The first volume of Frederic Raphael's notebooks, Personal Terms, was
greeted in the TLS as 'a small masterpiece'. With the publication of
Cuts and Bruises, the third volume, we can see the sequence unfolding
into a major literary achievement.
Cuts and Bruises concerns the 1970s, during which Raphael travelled
widely (not least to Hollywood, which yields a mordantly sweet and sour
account of figures such as Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and John
Schlesinger) and wrote the acclaimed television series The Glittering
Prizes. Raphael is only incidentally concerned with the world of the
famous, though, and has little interest in 'names' and gossip except to
notice the discrepancies between public and private faces and to convey
the texture of life around him. Greece remains an abiding passion, and
the conduct of Greek friends during the last months of the Colonel's
tyranny leads to surprising reflections on exile and return.
Raphael's notebooks, never intended for publication, are exercises in
candour, precise observation and wit. Cuts and Bruises adds to the
growing impression that Raphael is creating an engrossingly readable,
stylish and enduring chronicle of his times.
