Frederic Raphael is forensic in his description of the failures of successful people. He is enviously superior and he is partial to the clever oxymoron: ‘predatory caution’, ‘reticent curiosity’, ‘intimidating reassurance’. It is as though he cannot see an abstract noun without qualifying it with a contradictory adjective. It is a kind of shorthand cleverness, but a cleverness nonetheless. For Raphael is undoubtedly clever, and intelligent, and knowledgeable and smart (and, we learn, good at football, tennis and bridge). It is hard not to envy his certainties.
This is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Diaries promise indiscretions, and the joy of gossip. I imagine Raphael’s peers will revel in his malicious pen portraits and suggestions of misbehaviour. ‘Bob’ Redford ‘treats himself like a smart vintage car’, the veins in Dirk Bogarde’s face ‘map his discreet excesses’, Ken Tynan ‘was a parody of the elegance which he failed to posess’. These are barbs so pointed and enjoyable that it hardly matters whether they are justified or not.
There is campness in the extravagance of these put downs, as there is in the constant use of French forms: entre-deux-guerres, coureur, ecoeure, petit train, outré mer, valse d’hypocrites, points forts, as though cliché in French is somehow more writerly.
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