A Positively Final Appearance: A Journal 1996-98 - Softcover

Guinness, Alec

Softcover

ISBN 10: 014027006X ISBN 13: 9780140270068

Publisher: Penguin, 2000

Synopsis

Sir Alec Guinness' wonderfully funny and acute observations on everything going on around him - from new film versions of Shakespeare's plays to the Speaker of the House of Commons. The years surveyed are the end of the 90s - they begin with a series of hilarious but reassuring visits to the doctor and move seamlessly to reminiscences of the worst Romeo ever - Sir Alec himself. The result is a wonderfully entertaining follow-up to the bestselling MY NAME ESCAPES ME. "Wise, witty and good-humoured" The Times "A revealing book of unremitting pleasure" Country Life

About this title

Review:

There is something wonderfully perverse about Alec Guinness publishing his diaries. He is, after all, one of those actors who made his mark precisely by obliterating his own personality in favour of conjuring up, chameleon-like, a host of vivid characters on film, stage and television. Asked what Alec Guinness is like in real life, most people would not dare venture an opinion. But with his journal My Name Escapes Me (and it's a telling title), Guinness has found new fame at 82, with his lucid, mild-mannered yet often insightful ponderings on his own life (failing eyesight, well, failing everything, really), unselfconsciously woven with more national and universal concerns. Now, with A Positively Final Appearance, we get a second instalment, covering the years 1996 to 1998, which saw personal triumphs over that eye trouble and political upheaval with the death of Diana and the birth of Blair. We're drawn into a gentler, more refined world, where teasing and sardonic appraisals of the arts, past and present, are interlaced with memories of old friends (and when they include Garbo, Noel Coward and Wallis Windsor, why not?) Guinness is well cast as the seasoned, genial raconteur looking back at the end of a long life. But A Positively Final Appearance? Somehow, I doubt it.--Alan Stewart

About the Author:

Born in London in 1914, Sir Alec Guinness is one of the outstanding actors of his generation, his triumphs ranging from the films Kind Hearts and Coronets and Star Wars to the plays The Cocktail Party and Habeas Corpus. He has written a bestselling autobiography BLESSINGS IN DISGUISE, and a previous volume of diaries, MY NAME ESCAPES ME.

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2000
• ISBN 10: 014027006X
• ISBN 13: 9780140270068
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 256