Another Kind of Life Writing

I don't even remember when I began subscribing to TLS, but one of my favorite features from the very first has always been the "Freelance" column, particularly when written by Hugo Williams. It's hard to describe Williams' pieces, other than to note that they are informal and often very personal, recording the ups and downs of his career as a poet, as well as his life as a son, husband, father, and brother. Along the way I've learned that Hugo Williams is the offspring of a matinee idol father, Hugh Williams, who appeared on the London stage and in more than fifty British movies, mostly in the 1930s and 1940s, and the brother of Simon Williams, who has carried on the family acting tradition. Simon is perhaps best known for his portrayal of the wayward son James Bellamy in Upstairs, Downstairs, but has since had a successful career in television, film, and theater. I've picked up these bits of Williams family lore and much more over the years of reading Hugo's little essays.

But what strikes me about Hugo Williams' "Freelance" pieces, beyond their sheer entertainment value, is the way that he seems to have created his own genre. Within these brief essays Williams allows himself to write about anything that seems to strike his fancy. Sometimes it's literature or art (although usually from a very personal perspective, something about himself or a friend or his wife); sometimes it's family history: nostalgic stories about long ago residences, or vacations, or visits to the theater to see his father perform. I've tried to decide what these pieces are most like. In some respects they resemble a journal or diary, but are lacking even in those conventions, since they are so inconsistent and heterogeneous. They are also something like Montaigne's essays, except that they are governed by a much stricter limit on length. What they are most like, it seems to me now, are personal "blog" entries, but without benefit of being written online.

I wonder how Williams himself looks on these little fragments of personal history. Does he ever go back and re-read them? I don't really know whether or not he has any plans to gather them into a collection for publication, but I think he should. Beyond the personal, they are also a record of our times. His own very unusual life has been somehow typical as well, capturing the familiarity along with the randomness of our all too regimented existence. Although perhaps only he and I and a few others would find such a book entertaining.