequel to Cultural Amnesia and a

book on his literary consumptionfor Yale University Press in America,titled Latest Readings. “I don’taccuse them of cynicism but I’msure some clever editor realised thatthat would be just the right littlebook that would end with dot dot

dot,” he grins.Is it strange to work on something

you know you may not finish?“When I finally got out of hospital

in 2010, I had to decide whether tojust lie down, eat some grapes andhave a drink, or whether I would

get on with my work and I chosethe second course and I don’t regretit,” says James. “I’d like to write myown obituary anyway. I write quitegood obituaries, I’ve spent severalyears now writing them for almostall my friends. It would be [strange],but what the hell, I’ve had a goodspin.”

You toe the line between themorbid and the cheery marvellouslywell, I tell him.

“I’m mainly quite cheery,” heagrees. “I spring about sheddingsweetness and light! It’s not reallymy view of the world, which isvery tragic and pessimistic. In factI sometimes wonder why mankindis still here, it’s made such a messof things. But when you considerwhat mankind can do, that’s quiteinspiring.

“So I’ve got a double personality,but then most writers do.”

He explains that it is at thiscrossroads where poetry starts.“The joy of poetry is in the shape,the way it springs along and withinthat you’ve got control of the form,the movement, the dynamics of it,within that you can be as sad as youlike.”

Our conversation ends on thefar less morose topic of poets andsex appeal, namely the late FelixDennis – “Poets don’t normally havethat many female fans!” – and LordByron – “He was running away fromthem most of the time!”

We talk of the bear Byron keptin his rooms at Trinity, Cambridge,which he’d take for walks on a leashthrough the quadrangle. “Byron’sbear,” James murmurs, lost inthought. “I’d forgotten that. I shouldwrite a poem from the bear’s angle;the bear talking; the bear slightlypissed off. That’s a good idea.”

You see, he never stops working.

From page 27

Clive James on . . .Poetry in schools: “I think itshould be banned. And I thinkanyone caught dealing with itshould be put in jail, and anyonecaught consuming poetry shouldhave to go around doing publicservice, cleaning up litter. All in allthere should be an atmosphere ofpunishment, fear and terror, andthen the young people might getinterested, but they usually don’tget interested if you stand up thereand tell them how wonderful it is.”

Rappers: “I want them all dealtwith. When I come to powerthere’ll be a special punishment forrappers. I haven’t worked out whatit is yet. I think it probably involvescrocodiles. I am not impressed.”

Fame: “It’s too silly, fame. It’sruinous actually. You have to bevery careful. It’s bad for yourpersonality, of course it is. Luckily,if you’ve got a family they’ll cut youdown to size; my family spendsmost of its time cutting me downto size.”

Making money: “No one reallygets rich out of writing books.”

Today’s chat show hosts:“They all work very hard, but Idon’t envy them. It’s a very hardway of making a dollar, or inJonathan Ross’s case, millions andmillions of dollars. I think GrahamNorton is probably the cleverest.”

His advice for buddingpoets: “I would get out there anddiscourage anyone writing poetry,I’d say: what do you want to do,starve? Do you want to reduceyour parents to tears? Do youwant to add to the world’s stock ofonly slightly better than mediocreartworks? I’d get a terriblereputation. There are enoughpoets.”

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You’d like to bea poet? Whatdo you want todo, starve?

“MAINLY QUITE CHEERY”: CliveJames; above, in the UniversityChallenge team in 1968; below,in Ely Cathedral’s Lady Chapelpromoting his book Angels overElsinore in 2008