Volume 41, Number 17 · October 20, 1994
Action Anglaise
By Ian Buruma
Mrs. Thatcher's Minister: The Private Diaries of Alan Clark
by Alan Clark
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 421 pp., $30.00
The Faber Book of Conservatism
edited by Kenneth Baker
Faber and Faber, 291 pp., £17.50
Alan Clark, former defense and trade minister under Margaret Thatcher, son of the art historian Kenneth Clark, and man about town, is what the English call a toff. He lives in a medieval castle in Kent, with peacocks strutting around the gardens. He owns land in Scotland and a fleet of vintage cars. He has a dog named Eva—after Eva Braun. He also holds very right-wing opinions, which he expresses with great panache in private and in his diaries, published in London a year ago. Hailed as the best of its kind since the diaries of 'Chips' Channon MP, chronicler of London society in the 1930s, Clark's book was at the top of the British best-seller lists for many months. Even people who could not possibly agree with Clark's political views selected his diaries as their favorite book of the year.
Review, 6791 words
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