The Silver Castle
by Clive James
first published 1996.
This book, superficially is a `rags to riches and back to rags' story, tracing Sanjay's progress from Bombay pavement........and back! The `Silver Castle' of the title is the gigantic film set built for India's fertile film industry, whose filmstars are taking the places rapidly being vacated by the old Hindi gods, and movie magazines are replacing the sacred texts.
And this usually jaded reader?
I have always browsed past Clive James books on library shelves, without any real excuse for doing so. Perhaps I'd assumed that the slightly foolish, bumbling image he works hard to present on T.V. would carry over to his writing; perhaps it was the frank awfulness of the covers, by which he is ill-served. But three weeks ago, in a `grab anything' raid on our local library, I found myself with a Clive James novel....and I found myself engrossed, entertained, charmed, even, as all too rarely, these days, by a book!
Had I forgotten, after all, that this man was a successful PRINT journalist before he embraced multimedia? And had I forgotten that he is a scholar of some national fame, once a member of the most notorious intellectual `salon' of Australia's short history?
Had I forgotten that, before he embraced the` meet my guests' format, his travel documentaries were the standard by which he was judged...and they are a standout product in a crowded field?
I had indeed, and the man's ears should be burning with my apologies!
But there is much more here. The shuffling figure of the documentary foreign streets is our guide and narrator here, too, taking us into, beneath and between....always with the wry comment, the informed aside. The smells, the sights, the enormity of Bombay are painted for us here,in the colours of hopelessness, with a informedly accurate brush!
One of the traditional reasons for reading is that the accomplishment allows us to visit `Places We Might Not Otherwise Have Visited' .
Clive James shows us a Bombay the tour guides dare not, and the locals probably would not.
He takes Indian society and turns it inside out for us in a sociological treatise that is no less accurate for being rendered into the more readable, more attractive fiction format .
And always, as the benevolent narrator, he is there to advise, to guide, to explain.
As a novel, it's one heck of a good travel book!
As a travel book, it's a great novel...and one heck of a good social study!
As a social study, it a superb example of how to teach without boring....a template of educative yet extremely readable prose, the kind of writing where you go back to reread a passage because of the sheer beauty of the words, the vividness of the description.
As a book......it works! How it works!
As soon as I get all this down, I'm off to the library to see if they have anything else of his on the shelves. His three volumes of aubiography are supposed to be even better, so, hopefully, I'll have something else of his to tell you about, next time.
But first, I might just have to write him a fanletter! I LOVE you, Clive!
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