Clinging to the Wreckage: A Part of Life

By John Mortimer

Book Overview

Clinging to the Wreckage - the first part of John Mortimer's hilarious and moving autobiography

'A true masterpiece of the genre' The Times

Here John Mortimer recounts his solitary childhood in the English countryside with affectionate portraits of his remote parents - an increasingly unconventional barrister father whose blindness must never be mentioned battling earwigs in the mutinous garden and a vague and endlessly patient mother. As a boy dreaming of a tap-dancing career on the stage and forming a one-boy communist cell at boarding school his father pushes him to pursue the law where Mortimer embarks on the career that was to inspire his hilarious and immortal literary creations.

Told with great humour and touching honesty this is a magnificent achievement by one of Britain's best-loved writers. It will delight readers of P.G. Wodehouse Roald Dahl and fans of Rumpole.

'Enchantingly witty ... should be held as the model for all autobiographies of our times'Auberon Waugh

Sir John Mortimer was a barrister playwright and novelist. His fictional trilogy about the inexorable rise of an ambitious Tory MP in the Thatcher years (Paradise Postponed Titmuss Regained and The Sound of Trumpets) has recently been republished in Penguin Classics together with Clinging to the Wreckage and his play A Voyage round My Father. His most famous creation was the barrister Horace Rumpole who featured in four novels and around eighty short stories. His books in Penguin include: The Anti-social Behaviour of Horace Rumpole; The Collected Stories of Rumpole; The First Rumpole Omnibus; Rumpole and the Angel of Death; Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders; Rumpole and the Primrose Path; Rumpole and the Reign of Terror; Rumpole and the Younger Generation; Rumpole at Christmas; Rumpole Rests His Case; The Second Rumpole Omnibus; Forever Rumpole; In Other Words; Quite Honestly and Summer's Lease.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0140063838
• ISBN13: 9780140063837
• Release Date: December 1987
• Publisher: Penguin Books
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.38 lbs.
• Dimensions: 5.0" x 1.0" x 7.0"

Customer Reviews

Rumpole?

This is the first of two autobiographies by John Mortimer. If you'd like to see where Rumpoles come from, this is how you find out. Amusing in many places, serious in others, possibly a bit more revealing than the author intended.

Mortimer remembered...

CLINGING TO THE WRECKAGE is the first of John Mortimer's three-part autobiography (to date--as of 2001 he is 83 years of age and going strong). Mortimer is known to BBC/PBS fans as the multi-talened writer who developed the screenplays for the TV series BRIDESHEAD REVISITED based on Evelyn Waugh's book of the same name; creator of Rumpole, Queen's Counsel (QC) for the underdog; and author of many novels including the Titmuss trilogy, and SUMMER'S LEASE. In WRECKAGE, John tells of his childhood and young adulthood. Mortimer grew up the son of a British barrister/counselor and his wife a former artist. Against his will he was sent off to boarding school at an early age. However, Mortimer's father lost his eyesight owing to a retinal detachment that could not be repaired. As a result the family source of income was placed in jeopardy and young John and his mother became his father's eyes helping him prepare his legal briefs. Mortimer says he fell in love with the theater at an early age. His family made pilgrimages to Stratford-on-Avon to see the great Royal Shakespeare company perform the bard's works. There he was able to see Lawrence Olivier, John Gielgud, and other fabulous actors of the period. These theater experiences coupled with his work on his father's briefs, led to his own career as a QC, and planted a love of the English language and the theater in the young John which led to his subsequent success in the theater, on television, and in his many books.The book also covers his first marriage to Penelope, with whom he formed a family of six childen which included her four daughters from a previous marriage. Whether or not you have been lucky enough to enjoy the witty dialogue of Rumpole--including his verbal exchanges with wife Hilda (SHE WHO MUST BE OBEYED), the clever plot twists of the Titmuss series, or the wonderful and inspirational BRIDESHEAD REVISITED, you will love this book if you love Brit Wit. Mortimer is incredibly human and very funny.

A Masterpiece in Biography

As always Mortimor has shown brilliance in the world of literature. I was surprized to have found this book without a customer review. I thoroughly enjoy it and highly recommend it for readers of biography. Comparable with Robert Graves "Goodbye to All That".