Make mine a Guiness any day!
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If you have an interest in the quirks of human nature and delight at the minutiae of day to day life then I hope you enjoy this book as much as I did.
I came to this book having known nothing of Guiness's theatre and film work and certainly not as a Star Wars fan but simply as someone who appreciates fine writing and interesting insights and observations on the day to day. Here in these diaries you get a peppering of reminiscences, slotted in amongst the rueful stacking up of obituaries as our author, the retiring actor reaches the end of his diaries.
As this book ended I was left with a rare sense of sadness as this was such a lovely book I never wanted it to end and may revisit it another time. But there are other books of his that I now can't wait to explore this year.
I recommend this then to anyone who wants to detox from the fast paced life of other books and simply wants to kick back with one man's ruminations and acquired wisdom from a lifetime's observation.
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Gentle and witty memoir
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Although pottering around your country home, feeding the fish and descriptions of dogs' antics don't usually make riveting reading, in this witty memoir, Alec Guinness is as entertaining as in his previous auto "Blessings In Disguise". It's hard to imagine this man is the same one described in Garry O'Connors biography. O'Connor implies rough trade homosexuality, false modesty, a vicious tongue and unpleasantness to his wife, Guinness seems to me both a moral man and a devoted husband. Heartening to read that in his eighties he still made frequent London trips, to see the latest exhibition or play and keep up with friends. Guinness died three years ago aged 86, but obviously lived a wonderful and full life until the very end. One gripe though; he obviously hated the association with Star Wars, even though it must have kept him very comfortably for all those years. Surely science fiction is better than blacking up in Passage to India, eh Alec?!
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Perfection
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How do you grab a reader's attention whilst discoursing about nothing very much? By getting Sir Alec Guiness to write for you, that's how. One wishes one could grow old with half the grace, wit and wisdom of this lovely man (if he would excuse the familiarity).
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