Kathleen C. (Woodchuck) reviewed on + 83 more book reviews
quoted from a reader on amazon.com because this book leaves me feeling that he felt his life was unreal and his fiction was real.
He lived in boredom punctuated by terror--manic/depressive, opium smoking, Russian roulette playing, suicidal.
Was he a spy, even after he left the Foreign Office? Was writing his cover for travel? Does boredom fully explain his uncanny knack for being in troubled places in troubled times?
No matter. He was a great stylist and craftsman. This autobiography (along with "A Sort of Life") is worth reading for his methods as a novelist and for portraits of friends, such as Waugh and Herbert Reed.
He lived in boredom punctuated by terror--manic/depressive, opium smoking, Russian roulette playing, suicidal.
Was he a spy, even after he left the Foreign Office? Was writing his cover for travel? Does boredom fully explain his uncanny knack for being in troubled places in troubled times?
No matter. He was a great stylist and craftsman. This autobiography (along with "A Sort of Life") is worth reading for his methods as a novelist and for portraits of friends, such as Waugh and Herbert Reed.
