Tue, 9 February 2010
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One of the key moments in that for the expat who reads is when he or she stands in front of the home base bookcase trying to decide which books stay and which ones come with you.
Preparing for Germany I looked at a wall of books knowing I could take only a couple of shelves. Not many authors escaped unedited, but two who did were John Mortimer and George Orwell.
Mortimer makes the cut because re-reading Rumpole is one of the best ways into a good night's sleep and Orwell because, well, if you want a perfect summary of Orwell's strengths you can't go past Clive James' latest collection of essays, Even As We Speak.
Clive James set out on his expat odyssey by ship from Sydney four decades ago. I can't give precise details because the three or four James books I own are now in a packing case somewhere south of the Tropic of Capricorn, to my regret.
From an Australian schooling and, from memory incomplete university career, he went to England to study and launch an increasingly glittering career in writing and television.
Over those years he has honed a style that sounds distinctly Australian, decidedly international and uniquely James.
His essay on George Orwell praises that author for the clarity of his thought and the uncluttered ease of his style, and in writing about him James displays similar virtues.
James is a wonderful writer because he has something to say and he says it clearly and spices the substance of his argument with wit.
In these essays James is at his best in dealing with substantial topics like Orwell, or in his review of Daniel Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners.
Goldhagen caused a medium-sized storm in Germany a few years back with this book which argued that Germans, far from being forced into anti-Semitism by a handful of Nazi zealots, were in fact deeply anti-Semitic by nature and history and leapt at the genocidal opportunity offered them by Hitler.
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