The Indomitable Ego

New Zealand Listener, Volume 19, Issue 487, 22 October 1948, Page 19

The Indomitable Ego

EGO 9: Concluding -the Autobiography of JAMES AGATE. Géorge G. Harrap & Co. CCORDING to Alan Dent, James Agate did not know that "death’s hand was upon him" when he decided that Number 9 would be the last of the Egos. Alan Dent knew Agate well. I, not at all, but still I think that Agate felt he was going to die Very soon. The last few entries seem to mé to be written in the full acceptance and knowledge of inevitability. Because of this, one cannot write of Ego 9 as one might of Egos 1 to 8. The tendency is to approach the book with a certain heightened sensibility. The pages are haunted by a bowler-hatted, asthmatical, indomitable spirit, and oné reads in much the same frame of mind as one would enter an empty house, warily opening doors, walking down corridors, filled with a _ chin-on-shoulder awareness of the absent owner’s’ invisible presence. Knowing that he is dead, I ‘havé been more conscious of the presence of Jarmes Agate in’ Ego 9 than in any of the others. This may be mere setitimentality-an emotion which Agate himself would openly scoff at and inwardly delight in -and which in no way makes for a dispassionate review. It is now some 15 years since the first Ego appeared, since the spate of criticism, prejudices, quotations and wit have interested and annoyed thousands of readers. In Ego 9 one man describes them as "definitely the most amusing, gossipy, callous, -exhibitionistic, sentiméntal, florid, arrogant, pathetic, boring, Rabelaisian, aggravating, readable books ever published.’ Another says théy are the best of all bedside books. This last is something near the mark, but is not quite enough. The. Agate books are more than mefe passefs-away of odd sleepy moments. Thete is real meat-tough, chewy stuff-in hig appraisal and analysis of the finer points of Shakespeare, for instance. The stage was his lifetime preoccupation and delight, ahd whether he is adoring Bernhardt or thundering a denunciation over the performance of a modern repertory "chit" he is more than worth while listening to. The scope of his personal interests was vast, and one follows him dazedly from a horse show 10 a golf course, to a concert hall, to a discussion on modern poetry (and how he hates the stuff!) to.a book review, to the BBC, toa film festival. (He should never have been a film critic because in his heart of hearts he hated the screen as much as he loved the stage, but the very bitterness of his attack on most films has a tang and‘a spell about it, born of his essential gusto and drive, that makes the reading exhilarating even when it is most annoying.) In his latter years he was never well. Asthma kept him up o’ nights, in a chair beside his bed. Propped up with cushions, he would go on reading, writing, correcting proofs. He suffered from a migraine which could black out his sight for 20 minutes at a time. His heart wos

bad? He was usually in considerable pain. But he werit on writing, reporting, broadcasting and talking at a rate which might well have prostrated a younger and fitter man. It is impossible to assess, as yet, Agate’s place as a diafist. His own confession that he would not be concerned with politics because he was no politician, and that the Egos would not be wat diaries because he was no soldier at once points his limitations as a chronicler of the times he lived in, Where Pepys illuminates both his own character and those of the men ahd women of his time, where we have a fait idea from reading that’ arrant tatler Mr. Creevey how life was lived in his day, Agate gives us only a picture of how Agate lived. He does this blatantly and, deliberately, but whéther this narfowness of perspective will in the long run keep him out of the class of the "great" diarists one cannet tell, but I think that it will, The majority of the diarists wrote for their own pleasure and pastime, with no thought of publitation. Agate wrote primarily that men might read, and there is a -self-consciousness about the Ego books which is lacking in Mr. Pepys. Agate wrote always with an eye on publication. If publication had fot been forthcoming and predictable I doubt very rhuch whether he would have continued with the project. This makes him, I think, a diarist, not by vocation, but by-well-egotism. » Whatever it is, he has given pleasure and stimulation to many minds. Ego 9 is in no essential different from Egos 1 to 8. It is full of quotable bits, interesting and instructive bits, annoying bits, when you would dearly like to ring him up and tell him what you think. But he was never dull, and for this, the rest can be forgiven. So it’s "Goodbye, James." Perhaps already, in some bowler-hatted, asthmafreed Paradise, you have somewhat heavily sat yourself down at the feet of Sarah, have passed the time of day with Rejane, have clasped Henry Irving by (continued on next page)

BOOK REVIEWS (Cont'd)

(continued from previous page) the hand, and have smiled once more on Ellen Terry. And perhaps we can wish you no greater felicity.

Isobel

Andrews