Customer Reviews
An honest man writing emotional truths - with a few writer's devices - By: Andy Miller, 31 Dec 2008 
This book first came to my attention a few years ago when it popped up more than oncein a newspaper's `My Books of the Year' feature. I always find myself drawn to the rare volume that is mentioned more than once across these two or three pagesin which the literati deliver their annual exhortations. The coincidence of two or three fulsome recommendations led me to make a mental note at the time; a mental note consigned to that vast dark cavern of my life's lost learning. However, a very recent extended essayin the Saturday Guardian by David Lodge, written & published just after Gray's deathin 2008 & extolling the merits of his writing, refreshed the memory & stirred me into making the purchase.
As ever, the dust jacket reviews exert too big an influence on me but this time I felt that I had purchased just the book for me. And so it proved - almost.
Gray does beguile with his meandering & confessional style. He describes his yellow writing pad, his pen & the various interruptions that he encounters while telling us readers what he sees before him or what he remembers across the years. A few pagesin & I was hooked, proposing to revise my Christmas wish list to include all the companion volumes collected under the generic title of `The Smoking Diaries' as well as the audio versions read by Gray himself.
I didn't laugh out loud, although a number of the reviewers said that they had been unable to contain themselves, except the once when I read to my half-Italian wife Gray's accounts of Italian families on the beach cosseting & fussing over each other while this dour & uptight Englishman jotted down his observations & wished he could loosen his own emotional corset. His darker observations, on mortality, on his past addiction to alcohol, & his unconquerable devotion to cigarettes, all paint a sympathetic character rather than one deserving the chastisement likely to be meted outin this current era of `personal responsibility'. Gray shares his flaws with us, allowing us to acknowledge our own without self reproach, & creating briefly a sense of relaxed & accepting humanitarianism.
In the face of such gifts from an author my one reservation seems somewhat petty & concerns the creation of a sense of intimacy borne of the contemporaneous nature of a diary writtenin real time. In fact, this must be an author's, or a playwright's, clever device, created more slowly & with more attention to its intended effects. This doesn't diminish greatly the impact of this book for me, it just leaves me a little unsure about the means by which my emotional engagement has been ensured.
At the beginning of the book, Gray's old friend Harold Pinter announces over dinner with their wives, that he has just been diagnosed with cancer, the anecdotes concerning Pinter, I feel, reflecting their genuine friendship rather than something more exploitative. As I put down the book after the last page, still unsure about my overall reaction to it, I heard the news that Pinter had just died the very same day & all those feelings about an honest man writing emotional truths came back.
A slow burner - By: Ian Shine, 25 Aug 2008 I picked this book up with anticipation, having read an extract of it that I thoroughly enjoyed. I expect more of the same laughs & bitter resentments, but was somewhat confounded by the full diaries. The books is more centred around Gray's plumbing of the depths of his past, heaping mockery upon himself, expressing disgust at the man he has become, & thinking about what his fifteen year-old self would have thought of his sixty five year-old self. The last forty pages are a particularly ponderous & heartfelt affair, & for my money the best part of the book.
Gray's musings on growing old, on the changes he has seenin society & youth during his time on earth, are all written downin thoroughly digestable text, rolling onin a way that is practically unputdownable. His death marks a tragic loss.
A book that slowly wins you over - By: Lis, 01 Aug 2005 
The blurb on the cover of this book says something along the lines of "the funniest book I've ever read". I certainly wouldn't go that far, but after a slow start, this book gets the better of you. Dry witin generous helpings, accompanied with some more personal, intimate truths. By the time you finish it, you'll be surprised to find you were enjoying it it more than you thought you were.
Gray is still at the top of his form ! - By: , 05 Mar 2005 
If you have read Simon Gray's other volumes of diaries you will find this is a fitting addition to your collection. Gray's self-lacerating wit is still very muchin evidence & despite his documented physical decay he avoids self-pity as he invites the reader into his world of cigarettes, writing & dining.
I first read Gray's volume 'An Unatural Pursuit' & was immediately hooked by his penetrating observations of his fading professional fortunes. Whether or not you like the world of theatre is irrelavent for the enjoyment of this volume. The candid observations of this brilliant & witty manin physical & carreer decline are wonmderful.
Hysterically Funny - By: , 10 Aug 2004 I found myself laughing out loud on public transport but was oblivious to the stares.
The funniest thing I've readin ages - Simon Gray is a comic genius.
