Resumo de It's A Long Life Till 7

It?s a long life till7
John Simpson is a television
Journalist Indeed he is far mopre than that,being the BBC?s
World Affairs editor,an amazing title that makes me think
of Emperor Ming the Merciless, enthroned above the
galaxies. Apart form the fact that mr.simpson does not
provoke calamity,their job descriptions are not dissimlar
the bombers og in, and there he is,in safari suit or
burkha,whi8te haired his fce sleek withconcern,presiding
over the ruins of cities. The only thing is,what does he do
with therest of his time,when there are no bombers and the
ctities are erely flling apart? The anwer seems to be that
he writies autobiographies. Days froma different world is
the fourth of the,and takes him up to the age of seven. It
is the strangest autobiography I have ever read. To start
with, there is great deal of dialogue. Now a child
remembers very little,if anything,of what aduls say.
Themost yo cn hope for is a memory of some bizarre
behaviour. For example,I am writing the biography of the
poet R.S.Thomas, and in the course of my research met his
wife?s niece,the one house guest on any regular basis. I
thought there might be exttracts form thepoet?s table
talk, but all she could remember was that thomas regularly
finished off all the custard and licked out the cakemix.
This had fascinated her as a child.
Presumbaly John
Simpson whould have had moments like ?listen,whoat do you
think of this??Listen,what do you think?Lago prytherch his
name. Though,b it allowed. I just a smellyoldman formthe
baldwelsh hills. No,better not. Just an ordinary man of
the bald Welsh hills. By love,I think I?ve got it.? Much
clattering of spoons. For in his autobiography he reports
at length the conversions between his mother and his father
just back form the war. ?Can?t go to the bloody flicks
with him,I suppose;pit, but anyway I?d rather be at
home,tacked up in bed with you.? The ?him?is John Simpson,
the only living witness tothis. He was then ne-year-
old.
But even that is nothing comapared with an earlier
chapter. Mr.simpson has reporte from home exotic
places,but none more exotic than this,his
parents?bedroom,or to be precise, their bed. ?she turns on
her side, and he moulds himself toher shape andlays a
proprietorialhand ove her swelling breast.? John
Simpson,history?s witness,was then unborn.
He must
have foreseen objectinos to this sort of thing,for in his
foreword he writes, ?I have had to borrow some of the
techniques f the Japanese shishosetsa,the I-novel which is
basiclly autobiographical yet contains episodes which are
imagined rather than necessarily experiences.? Which may
be so. I have not eard of the Japanes whatever it is, alll
I know is that something is either an autobiography or is
isn?t. Anything else, anymixture of the two,anything ther
than what the writer saw or was told,just makes the reader
uncomforatble. He stops believing.And it is no use Simson
saying that everything is based onwhat his parents told
him. ?at great length? when he was child. All it requries
is one proprietorial hand onone swelling breast toblow that
guarantee away.
Almost as unsettling is his habit
ofstopping the narrrative form time to time to report n
world politicla and social history, and not just the odd
reference to threse but whole intelligent chapters. Were
yo to read this book a few drinks, youmight be left with
the bemused impressin that the simpson family had martin
bormann and Mahatma Gandhi fo rneighbours,with hmS Armthyst
moored just down the road. All this is a great
pity.
For John simpson has an interesting and verysad
story you to tell. It cocrens the break-up of hs fmaily.
When hs mother left his father,the twomaking him choose
which of them he would stay with. He was sevenyers old,had
in that time moved house seven times, and he had ot decide
then and there on achoic that would affect the rest of his
life. He chose hs father,much to the later?s alarm,he
writes. But there is os much going on,so much reporting and
dislogue, that even this moment dwindles. It becomes a
brief event oni the foreground of the narative of a small
body already iintent on reporting the world. There is so
muchmore you want to know. Apparently he saw verylittle of
his mother after that Why? Also,she had been amrried
before,and already had two childred They hardly figure in
the book. Why? Did he ever see them,who was looking after
them? The answers may be in the book somewhere,but such
things get overshadowed byKorea and Sir Stafford Cripps.

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