I rather did enjoy it. Almost guiltily as the overarching idea can be seen as a bit outdated and not altogether PC… But then again it is titled Civilisation: A Personal View.
Kenneth Clark is a very engaging presenter/companion. And lovely judicious use of music. Not the constant droning on in the background we have these days. Whatever happened to silence?
Personally I much prefer him to what is sometimes shown on BBC. (I'm not even talking about what ITV seem to think passes as cultural documentary.) Take the current "Buddy road trip" with Janina Ramirez (Who I don't mind usually) and the irritating Alastair Sooke. Reason why last night I ended up searching YouTube. 10 minutes of Art Lovers' Guide to Barcelona had me switch off.
It is all so funny. So quirky music. So busy… So arch. So ironic. So witty… so empty.
Famous Five go to Barcelona.
I do acknowledge though this is me growing old. Information being presented to me as if it were the latest-greatest-bestest-idea-evah. Little chunks of Tweetable, shareable gobbets of fluff.
But I digress!
Haha. I am hunting down a decent 1st edition on eBay and AbeBooks.
Oh yes, seeing these objects, places first hand is why I love travel, and why I cannot understand people who just have no curiousity about "going other places".
The other day — OK, I fib, a couple months ago, a woman told me she doesn't like travelling to new places "Because I might not like it." Aaaaaaargh!!!!
/grumpyoldmanmode
My first visit to France - an exchange arranged by my mother - occurred when I was a teenager and it was a transformational epiphany for me. The French family that my mother had befriended were cultured - but neither pretentious nor snobbish about it - open, warm, welcoming and genuinely delighted that I fell in love with their world, language and culture.
They lived (and still live) in the centre of Paris, and the grandfather of the family was a well known cinema critic, a friend of René Clair's (whose biography he wrote), a founder member of the Cannes Film Festival, a personal friend of Marc Chagall (whose portrait of the grandfather still hangs, casually, - one work of art among many - on the walls of their flat in the Île de la Cité - or, it did, when I last visited them in 2013), and brought me to some of the most incredible places I had seen in my life until then.
I remember my stunned delight when I picked up Kenneth Clarke's book, realising - awestruck - that I had actually visited some of the legendary places he wrote about.
The book is beautifully produced - we still have it, and - now that you have written about it, I must re-visit it. And yes, while it is undoubtedly of its time, it is also a homage to what Kenneth Clarke has argued is 'western culture'.
A fascinating footnote, (as an illustration of the sheer breadth of his intellectual interests, and his passion for the concept of 'public service' as expressed - in this instance - by broadcasting) is the fact that David Attenborough - then Controller of Programmes on BBC2 - commissioned both "Civilisation" (with the generous budgets for the era), and the magisterial "The Ascent of Man" by Jacob Bronowski. (I have that book, as well).
Agree about much modern stuff: There is a way of rendering the material interesting and entertaining without making your treatment trite or silly.
Mary Beard has cracked this - her enthusiasm, learning and love of her subject matter - and the sheer fun she has telling you about it - are infectious. While I really like the woman and her politics, I also love her writing: Actually, she is a damned good writer too, and her book "SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome" is brilliant.
