I bought an ebook version of this book for my Kindle as I was too mean to buy the hardback. How I now regret my parsimony, as this is a book I would like to keep. to cherish, to dip into now and then, a treasure trove of small pleasures.
The best parts of this slim volume are the earlier ones describing Carey’s childhood and schooldays. This is often the way in autobiographies, distant years seeming clearer than yesterday. The descriptions of London prior to 1939 are especially potent, and the smell of horse manure as the milk and coal are delivered through West London mingles with the cries of vanished street sellers.
The petty snobberies and middle-class rigidity of 1930s life are all there, and wartime brings a certain release from the strict social restrictions British society imposed upon itself. Carey is especially erudite when depicting school life. He mourns the passing of the grammar schools which were a key to a wider world for bright working class boys. Although from an educated, definitely middle class family, the Careys had fallen upon hard economical times, and they were definitely “hard up”. Carey worked during his school holidays and his family made sacrifices so that he could receive a good education.
In the latter parts, I sensed an “armchair socialist”. Carey whilst gently mocking the mores of academic life, is a sharp master of dealing with life in the rarified air of the dreaming spires. His thumbnail sketches of eminent Oxford characters are fascinating, but he himself is a formidable individual, skilled in masking himself and concealing his abilities to rise up the greasy pole.
Those readers with a literary bent will enjoy Carey’s neat critiques of Donne and others of the metaphysical school. I regret I never had the opportunity to be in one of the colleges where Carey lectured.
Carey, like many of his age, looks back with longing to a kinder, gentler time. Nostalgia lends a softer hue over the many hardships he earlier suffered, but this in no way distracts from an excellent and easy to read volume. I heartily recommend this book.
Submitted by Anne Wotana Kaye 1
Anne, I fell in love with your review. It illuminated a way of life that has now gone never to return, and cherished only in the memories of works such as you have described here. I would buy the book but I fear I would be too sadden by reminiscences of what has been lost.