Biography
Behind the mask
RAJI NARASIMHAN
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Graham Lord declares that Mortimer, famous lawyer and equally famous writer, is a hoax.
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John Mortimer, The Devil's Advocate, The Unauthorised Biography; Graham Lord, Universal Law Publishing Co., First Indian Reprint 2007.
THROUGH a mountain of proof and painstakingly assembled first-hand evidence that changes into a nimble prose style, Graham Lord declares that Mortimer, famous lawyer and equally famous writer, is a hoax. His literary fame is synthetic, resting on editors either sweating over his submitted scripts or dumping them outright. His TV script of Waugh's Brideshead Revisited, was dumped even though his name went as the writer of the script.
Mortimer is far from wanting, when it comes to talent, Lord makes it clear. Wit and imagination romp through his work, as in his famous TV series on Rumpole, the eely defence barrister who could charm the jury into returning a verdict of not guilty even when the accused has guilt written all over his face. Rumpole is a self-portrait, and the title The Devil's Advocate, applies to both him and the real life person that the portrait derives from. Mortimer's trouble, Lord says, is taking on more work than he can handle well. With deadlines piling up, all-night writing becoming endemic, and whiskey intakes for energy boosts soaring, the writing naturally flagged, Lord says. The reasons for such overloading of oneself go back to childhood traumas. Lord deals with these at length. Mortimer's habit — and later his vocational skill as lawyer and writer — of juggling with the truth rose apparently from these early days of suppressing facts about oneself. Lord cites several contradictions between what Mortimer relates in his autobiographical writings, and what his close associates told him of Mortimer.
Inconsistencies
This stand-off with truth has extended to his non-writing spheres too, apparently. His countless affairs with women have made his relations with both his former and present wives not exactly transparent. More serious are his intellectual inconstancies, we learn. In theory he is Left wing, has always voted Labour, is non-exclusivist and a defender of free speech. But he sent his daughter to an exclusive and expensive private school. His lifestyle is not exactly Spartan. And he did his best to stop Lord's biography of him from being written.
The motive
However, the question that puzzles the reader initially is, why did Lord write the biography of a man he holds in such low esteem? Of course it is not easy to be a passive observer of what one feels is disproportionate and unmerited fame coming to anyone. But the reader feels the need for a weightier reason. He gets it towards the end when Lord goes to a bookshop to buy a book by Mortimer. Six months later Mortimer is due to get a Lifetime Achievement Prize from British Book Awards. Who's Mortimer, the shop assistant asks. Spell his name, he demands next.
It is chilling. The reader wakes to the sheer emptiness behind the firm, solid-looking face of fame. He wakes to the sordidness of ways of life founded on creating that face. And it is with this awakening that the book gets its true justification.
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