The Encouragement of Strangers.

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Sometimes the death of a famous (or infamous) person passes rapidly across the lens of the public eye. The news cycle needs no encouragement to move on after the announcement which is quickly consumed by everything else. However I was saddened to hear of the passing of the writer and commentator Clive James yesterday at the age of 80. Like many of my generation I first saw him on television hosting clip shows, talk shows and visual postcards from various locations around the world. His dry wit and self deprecating air was very successful and his commentary on what someone once called ‘the haunted fish tank’ made him something of a household name. For example, he once described Arnold Schwarzenegger in the film ‘Pumping Iron’ as looking like “a brown condom filled with walnuts” – which is apt and shows his capacity with a memorable phrase.

But then I came across his essays on just about everything –  for example, he could write about ‘The West Wing’ (‘Fantasy on The West Wing’), and ‘The Hidden Art of Bing Crosby’ and his roving eye and avid reading took in both ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture and offered information and entertainment in equal measure. I learned a great deal from these essays and James was, I felt, a reliable guide to art, culture and the endless and dangerous foibles of the human race. Then, later I discovered the songs he wrote with guitarist Pete Atkin, songs full of lyrical wordplay and clever insights – ‘Touch Has A Memory’, ‘Be Careful When They Offer You The Moon’ and ‘Sessionman’s Blues’ come to mind and the last contains the wry lyric;

“I’ve got the sessionman’s blues
I’m booked up a lifetime ahead
I get a sessionman’s news
The voice on the blower just said
They want me to work on the afternoon after I’m dead”.

Yet out of all of his voluminous output I have come to value his poetry most of all. Although written in the shadow of declining health they are filled with light and hope. He recently said that “the theme of my late poetry is luck not death” and the final verse of his poem ‘Event Horizon’ speaks for itself;

“What is it worth, then, this insane last phase

When everything about you goes downhill?

This much; you get to see the cosmos blaze

And feel its grandeur, even against your will,

As it reminds you, just by being there,

That is it here we live or else nowhere”

James was eminently quotable and this quote contains a phrase that I think captures the essence of his art;

“All I can do is turn a phrase until it catches the light. There was a time when I got hot under the collar if the critics said I had nothing new to say. Now I realise that they had a point. My field is the self-evident. Everything I say is obvious, although I like to think that some of the obvious things I have said were not so obvious until I said them.” From ‘May Week Was in June’ (1990).

Turning a phrase to catch the light is something he did with great panache and wit. He was a stranger to me but I find his writing endlessly informative and deeply encouraging. We are poorer for his passing, but I am thankful that the words remain.

(Clive James’ writings are available everywhere, as is his poetry – ‘Event Horizon’ comes from ‘Sentenced to Life’ published by Picador in 2015. His website is also worth visiting. The early records made by Pete Atkin are almost impossible to get hold of, but there are two excellent albums available ‘Midnight Voices’ (2007) and ‘The Colours of Night’ (2015) both on Hillside Music.

 

Beyond the book……

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There are times when writing this blog is a bit like visiting subjects that have been written about before. For me this happens mostly with regard to books, and particularly here, whether they transfer well to other media. Everyone knows about the so -called ‘unfilmable’ books – many of which feature in my personal pantheon, and many of which I have written about here before. The reason I am returning to this particular chestnut is that a brand new version of Philip Pullman’s fantasy cycle ‘His Dark Materials’ has just appeared on screen courtesy of the BBC in the UK and HBO in the United States. As a long time fan of these books I looked forward to this new dramatisation and after watching the first episode (and the over long trailer for the rest of the series that followed on the BBC!) I have to say I was quite underwhelmed – for instance where were all the daemons? Everyone in Pullman’s world has a daemon but in the crowd scenes they were conspicuously absent. And some of the characters just did not match the images in my reader’s head – for example, in the book Lyra has “dirty blonde” hair, and the actress (Ruth Wilson) playing Mrs. Coulter just wasn’t right, and no matter how good James MacAvoy was as Lord Asriel he struck me as too young to play someone who I feel is clearly older in the book. Like some critics I found myself thinking back to to the ill fated film version of ‘Northern Lights’ made in 2007 and called ‘The Golden Compass’ and how Daniel Craig was a better Asriel, and Nicole Kidman a better Marisa Coulter and, my personal favourite, Sam Elliott had the Texan aeronaut Lee Scoresby down to a tee – in this new iteration Lin – Manuel Miranda seems too smooth for the role. In many other aspects that film was a disaster and Pullman’s weird creation was badly served – but in my opinion it had its moments.

Some books do defy filming – usually because run times (and attention spans!) seem not to last for the length of the discursive nature of fiction (the film versions of ‘The Lord of the Rings’ being an honourable exception!). Yet corporations still want to push their product out there, and as I may have said before, if these versions/ iterations take people back to the source books then hooray, but if they just become another strata in the geology of far too much choice then what is the point? Again, although I recognise that creative endeavour is a product I find myself saddened by the endless commodification of everything.

Whilst I was thinking on the piece I came across a useful article in The Guardian about this very subject – the writer offered this handy definition of the word ‘unfilmable’;

“For “unfilmable” is often just code for “we tried and it didn’t happen”, an excuse for all the films trapped in development hell, such as John Milton’s Paradise Lost (Bradley Cooper was once lined up to play a hunky Lucifer), and the long-awaited adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. “Unfilmable” can also mean “we tried and did a terrible job”. Stephen King’s Dark Tower series is not unfilmable, but the 2017 take starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey might make you wish it was”.

Of course This is all just my opinion, there may be many who will love the new version – and one critic has suggested that, if successful, this new series could become a staple of autumn television (in the same way as the Harry Potter films have become). But Pullman’s alternate world(s) are the place for weighty discussions and important questions alongside the superb storytelling, these do not deserve to be watered down to fit someone’s ideas of prime time gold – or even the ever elusive search for the latest ‘Holy Grail’ of ‘water cooler’ television!

(The quote is from an article in The Guardian’s by Sian Cain in July 2019 and on the ‘paper’s website).

A Poem for the Day.

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Old Man.

 

With the trudge of measured footsteps

Beneath a kindling sky,

His fingers check the course of moisture

From the river of his eye.

 

The image of gnarled movement

Possesses every step

With bones long past improvement

And the fluid passage of the hip.

 

Dirty gaberdine drawn in tight

Against the belligerent night,

Like shabby sails and broken nails

Nothing remains intact. All is flight.

 

What if there were a fierce baptism

Hidden in these folds of age,

And this awful passage of life

Was but the turning of a page?

 

I wrote this poem in 1980 (!). It’s appearance here is due to the rediscovery of a big notebook stuffed with my poems, and also a kind note from a friend remembering a small collection of poetry that I gave to her and her husband about the same time. I have dabbled with poetry ever since I was ‘nobbut a lad’ (as they say in the North of England) and I am coming back to writing again thanks to the Poetry Group at Coleraine Library, the luminous poetry of Mary Oliver, and Mark Oakley’s marvellous book ‘A Splash of Words – Believing in Poetry’ (Canterbury Press 2016), a superb primer on poems and their many meanings.

Thanks always to Heather.

The eagle eyed (or eared) among you will note the influence of Neil Young’s song of the same name. Where would we be without our influences? Enough, already, read the poem – I hope you enjoy it!