Civilization

The Other Half By Kenneth Clark Harper & Row, 259 pp., $12.95 Notwithstanding an unnecessarily selfdeprecatory introduction, The Other Half, the second volume of Kenneth Clark’s autobiography, provides a great deal more than an exceptionally entertaining literary encounter. In the manner which became familiar through his phenomenal television triumph, Civilization, Clark marries substance with style, links wit to criticism, and demonstrates yet again his extraordinary ability to convey complex conceptions to a diverse and random audience with clarity and concision. But, as in the first volume, Another Part of the Wood, the complexities derive from his apparent determination—for the most part successful—to detail a life without revealing more than the merest minimum of the man who has lived it.

Not surprisingly for an art historian, Lord Clark has subtitled the book, “a self-portrait”; to the careful reader, it is anything but. Here, as before, he has told the story of his public life; his private life is still his own. And in an era that is characterized by compulsive confessions for financial advantage, Kenneth Clark’s reticence, his discrimination between what is important for the reader to know and what is not, adds immeasurably to the pleasures of this book.

RB

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Rene Kuhn Bryant

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The Other Half By Kenneth Clark Harper & Row, 259 pp., $12.95 Notwithstanding an unnecessarily selfdeprecatory introduction, The Other Half, the second volume of Kenneth Clark’s autobiography, provides a great deal more than an exceptionally entertaining literary encounter. In the manner which became familiar through his phenomenal television triumph, Civilization, Clark marries substance with style, links wit to criticism, and demonstrates yet again his extraordinary ability to convey complex conceptions to a diverse and random audience with clarity and concision. But, as in the first volume, Another Part of the Wood, the complexities derive from his apparent determination—for the most part successful—to detail a life without revealing more than the merest minimum of the man who has lived it.

Not surprisingly for an art historian, Lord Clark has subtitled the book, “a self-portrait”; to the careful reader, it is anything but. Here, as before, he has told the story of his public life; his private life is still his own. And in an era that is characterized by compulsive confessions for financial advantage, Kenneth Clark’s reticence, his discrimination between what is important for the reader to know and what is not, adds immeasurably to the pleasures of this book.