The title of Clive James’s fifth and latest volume of memoirs, The Blaze of Obscurity, is characteristically self-deprecating. Subtitled “The TV Years,” it makes clear that James never had any illusions about the ephemeral format in which he worked for nearly two decades. “It was television that made a civilized life possible for my family, and made it possible for me to write only from inner compulsion, and never to a market imperative,” he explains. “As a clincher, it was television that made it possible for me to go on writing poetry, ever and always at the heart of my desire.” Still, James considers his “Postcard from . . .” television travel series to contain some of his finest writing, and he holds a similarly lofty opinion of Fame in the Twentieth Century, a documentary that never can resurface because of copyright issues. The fate of such projects, including a short-lived production company he founded, partly explains his ongoing critical engagement with celebrity and its common sequel, obscurity.
James imbibed lessons from each aspect of the television business, yet for him it all comes back to writing. “The secret of composition in any form is the appropriate application of effort,” he notes. “Editing,” he adds, “is an essentially poetic process akin to compressing carbon until you get diamonds.” Such remarks—however dull when quoted out of context—assume a kind of moral weight in his narrative. After describing some trivial post-production work, he muses:
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