Clive James. Eloquent, erudite, often hilarious, inimitable.
A head stuffed full of arcane knowledge about culture high and low, and above all …
Always readable.
In 2007, Clive wrote an article for The New Yorker.
“Blood on the Borders” is a panegyric on crime fiction, and a review of some of Clive’s favourite authors. It’s witty, elegant, astute and funny.
It begins:
‘If you’ve spent a couple of years being unable to get past the opening pages of one of the later novels of Henry James, it’s hard to resist the idea that there might be a more easily enjoyable version of literature: a crime novel, for example.
Clive accuses literature of “turgid wordage” citing a passage in The Wings of the Dove and then makes a plea.
If a narrative is going to be as clumsy as that, can’t it have some guns?
from “Blood on the Borders” by Clive James. The New Yorker. 9. 4. 2007
Image: https://www.timeout.com/sydney/news/vale-clive-james-1939-2019
JOANNA BAKER 