Overview
A worthy successor to the beloved actor's earlier diary--"splendidly idiosyncratic . . . vivid . . . accomplished . . . pungently human" (John Simon)--that was a bestselling New York Times Notable Book of the YearAlec Guinness's 1995-1996 diary, My Name Escapes Me, was published to a standing critical ovation. People magazine loved its "understated elegance." Michiko Kakutani, in The New York Times, raved: "Utterly delightful. . . . One hopes . . . we may soon be treated to another installment." Here it is, brimming with further extemporaneous opinions and careful reflections from the powerful intelligence and ironically observant eye that made Guinness such a fine and versatile actor.
In A Positively Final Appearance, written from the summer of 1996 through 1998, Guinness--reinvigorated by a successful cataract operation--observes Britain in the tumultuous times of Princess Diana's death and Tony Blair's election as prime minister. Living a quintessentially English country life with his painter wife, he re-reads Dickens and Patrick O'Brian, experiments with Chinese cooking, marvels at the Hale-Bopp comet, and enjoys Baz Luhrmann's film William Shakespeare's Romeo & Juliet--while reflecting ruefully that the worst Romeo ever was "none other than me." These dispatches (acerbic or affectionate) on matters local, national, and cultural come from one of whom Vanity Fair recently remarked: "At 83, the Force is still with him."
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Oh Begone, Obi-WanSir Alec Guinness, distinguished veteran of the London stage since the 1930s and wonderful comic, dramatic, and character screen actor since the 1940s, is best known in this country for a single performance: Obi-Wan Kenobi in 1977's Star Wars. Indeed, an entire generation of moviegoers knows him only as the Jedi master, a fact that, as he admits in his latest book, A Positively Final Appearance, causes him some chagrin.
Not that he will dwell on it. Very early in the book Guinness remembers his first inkling of the extent of the Star Wars phenomenon, a meeting with a young boy who is thrilled to meet the star of his favorite film: he has seen Star Wars 100 times. Guinness, horrified, attempts to exact a promise from the boy that he will never see the movie again. The boy weeps, the boy's mother is appalled, and the present-day Guinness hopes that "the lad, now in his thirties, is not living in a fantasy-world of secondhand, childish banalities." And that is that, as far as Star Wars lore goes.
The reader gets the feeling that, like the boy, he or she is being admonished (however gently) for a perhaps understandable attachment to that glorified cowboy movie in space. Sir Alec prefers to take us down entirely other, unexpected paths.
A Positively Final Appearance is the second of Guinness's delightful journals, encompassing 1996 to 1998. The first, My Name Escapes Me, was commissioned by the London Spectator in 1995-1996 and was warmly received for its droll observances of the minute details of Guinness's life. (Blessings in Disguise, a slightly more conventional and equally agreeable memoir of Guinness's theatrical career, was published in 1986.) Sir Alec affects a tone of quiet bewilderment at the idea that anyone would care about his daily doings. He apologizes in the new book's preface for its unjournal-like quality ("Not many dates are to be found in it....") and attempts a more accurate description: "It is, I suppose, like a sort of sluggish river meandering hopefully towards the open sea but diverted by various eddies, pools, or tangential tributaries."
True enough. Those expecting a salacious, name-dropping celebrity bio are thus duly warned. Names are dropped, though simply because Guinness's circle of friends includes certain luminaries. Bogart shushes him at a party while Noël Coward plays piano, and in another anecdote Guinness chats with Albert Finney at the dentist. In all, Guinness seems entirely dismissive of his celebrity, concentrating instead on the fine points of each unglamorous day (shopping, attending museums and theatres, and lunching with friends) in a writing style that reflects an elegant wit, occasional crankiness, and a marvelous eye for detail.
Yet Guinness's observances are layered with an understated complexity; descriptions rooted in present activities suddenly sprout remembrances. He goes to see Baz Luhrmann's film version of "Romeo and Juliet" (it delights him) and then remembers his own performance of Romeo, in 1939, in Lawrence Olivier's hand-me-down costume and a droopy false mustache: "The worst Romeo ever to disgrace our boards was given by none other than me, moi-même." Lines of remembered poetry are sprinkled throughout, perhaps inspired by a snatch of overheard conversation or by a friend's death. Guinness may, at a moment's notice, decide to compare Dickens to Trollope (Dickens seems to win on charm alone), or he might pause to describe the texture on a pond or the behaviors of birds nesting outside his study window.
Indeed, Guinness's writing shares a bemused, observing, at times absurd sensibility with the best of his performances, from his remarkable eight-role tour de force in "Kind Hearts and Coronets" to his Oscar-winning depiction of the obsessed colonel in "The Bridge on the River Kwai." But one need not be familiar with Guinness's work to enjoy this wonderful journal. With his accomplishments set aside, Guinness becomes acutely human. The tone, ultimately, is one of a man (elderly, yet more engaged and vibrantly active than the sluggish most of us) who simultaneously takes life very seriously and finds it a source of endless amusement, who will travel miles and continents to revel in works of art and architecture, and who, with equal reverence, will describe the giddy and personal behavior of his own dogs. For Guinness, a life is all of this.
In his preface, Guinness describes the significance of his book's title, chosen "from the stickers frequently seen pasted across old theatrical posters in the provinces, which were usually meaningless, as the actors allegedly making their final appearances often bobbed up again within a year." Such gentle self-mockery is typical of Sir Alec. We can hope that the threat is as meaningless here as it was on those posters; a continuing chronicle of his days would be a welcome joy.
—Caitlin Dixon
Caitlin Dixon is a freelance writer and filmmaker. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.
Fintan O'Toole
He wonders if his secure old age is worth its price and is irritated that his 60 years of work onstage have been eclipsed by the Force.—talk Magazine