I read The Smoking Diaries many years ago and I was very taken with them, I did not know Simon Gray but a friend had recommended the book and it really was a joy to read. Gray was an English playwright and, wrote around 30 plays in his lifetime, was born in Hampshire in 1936 and died in 2008, not long after these diaries were published. He also taught English literature at Queen Mary, University of London, for 20 years. He loved to smoke, drink, and to write.
The Smoking Diaries, Diski states that you can; 'take Simon Gray's diaries for just what they seem to be: a grouchy-hearted, grimly comic rant against the world by a playwright in his mid-60s who finds himself neglected by the modern theatre' (Diski, 2004). It is a man getting older and as all of us get older the world becomes a place we less and less understand as it moves forward and we are still stuck in our youth (in our head). the book begins with Gray lamenting how he hates Christmas as this seems to be now the time that those he loves die. This is the other thing with age you begin going to more funerals than weddings or christenings.
Grays's diaries are obviously highly edited and written with a reader in mind, Diski argues that; 'I'm inclined to reject the innocence of the diary form, especially this elegant and carefully crafted version of it. There are those who say that all fiction is autobiography. I'm of another party, the one that says all autobiography is fiction.' (Diski, 2004). This is a highly crafted book that uses the diary form well and the reason I wanted to discuss it here. Gray has elevated this with a fine balance where the reader feels that they are intimately involved (as one should in a diry) however it is clear that Gray is also not giving anything away that he has not as Diski states fictionised to an extent. This has been beautifully done here. There is a pace to the writing that moves the reader with the sentence here is an example;
'The rehearsal room is in a church hall off Kensington Church Street and actually within walking distance of here - not that I actually walked it, Victoria drives me, or I take a taxi. It's a large handsome room on the first floor and I can smoke in it. I sit on a chair beside another chair with an ashtray on it, and watch the actors, watch Harold [Pinter] at a long table directing the actors, watch and watch, sometimes saying something, but often not.' (Gary S. 2006:139)
Here I am transported immediately to the kind of rehearsal room that all actors are used, the community hall in the church, when I was younger I loved to write and direct plays, I acted in some but I think I much preferred directing. I imagine here being in Kensington in London and walking the street, getting a taxi through the streets of London a good hansom cab. the joy here of smoking inside is terribly bad now but I also used to enjoy this pleasure. I can imagine the wooden chairs lined up to watch the rehearsal, quietly. With writing you must make the reader connect to the scene and Gray does this perfectly here, it brings back to me my own memories and that is possibly why I enjoyed this, like sitting in your favourite chair, the familiarity, the comfort, is always a joy. The use of commas gives the pace to sentences, they help you breathe and pause within the text, which gives you time to ruminate on the scene presented and the feeling of the moment he describes.
My lesson is about to begin but I will be returning to this post!
References
Diski, J. (2004) Review: The smoking diaries by Simon Gray, The Guardian. Guardian News and Media. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2004/apr/10/highereducation.biography (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
Gray S. (2006) The Smoking Diaries, Granta, London
Gray, S. (2014) Playwright, diarist, novelist and screenwriter, Simon Gray. Available at: https://simongray.org.uk/ (Accessed: May 4, 2023).
No comments:
Post a Comment