Memoir of a life of travel - interesting places (Burma, Cuba etc) and contact with prominent people, musing about how the world has changed in the author's lifetime. ( )

I had a hard time following this book. It could be in part that I've never read any of Lewis's travel pieces so I came to his memoir without any for knowledge of him. While he seems to have lived a very interesting life I just didn't take any pleasure in it as he jumped from subject to subject. I really would have preferred a more logical outline to the book. ( )

I was delighted to find this author, known for his travel narratives and splendid prose, an Englishman born in 1908 and only dying recently at age 95 in Saffron Walden, Essex, where he had lived modestly and politely, shyly even. Luigi Barzini described reading his prose as "like eating cherries" and Graham Greene – with whom Lewis shared many similarities in adventures, courage and quiet, commanding prose - had "no hesitation in calling him one of the best writers, not of any particular decade, but of our century".

In this work – part of a multiple volume autobiography, there was only one decision Lewis made that damaged his intellect in this readers view – he agreed to an investigative reporting trip to Peru accompanied by Lord Snowdon (Princess Margret's husband) as his photographer, traveling “incognito”. Lewis seemed genuinely surprised that was far from a successful trip, or experience, and as for the ‘incognito’ – well at least it got the author free upgrades to First Class flights and entertainment by British Ambassadors and Peruvian society!

The author had a fascinating and often wildly exciting life, serving in the British Forces in Italy during WWII followed by a career in journalism reporting on Vietnam, Burma, Indo China and producing a splendid series of books for Jonathan Cape – who used to entertain his authors with dinners of burnt Irish Stew – on the mafia in Sicily, and the threatened indigenous peoples of Latin America.

Writing with a compassion and light wit Lewis crafted over thirty books and one of his five children, his second son Gareth, has also published a book called 'Deceit'.

Finished: 14/1/2021 ( )