One of the mild consolations of my Monday mornings is popping online to see who’s been trashing whom in the books section of the weekend papers (I never have the time to read these over the weekend itself due to the rigorous demands of sleep, food &etc). Today, for instance, I note that Julian Barnes’s memoir has received its comeuppance at the hands of John Carey, that Glyn Maxwell has suffered in the Sindie, and that James Wood has been well and truly skewered by Peter Kemp in a delightfully withering review for the Sunday Times, which begins by recalling Wood’s regular appearances as a Private Eye pseud and moves downhill from there. In terms of metaphor, Kemp notes,
As readers of his reviews will know, letting Wood anywhere near figurative language is like giving an alcoholic the keys to a distillery. In no time, he’s unsteady and comprehensibility is a casualty.
Kemp, of course, is keen for us to realise that figurative language—deadly to the dipsomaniacal Wood—is safe and well in his own sober hands. But a critic criticising a critic by embedding his criticisms in the form of his criticism? My head is starting to hurt already, and all I’ve had is a couple of cups of tea…
Dear Sir:
Memoirs are notoriously difficult to write. When my partner Xiao-Xiao sits down to write a memoir of China as it was, under the Party, it will not be easy. Few remember the rumpus that Alan Clark caused to two lovely, genteel South African ladies when he styled them as a couple of witches in his memoir.
The challenge of the memoir is to make it more than an exercise in personal indulgence and misty-eyed sublimation with oceans of space given up to epic reverie, but rather it must be a firm and painful grasping of the hard nettles of honesty without giving too much offence to others. Not an easy thing to do.
Tim and Xiao Xiao Wood
How come Tom Chatfield thought so highly of my book a few weeks ago in Prospect’s blog (”pleasingly self-effacing,” “Wood is a rare beast” etc etc) and now calls Peter Kemp’s review of my book “delightfully withering”? I know that English journalism is famously amoral, but this is eccentric, even by those low standards.
–James Wood
My apologies for the confusion and any resulting offence/doublethink, James. I enjoyed and admired the book greatly, as one does a fine work of criticism; I enjoyed the review (guiltily) as one does a witty, if ultimately unfair, hatchet job.
They’re rather different kinds of pleasure, of course, but I had hoped my notes on Kemp’s use of metaphor coupled with a light tone left room for both on this blog. Evidently my tongue was not quite firmly enough in my cheek on monday morning.
Tom
What a very gracious response, and please excuse my own pettiness. One shouldn’t trawl the net while awash in self-pity. If your tongue was not firmly enough lodged in your cheek, then my foot was a little too firmly lodged in my mouth (and perhaps my head too firmly lodged up my arse — but let’s not give Peter Kemp any further cause for analysis of my metaphors!)
Best wishes
james wood