My Autobiography, by Charles Chaplin

I thought that this book would be long-forgotten, perhaps even out of print, but being very nosy, and having found out that Chaplin's story would be a very interesting one, I was determined to read it.

It's a Penguin Modern Classic! It's a wonderful read! I recommend it for the vivid account of Chaplin's early years and how he felt on his sudden rise to fame.  In the early part of the book a vanished London - small, horse-drawn and grimy - comes to life. The neglect of children in those days would astound nearly anyone. Charlie was homeless when his mother was taken to an asylum for the insane, and then a bullied workhouse boy. He had only his talent for dancing to save him, and thank God, it did save him.

Then there are the very early years of Hollywood when there was plenty of space and building a new studio was quite affordable. The fun and adventure of creating a new art form with lively-minded people in a great climate, with money coming in in an unprecedented fashion, feels as miraculous now as it must have been at the time.

I feel as though I have read hundreds of books of 20th century anecdotes of famous people meeting each other, so was not so interested in those, and they take up a lot of the middle part of the book. I find W R Hearst particularly boring, but I suppose you have to take him as an example of a big shot American, for whom all things were possible.

The difficulties of Chaplin's later years make the book interesting again. He had developed hugely since his slapstick clown days, when he worked without a script partly because he was "unlettered". Chaplin read voraciously in an effort to understand the world - including economics - and hold his own with anyone he met, and he clearly managed to do so. He wrote a script to a later film called Monsieur Verdoux which sounds very black and very modern.  The American film censors had a field day with it - and Chaplin's account of their efforts to change it both amuse and appall.

He was often a lonely soul, having been wounded in childhood by hardship and by loneliness he could not quickly recover, and spent a lot of time alone. Only in older age did he achieve personal happiness, and with a much younger woman.

Chaplin loved to learn new words, and in this book he displays his wide vocabulary, and the effect is sometimes too self-conscious. Oooh look, there's another posh word, you think. In the Reader's Digest, in the 60s and 70s, there was a new vocabulary section called It Pays to Increase Your Word Power, which was for the millions of people like Chaplin who wanted to make up for a poor education, or for being an immigrant with a different mother tongue.. I'm not sure you meet people with such aspirations very much these days and lack of aspiration is a problem. If I am wrong I hope someone will tell me so.

Recently I read an article about groups of London children who spend the nights on night buses. All they need is an Oyster card and they can ride all night, legit, and that's what they do, because their homes aren't safe to go home to. It would be great to think that things are better for children than they were, but we'd be deluding ourselves.

Please see further information in Modern Times