No complaints

Clive James, who, famously, has been terminally ill for many years, was recently in wonderful conversation (on iPlayer) with the Mary Beard. That Mary who has shown that being one's unaffected self is in fact an art or perhaps, more's the pity, almost an act of resistance.

During the conversation, he says repeatedly how blessed he is, how grateful for having had a life, for having had his particular life, for having had this extension to his life and, due to pioneering drug treatment, the time to reflect on it. But this is no simpering end.  James is, in his own words a larrikin and a performer, a poet and a scholar.  In Mary Beard's words, a rogue.  I met him once at a book event in Oxford, years ago.   He had fun, mischievous eyes, roguish indeed and a quick intelligence but one that never trumped humour which is my  favourite kind.  In the interview it's all still there.  With disarming openness he made me aware that he and some others were going for a drink somewhere nearby and that I could join them.  I did not have the experience to deal with, not the unexpectedness but the unusualness of the suggestion.  He was, after all, a famous writer over thirty years older than me, that I had just met.  But it is with endless regret that I recall I did not.

Later in the programme they discuss whether he has any regrets about books he has written. He says:

There are things I shouldn't have written. There are things I could have written better. But on the whole, I have no complaints. It would be very bad manners to complain. 

He says it with much modesty and with the such conviction, which is to say the very quietest kind that needs no emphasis, that is simply the knowledge that comes simply from a long and reflective life. That point about complaints extends the definition of what is usually thought of as good manners which is something useful to bear in mind when considering what it is to live well.