April 03, 2007	Tuesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 14, 1428

NEW YORK: Clive James took 40 years to write his massive new book of essays “Cultural Amnesia” but the 67-year-old Australian critic, memoirist, poet and novelist is already thinking of writing a second volume.

At almost 900 pages, James’ latest work has essays on 20th century titans from Adolf Hitler and Stalin to cultural and literary icons such as Albert Camus and Jean-Paul Sartre to more frivolous musings on director Michael Mann, the brains behind “Miami Vice,” and US talk show host Dick Cavett.

“I had the sense to realise this book would only have value when I was an old man,” James said of his latest volume, which began as scribblings in the margins of books he had read. Even when discussing such a labour of love, James cannot help poke fun at himself. “It’s a big book,” he said. “A heavy book, and, if you drop it, it will break your foot.”

But this is no encyclopaedic tome retelling the history of the 20th century, rather “Cultural Amnesia” offers a first-hand view of the author’s brain, skipping from the serious to the witty and from topic to topic with agility.

Each chapter begins with thoughts on a person of note and is then followed by a quote, which James uses as a launching pad to lead him in random directions to tease out some argument.

The entry on Austrian writer Arthur Schnitzler is followed by a quotation about stupidity. That leads to Hitler’s Eastern front and to Stalin and Fidel Castro and to how America used fear of communism as an appeal to the masses.

But all this is just a preamble to a look at Hollywood and the movie “Where Eagles Dare,” which finally brings the reader to the crux of the matter -- Richard Burton’s haircut. “Richard Burton’s hairstyle in ‘Where Eagles Dare’ is a flight into stupidity and away from the barber,” James writes.

“Burton wasn’t being stupid.”

“He had realised that the point was not to look like a British agent plausibly pretending to be a German officer: the point was to look like Richard Burton. The reality of star power depends on exactly that.” Asked how he can leap from the horror of World War Two to Burton’s hair, James said with a smile, “I get lost in probabilities, that’s my problem.”

FROM BUSH TO BRITNEY: Indeed, endless probabilities could describe James’ professional life. Starting out in Britain in the 1960s as a freelance journalist, James wanted to be a respected poet. But in the 1970s and 1980s he became best known as England’s pre-eminent television critic in both print and on the small screen. He also has published novels, volumes of poetry, collections of essays and four volumes of his memoir “Unreliable Memoirs.”

“My reputation as a poet has been very slow to grow because of my work on television,” James said with a hint of regret.

“The literary establishment assumes as soon as you work in television that you have sacrificed your integrity.

“But you can’t make enough money at poetry to keep a flea alive,” he said.

Still, James is nothing if not a hard worker. Having just published “Cultural Amnesia” in March, he is already gathering his thoughts for a second volume and who might appear in it.

— US President George W. Bush: “He is living proof it is too early for the United States to have a president where English is his second language. He is no communicator.”

— Russian President Vladimir Putin: “He is right out of central casting from a mid-period James Bond movie.”

— Britney Spears: “Celebrity culture is essentially a language we all speak and we all know its parameters. Britney Spears is, unfortunately for her, our parameter for a career gone awry and for perfect stupidity.”

— Paris Hilton: “I would bring her into an essay on the perfectly trivial and whether it can be marketable.”

— David Beckham: “He is one of the world’s most beautiful human beings. He has a face that belongs on the wall of a Greek temple but unfortunately he has to speak, which always tends to disappoint.”

Despite all his achievements, James is nothing if not humble. Midway through this interview, he asked politely, “How am I doing by the way? I’m not boring you to death, am I?”—Reuters