I suppose that in a way most books of this type resemble each other - in that they stop some years before the death of their authors. There are no autobiographies leading up to the death of the author.

This is quite understandable for the authors themselves want to be in a condition where they can control what they say since the book is their personal memories. Often the last years of a person's life are beset by infirmity, sickness and operations.

So over the past months we have seen such truncated memoirs by the likes of Dom Mintoff, Alfred Sant, etc.

This long book gives us Oliver Friggieri's personal voyage through the years from his childhood in Floriana's Balzunetta to his mature years as Professor of Maltese and Head of Department.

I feel privileged to have shared part of this road with him and to have enjoyed his friendship as can be glimpsed from the references to me and also photos in the book.

Our childhood years were remarkably similar. Born in the last years of the post-war 1940s in a lower middle class family with five or six children, we were brought up in austerity (although he was sent to a fee-paid Church school whereas I went to the Lyceum).

Also common to us was il-Muzew, the society set up by Dun Gorg Preca, today a saint. We went there practically every day, Sundays included, though being boys, escapades were never missing.

Through this education and through the natural piety of our parents we developed an attachment to the Church, in Oliver's case a love for the church's feasts and liturgical celebrations.

But it was also through our attendance at il-Muzew that in the 1960s, after the conclusion of the celebrations of the St Paul centenary, we were roped in the fight between Archbishop Gonzi and Dom Mintoff with the mammoth tal-Gunta or tal-umbrella meetings on the Granaries. For us children it was a welcome diversion from normalcy - we were bussed here and there on private buses waving flags and placards and chanting special songs. We became rabid anti-Mintoffians.

Oliver describes the people he knew around him as he grew up in Floriana with humour and appreciation. It was a Floriana till then split in two with a wall surrounding Balzunetta, the red light district he grew up in. Unfortunately, he does not give the etymological explanation for Balzunetta (apparently meaning "Little Barcelona") nor exactly why that wall was built.

The next common element in our upbringing were the years we spent at the Major Seminary preparing to become priests. Oliver stuck it out for between two and three years and then left.

His description of those years is very exact especially in the description of two characters he describes in detail - Eddie Gauci and Richard Vella Laurenti, both dead now along with the author. Typically, Oliver is benign in his recollection.

The Seminary at that time was, just like Oliver's own home, right in the middle of Balzunetta and when the Fleet was in, the streets around reverberated with celebrations till the early hours of the morning.

But Balzunetta was where people lived. I clearly remember the death of a young girl who lived right across the street. (I believe Oliver mentioned this but in a rather cryptic manner). The Seminary was also across the street from Police Headquarters. I distinctly remember years later (after Oliver had left) and Mintoff came to power, a man crying out that he was being beaten. This was during the negotiations with Britain on a new lease for the British military presence.

Life after the Seminary for Oliver was a very different one - he became a teacher and had the misfortune to be a teacher at the Lyceum in the worst years where senseless experimentation removed all exams and teachers, who had lost all motivation, found themselves trying to teach students equally without motivation.

Then an opening happened within the University and Oliver could finally specialise in literature analysis and teaching of motivated students. His career took off.

Towards the end of the book he describes what we may call his two red-letter days when he encapsulated the national feeling - his Oratorio Pawlu ta' Malta and his novel later turned into a drama Fil-Parlament ma jikbrux fjuri in the bad dark days of the KMB years.

His description how together with Godfrey Grima he gatecrashed the 31 March 1979 celebrations overshadowed by Colonel Gaddafi is pure farce.

The book, though long, makes a good and easygoing read. Obviously there are many more valid books written by Oliver, both literary criticism and novels, apart from the poems, but this book helps a lot to introduce the person Oliver to those who may not have known him.