Book me 1/20 - The Naked Civil Servant by Quentin Crisp

[byslantedlight]

I finished The first book on my 2010 Book Me! list - hurrah! Of course I've just gone back to see who recced it, and realised that it was kind of me, but hey-ho!

It was Quentin Crisp's The Naked Civil Servant, and it was... good, but interestingly... something. He's a very explain-y writer, very witty, very clever and very insightful, but I've come away feeling as if I know absolutely nothing about what happened to him in his life, and I felt it even less... I've got an impression of sorts, of his life experience, and of course I know what happened in the period he describes, and I also appreciate that he was witty and clever and insightful, but... in the same way that I might look at a painting and appreciate that it was made up of lots of fine brushstrokes and was technically brilliant and innovative, but feel nothing from it, if that makes any sense. I feel for Crisp on a conscious, terrible-experience-thank-goodness-things-improve kind of level, but not deep down in my skin and blood from the way we wrote.

For example, one of the things he explained was that he decided not to concentrate on becoming rich or successful or anything like that in life, but that he'd concentrate on being happy (ooh, topical! *g*) - but I have to say that it was one of the most unremittingly unhappy books I've read for a long time... and I just read Marion Husband's Say You Love Me too... *g* I'm left with no feeling of whether he was happy or not - he says he was, but nothing he describes sounds happy, so... I'm a bit lost about that!

And I'm further saddened that he fell in love with a country that turned out to be even more repressive to gay lifestyles than England did - I'm curious to read in his next books how that worked out for him, though I get the impression that they might not actually tell me...

Anyway - if anyone else has read it recently enough to remember, I'd love to hear what you think of it!

"When the war threw me over, I took up with the atom bomb. we were to be married in the spring of 1963. Take heart, I said to myself, all may yet be lost. Time magazine, which cannot be contradicted except by its own subsequent issues, promised that something called the 'missile gap' would then be at its widest. They said that when this happened, the enemy would strike. They and I were unduly optimistic." - Quentin Crisp.

Comments

[moth2fic.livejournal.com]

I haven't read it - and from your review I don't think I shall! I remember the TV film with John Hurt playing Crisp. The acting and direction were superb and of course, for its time, it was a brave film. But I remember that sense of not knowing that you describe. And vague depression rather than downright unhappiness. Presumably the film captured the book really well!

[byslantedlight.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's worth reading for his wit and genius and insights - it's a quick read too. Interesting that you felt the film had a similar feel though - I must try and get hold of it...