Prince Charming: A Memoir ~Christopher Logue - Faber and Faber Paperback - November 5, 2001
Amazon.co.uk Review: Christopher Logue has had an extraordinary and varied career. After turbulent schooldays he was court-martialled out of the army for illegally being in possession of Pay books (erotica?), and spent two years in a boot camp--except this was no ordinary boot-camp, but the Crusader castle of Acre. He sat in a dungeon and read Shakespeare. Later he lived in Paris and wrote pornography for a while, including such unforgettable works as Lust--which he doesn't recommend. Later still he was imprisoned again for his involvement in the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, and joined Private Eye producing the True Stories and Pseud's Corner columns for decades. His most important achievements have always been in poetry, though: his own work, and his brilliant, universally acclaimed translations of Homer.
Logue is so honest, so hard on himself and his (admittedly plentiful) faults, that it can sometimes make you wince. But the honesty is also what makes this a brilliant self-portrait of a man at odds with the world, a natural drifter and bohemian, somehow contriving to survive in a difficult age, and produce some magnificent poetry along the way. --Christopher Hart
SynopsisThis is the story of Christopher Logue, poet and literary maverick, who counted Ken Russell, Arthur Miller and Marilyn Monroe among his friends. It tells of his Southern England childhood, his stint in the army, the years in Paris, offending T.S. Eliot and everything else, all in his own words.