The intimate memoir - in memoriam -Simon Gray

I just finished the third tome in Simon Gray's Smoking Diaries journals, The Last Cigarette (2008) and am inspired to write my own stream of consciousness memoirs, full of wit, self-deprecation and unintended wisdom. Unfortunately for me, my powers of concentration are already severely hampered, most pressingly by a lack of adequate vocabulary to write an articulate sentence. It starts well. Another strike against my plans to reach memoir notoriety is that a friend is due to come by in twenty minutes or so to take me out for a drink in compensation for being unceremoniously ditched at the last minute by a man I wasn't that interested in in the first place. Regardless, the ego suffers and requires to be surrounded by attractive people in overpriced bars. So this Grayan attempt at self-biography is also a time killer so that I am not forced to look at myself yet again in the mirror and comment, inwardly, though sometimes outwardly- like a policeman on a loudspeaker to a deranged man barricaded in a house- on the state of my hair, on the speed at which my face is becoming 'mature', at the rate at which my body is losing muscle tone. But, perhaps here I rejoin Gray, who in writing about all of his faults and weaknesses avoided actually having to do anything about them. To write, to expose, to expostulate is also to distance from, to nudge and wink at oneself in the mirror of the page (never ever its glass friend that has so long been an enemy).

This is what Gray does, dance around the pain of a subject before attacking it side on or sometimes not at all. That is something I love in his writing, sometimes bringing up a subject that he mentions in passing, the pain of it, and then it is gone, not to be written about again. An executive decision has been made. So, no, you will not get the details of being dropped on a Friday night and then spending infinite amounts of time with a pink flat iron. Those details remain my own.

Simon Gray died not too long ago. If I wasn't so lazy, I would open another window and look it up on Wikipedia but I assume if you are interested, you can do it yourself. It was not too long ago. Having finished the last of his memoirs, I am saddened by his passing. Hence the title of this blog post (writing 'blog post' causes an inner shudder) of which I am not even sure of the appropriate formulation, in fact I know I have misspelled in memoriam because it keeps coming up with a red line underneath it yet the alternate options are not the word I am seeking (memorabilia, memorandum) and this is exactly what I love about Simon Gray, the digressions and the willingness to expose the delicate undergarments of personal frailty, our weaknesses yet also our essential humanity.

I will miss your fine wit, Mr. Gray.