Overview

Compulsively readable, wise, and mischievous by turns, this sixth volume from the collection of Frederic Raphael's personal journals chronicles his eventful life in the seemingly glamorous worlds of 1980s Hollywood and literary London. Included are his encounters with Mary Whitehouse and Meryl Streep, vital memories of Dirk Bogarde, and warm reflections on Peter Sellers. Postwar British values and Byron's sex life are subjected to scrutiny; and there are acute portraits of Robert Redford, Shirley Conran, and many others. This account continues the account of time spent, in the words of the Sunday Times, with ""one eye on life's greasy pole and the other on the eternal verities.""

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9781847771407

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Reviews

Shrewd, funny, gossipy and elegantly written, it combines rueful self-analysis with perceptive and, one suspects, all too accurate character assessments of well-known contemporaries, together with musings on Lord Byron, drama in ancient Greece and the state of the nation under Thatcher. --Jeremy Lewis, Literary Review This is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Diaries promise indiscretions, and the joy of gossip... Is it right to invoke Pepys or Evelyn? When Personal Terms have concluded they will prove to be Raphael's lasting work, so perhaps it is. -- Wynn Wheldon, Spectator There are entries in this fifth volume of Raphael's notebooks that would sound profound in any grove of academe, some one-liners that would now be perfectly fit for Twitter, some that are permissibly snarky comments on colleagues and rivals, and some that smartly pocket the small coin of everyday living. And that's only to pitch the first few pages to you ... read on at random for the full variety and vitality of Raphael's genius for recording the primary sources of a rich writing life. -- Times on Ifs and Buts

"""Shrewd, funny, gossipy and elegantly written, it combines rueful self-analysis with perceptive and, one suspects, all too accurate character assessments of well-known contemporaries, together with musings on Lord Byron, drama in ancient Greece and the state of the nation under Thatcher."" --Jeremy Lewis, Literary Review ""This is a thoroughly enjoyable read. Diaries promise indiscretions, and the joy of gossip... Is it right to invoke Pepys or Evelyn? When Personal Terms have concluded they will prove to be Raphael's lasting work, so perhaps it is."" -- Wynn Wheldon, Spectator ""There are entries in this fifth volume of Raphael's notebooks that would sound profound in any grove of academe, some one-liners that would now be perfectly fit for Twitter, some that are permissibly snarky comments on colleagues and rivals, and some that smartly pocket the small coin of everyday living. And that's only to pitch the first few pages to you ... read on at random for the full variety and vitality of Raphael's genius for recording the primary sources of a rich writing life."" --""Times ""on ""Ifs and Buts"""

<p> The fifth volume, Ifs and Buts, confirms the series as as a minor masterpiece of razor-sharp reportage and waspish comedy . . . His intelligence burns with implacable fire: he concedes nothing to political conformity or the desire to please. His notebooks set a standard, raise a rallying cry and deserve to be better known. -- Spectator on Ifs and Buts

Author Information

Frederic Raphael was born in Chicago in 1931 and educated at Charterhouse and St John's College, Cambridge. He was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1964. His novels include The Glittering Prizes (1976), Coast to Coast (1998) and Fame and Fortune (2007); he has also written short stories and biographies of Somerset Maugham and Byron. Frederic Raphael is a leading screenwriter, whose work includes the Academy Award-winning Darling (1965), Two for the Road (1967), Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), and the screenplay for Stanley Kubrick's last film, Eyes Wide Shut. The first volume of Personal Terms was published by Carcanet in 2001, Rough Copy, the second volume, in 2004 and the third volume, Cuts and Bruises in 2006.

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