Charles Péguy in 1907
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“Humanity will surpass the first dirigibles as it has surpassed the first locomotives. It will surpass M. Santos-Dumont as it has surpassed Stephenson. After telephotography it will continually invent graphies and scopes and phones, all of which will be tele and one will be able to go around the earth in less than no time. But it will always be only the temporal earth. And it will even be possible to burrow inside the earth and pierce it through as I do this ball of clay. But it will always be the carnal earth.”
Newcomers to this site will soon discover, I hope, that it is meant to be rather more than an archive of my own work. It started out that way, but merciful Providence intervened to remind me that my belated brain-wave might be more useful if I could put a lifetime’s experience as a cultural critic to a new use, and so offer a critical guide, through the next medium, to works of thought and art by other people, and sometimes in other eras. The only criterion for inclusion would be intensity of expression, with the aim of creating, in this latterday Babelic flux we call the web, an island of quality where every word is meant, and every image meaningful. Where there was music, it would be music I responded to because I couldn’t help it, and not because I thought I should. Clearly such a scope, even allowing for my prejudices, is without theoretical limit, so I shall be a doddering cot-case before the thing barely gets started, but I am very glad to have been in on its beginnings.
Regular visitors might like to know that there has been a large-scale building programme going on in the basement during the later part of 2009, and as we enter a new decade the modifications are ready to be unveiled. The Text section had been getting so extensive that its miles of corridors slowed up the work of making additions, threatening to return the site to its bad old early days when I had to wait for a month to change a comma. The Text section has now become four sections (Essays, Poetry, Books and Author), each of which, I think, has a better interior logic, and anyway allows much more room for expansion. This intricate task of reconstruction has been carried out by my webmaster Dawn Mancer, who understands how the machines work. What that must be like, I can’t even begin to imagine. All I knew, when I first saw them in action twenty years ago, was they might be persuaded to build something that would go on unfolding as it flew, powered by nothing except the spirit of curiosity.
— London, December 2009
The Good Web Guide Reviews This Site
Clivejames.com is a generous and wonderful delight: this is the future for cultural multi-media websites... it ought to be a spur to an artistic renaissance on the internet... beautifully designed... In Audio there are fascinating dialogues. The (Video) archive a treasurehouse of wit and insight.