Rating: 4/5
Review:
Very good - in small doses
Jeffrey Bernard’s writings are by turns hilarious, acerbic,
self-excoriating, bitter and very sad. I had read only a little of
him before now and I’m very glad to have a chance to read more, but
it’s a mixed experience for me.
This is a collection
of Bernard’s weekly columns for the Spectator which he wrote for
about twenty years from 1975 almost until his death from the effects
of alcohol abuse. Many of them recount anecdotes of his chaotic life
and of the fellow drinkers and other “low life” with whom he
associated. The writing is brilliant: it is poised, elegant, witty
and (certainly about himself) uncompromisingly frank. There are some
genuine laugh-out-loud moments and plenty of amusing ones, but there
is also a fundamental bleakness under the devil-may-care facade
which, in quantity, became quite hard to take. As one might expect,
his attitudes, especially toward women, are anything but enlightened
and even making allowances for the prevailing views of the period the
sexism and misogyny are pretty repellent at times. Set against this
is his refusal to have anything to do with pomposity and
pretentiousness, and his skewering of them can be very enjoyable.
This is definitely a
book to dip into. I can see the appeal of one of these articles per
week (or less, because he was frequently and famously “unwell”);
too many together left me feeling a bit desolate and rather soiled.
The collection has many redeeming features, including the sheer
excellence of the prose, but for me needs to be handled with a little
care.
(My thanks to
Duckworth Books for an ARC via NetGalley.)
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