Diaries provide snapshots rather than extended reflections. They record impressions and their sense of immediacy and spontaneity is attractive. The diarist is less concerned than the writer of a memoir with selecting and shaping material, yet what he chooses to record and what he says about people and events amount to a self-portrait.
Ulick O'Connor's diaries portray a man who enjoys good company and good conversation. He admires achievement in the arts, in society, the theatre, the world of letters, and in sport.
He admired Micheal MacLiammoir, a superb conversationalist whose "long rolling sentences mount like waves in to shore" and who had an "astounding knowledge of ballet, theatre, paintings and literature."
He loved visiting Leixlip Castle, home of Desmond and Mariga Guinness. It was "an enchanted world".
O'Connor, an athlete and a versatile sportsman, writes about many who excelled in sport - Muhammad Ali, Susan Chaffee, Johnny Giles - often with lively anecdotes. Susan Chaffee, he says, was captain of the American ski team and a model, but was also known "for having been the first Olympic skier to ski naked, and was photographed in the nip for Vogue magazine." He is a complex person. Supremely self-confident and extrovert, he has a vulnerable side that causes him to be rude, even to those close to him. It is to his credit that he tries to understand what makes him behave badly.
He wants to shine and to be near those who shine: "I wish I knew such a person as her; power, influence, intellect and beauty." He has known many interesting people, has delighted in their company, is often warmly appreciative of their achievements, and sometimes caustic. These diaries reflect a rich and well-filled life.
Maurice Harmon is a poet and critic. His No Author Better Served: The Correspondence between Samuel Beckett and Alan Schneider, was recently issued in paperback.