Volume 33, Number 5 · March 27, 1986
Secret Intelligence
By Clive James
Blessings in Disguise
by Alec Guinness
Knopf, 238 pp., $17.95
Concealing itself with a squirt of ink, the octopus makes a cloud which if seen from far enough away looks like a revelation. Alec Guinness's autobiography has been a big hit in his native country. The British value their actor-knights so highly that they bought even Lord Olivier's autobiography, an obvious attempt to entangle the curious reader in the outer defenses and leave him there to die of boredom. By turning on the charm instead of the electrified fence, Guinness makes himself even less accessible in his book. He comes out of it as a regular guy, just like you and me but with a measure of acting talent, and he writes well enough to make this fantasy sound plausible. Blessings in Disguise is a heartwarming document, a reassuring pledge of sincerity, like the newspaper which the con man asks you to look after for him until he comes back again with your fifty dollars.
Review, 2659 words
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