Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin
Page 45
To Ninette Dutton
Chateau Seillans | Seillans | France | 19 January 1987
Dearest Nin,
We’re hiding out in the South of France to escape one of the really awful winters on record. We read of fearsome cold in England and France. We see a bank of grey cloud over the sea. But here we bask – so far! – in a snug little microclimate that gives us temperatures in the 80’s on our terrace. I feel and look much better, but there are, it seems, one or two complications, so we may have to pack up and return to Oxford. I pray not! Last week, we went to Italy to see a succession of old friends in Tuscany;797 in Florence my legs, which are still liable to go lilac and blue in the cold, completely froze up on me. All the same, we had a lovely time.
I’ve been completely out of touch, having had no mail for a month. The only excitement has been Werner Herzog’s production of a film of The Viceroy of Ouidah which he proposes to call Cobra Verde. We’ve just signed the purchase, not the option, contract – and at the moment some 600 Africans are recreating the King of Dahomey’s palace in modern Ghana. Anyway, it kept me very amused during these rather trying months – and it would be nice to think that at the end of it I’d touch some paper money: more at least than I’m ever likely to earn writing books – and all without my having to lift a finger. Werner is doing a production of Lohengrin at Bayreuth on July 28th – and that is our one date for the summer.
The Australian book The Songlines is in proof though Cape’s have not seen fit, yet, to send me a copy. I only hope it’s all right. There are masses of details I’d like to have checked, but physically could not.
In the meantime, I’ve begun something new: a very fanciful tale set in the Prague of my distant memory, about a compulsive collector of Meissen porcelain – with tangents into Jewish mysticism, the Golem, the fantastical Emperor Rudolf, alchemy etc. This, again, is also keeping me amused: I feel instantly better (though tired) when writing, and depressed when not . . .
With lots of love from Elizabeth and myself Bruce
To Derek Hill
Chateau de Seillans | Seillans | France | [January 1987]
We’ve had a succession of brilliant days over Christmas, but now it’s balmy and grey. Whoever was ‘the mastermind ’ at Le Thoronet798 has, in my view, to have seen the Seljuk madrassas in Anatolia on the way to the 2nd Crusade. We take little trips about twice a week. Much love B
To Richard Bull799
Chateau de Seillans | Seillans | France | 8 February 1987
Dear Richard,
Enclosed are two sets of analysis from the laboratory in Grasse. When talking to the doctor800 over the phone I got slightly the wrong end of the stick. What he meant to say was that, the second time round, the haemoglobin was the same but that the total picture was marginally improved.
We’re going back to Italy, for a week, as from Friday. I’ll call you from there.
Many thanks, all well here. As always, Bruce
To Roberto Calasso
Chatwin’s entry to Robert Calasso’s visitor’s book | Milan | Italy | 20 February 1987
Une Histoire de la Bourgeoisie Française
In a restaurant801 we sat next to two hatchet-faced women who argued mercilessly as to whether an ‘Alaska’ was the same as ‘une île flotante’ or ‘une omelette norvégienne’. One of the husbands was fat, piglike, and wore six gold rings: the other was a reincarnation of Monsieur Homais.802 He was, it turned out, also a pharmacist. He averred that there was one dish he could never tire of: ‘un gigot d’agneau, pommes dauphinoises.’ Over coffee he said the following:
‘Je vais vous raconter l’histoire d’un homme qui est parti pour son voyage de noces avec sa nouvelle femme, et, pendant le voyage, elle était tuée, meutriée par quelqu’un. Et lui, pour oublier ses tristes souvenirs est parti pour . . .’ and at this point one expected the words ‘Tahiti’ or ‘la Nouvelle Calédonie’ . . . but no! . . .‘il est parti pour la Belgique où il est devenu président d’une société de fabrication du chocolat . . . de la laiterie . . . et même les produits chimiques’
To Elisabeth Sifton
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 15 March 1987
Dearest E,
. . . Could you send copies of The Songlines to the following.
Bill Katz 2 copies: one marked for Jasper Johns803
Clarence Brown
Josef Brodsky804
Joseph Campbell805
James Ivory
Mrs Aristotle Onassis (I always do!)
Diane Johnson806
John Duff807
+ an Australian friend Pamela Bell
Much love, B
See you Labour Day.
To George Ortiz
Accra | Ghana | 23 March 1987
Have been swanning around in Ghana for 10 days where Werner Herzog is making my book The Viceroy of Ouidah into a movie. In the evenings we would go to the Ayatollah Drinks Bar – no credit given! See you soon, Bruce.
To Bill Buford
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [April 1987]
My dear Bill,
Wow! I suspect – sadly for us but not for you – that we run the risk of losing the world’s best magazine editor into the ranks of the world’s best writers! Seriously, I found it first rate.808 Soccer violence is something I’ve followed, from afar, with a certain grim fascination – but obviously I don’t know anything about it at close quarters.
One thought strikes me. About 3 years ago I went to the Rugby final, Wales v France at Cardiff, on a filthy foggy day in winter. Then the mood of the crowd was almost liturgical; everyone singing the Welsh national Anthem etc. Why, therefore, should soccer violence be so different – unless, as you say, it is organised for the purpose of seeking out and damaging an enemy of the imagination? I couldn’t agree with you more: that violence is not necessarily the product of adverse social conditions. It strikes me that the dominant mood of this country is a desperate need to find a substitute for the enemies it has lost cf The Falklands – and that this mood, in various manifestations, is to be found in all levels of society. There’s a point at which your skinheads and members of White’s Club see exactly eye to eye.
Can I take a strong personal interest in the manuscript? As I’ve said to you, now is not really the moment to offer advice. Just go straight ahead – it’ll be fine. One minor point: there’s something absolutely chilling about your first version: the Welsh station. I wonder if you shouldn’t give a very detailed and graphic description – it can be half-fictionalised – where the station was, the kind of people on the platform, the look of the station-master – and then, suddenly, their announcement. I may be wrong, but I found that episode so compelling that I feel it should start the book. If you begin with a plane ride to Turin, you already know there’s violence ahead. On an obscure Welsh railway station, you don’t, and therefore set up a tension which’ll carry you straight through the book. Another very minor comment: as it’s so very tough as a concept, I think there are ways of slightly toughening up the syntax and vocabulary. I could show you what I mean when we meet: I’m going to ground in France for the next two weeks and will be back by May 1 at Homer: or if not Elizabeth will know how I’m to be reached.
With all my congratulations. Best, Bruce
PS In haste on the way to the airport.
At all costs stay dead pan.
In April 1987, during a miraculous period of remission, Chatwin stayed at the Paris Ritz as a judge for the International Ritz-Hemingway Award. Elizabeth says, ‘Mohamed Al Fayed was running the prize. It was very strange. There were pornographic video – tapes to put in the TV and a mirror in the ceiling over our bed.’
To Derek Hill
Hotel Ritz | 15 Place Vendôme | Paris | France | [April 6 1987]
Dearest Derek,
Home again!
The comforts here are not exactly those of Athos, but . . .
Incidentally, are we going to Athos again? In the autumn?
Bruce
To Nine
tte Dutton
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 9 April 1987
Dearest Nin,
A quick note before leaving for London airport – and Nice! Elizabeth’s gone to India to do one of her Himalayan treks: perhaps the last, because the man who owns the company is seriously ill in London.809 Anyhow, it’ll be good for her to get a few whiffs of mountain air – after nursing me for 9 months! It’s much, much better: the only after-effect is a permanent pins-and-needles in my feet, but since it was once above the knee, that, too, seems to be going.
How lovely to think you’ll be here again soon. My plans are to go to France till around May 1st, come back for 10 days, or so, and then skip away again. I’ve been lent, for a year or more, that little chateau in the village once lived in by Max Ernst. It’s super comfortable; and though over-built up for my taste the country to the back is magnificent and unspoiled. One thing is certain, I must be out of England when the book comes out in June. I hate all the publishing hoo-haa and, as I’ve discovered to my cost, you can’t give one interview without opening the floodgates. I can’t wait to get back to the south.
The book, for all the apparent obscurity of its subject, does seem to be making a bit of a stir. Bob H[ughes], to whom I talked last night, is very keen: but I suspect I’ll have trodden on one or two corns.
All of which adds up to the fact that we probably won’t be in England from mid June to mid July: but will be at Seillans. So somehow we’ll manage to meet. There are lots of rooms in the chateau and it’s 40 minutes from Nice airport. Otherwise we could come to Italy where we have masses of friends.
In haste, much love Bruce
PS We’ve been having the most horrendous gale, trees knocked side ways. Really, this is a very uncomfortable country.
To Murray Bail
as from Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [May 1987]
Dear Murray,
In fact, I’m writing this from the South of France, where, when I was ill in the winter, I was lent, very chivalrously, a chateau: not a very large chateau, but a chateau nonetheless. The weather is hideously hot. We came here from Paris, utterly drained: not least by the Musée d’Orsay, which in its lapidary stupidity, must be one of the nastiest museums in the world. I suggest that the only time to go there is winter, in a wheelchair, with a wide-brimmed panama to shield one’s attention from the fantastical architectural hoo-haa up above. I also – for what reason I’m hard to explain – bought myself a first edition of Madame Bovary: a talisman? a livre de chevet? God knows! From here, we intend to go, of all things, to the Bayreuth Festival where my pal, Werner Herzog, is doing a production of Lohengrin: his work on cutting my film ie The Viceroy of Ouidah (retitled Cobra Verde) will begin in August. From Bayreuth we are going to Prague: I need to do a spot of research. Then, in September, I’m supposed to be going to America, but thinking hard how I can get out of it. Then . . . ? Madrid? Perhaps! Whenever I’ve been in Madrid I’ve been penniless and the series of doss-houses I’ve occupied, usually in the vicinity of the station, would not do for Maisie Drysdale. There is always the Ritz, right next to the Prado, which as value for money, is said to be the best hotel in Europe. But what kind of money? yes. Thank you for the tip that [Thomas] Bernhard’s Gathering Evidence is out at Knopf. You should just see the savaging he gets at the hand of English reviewers, blind and completely barmey. The review of Concrete by some arse was enough to bring one to the passport-burning stage. But then England, unlike Ireland, Scotland or Wales, is an utterly barbarian country. I thought that Bernhard’s Wittgenstein’s Nephew was marvellous, especially his account of getting the Grillparzer Prize and his insight – very close to home! – that one’s dear, dear friends are appalled when, instead of dying, one re-emerges relatively fit.
Let me know about Kenya. I may be of help. Please stay in touch throughout the summer (ours if we have any!) and let’s hope to meet in the fall.
Love to M[argaret] as always, and to you
Bruce
PS Papa Hemingway, I suggest, did stay at the Ritz: not in the early days perhaps, but certainly later. I wish you’d been a fly on the wall at the International Hemingway Award, at the Paris Ritz, of which I was one of the judges!810
On 28 May 1987 Tom Maschler sent a finished copy of The Songlines to Chatwin at Seillans. ‘Dear Bruce, Here it is. This is a fabulous book. Your best to date and that is saying something.’ It was published on 25 June 1987 and dedicated to Elizabeth.
Foremost among those to whom he sent a copy was Robin Lane Fox. ‘Bruce wrote to me: “This is a failed attempt to write the book that you above all people believed in. But time is short. Of course, it’s fragmentary and probably baffling and you never expected it would have anything to do with Australia, but I send it to you in the hope there are snatches which will make you remember what you loved.”I wrote back: “I think you are better in fragments than in a full-flown novel, but best of all I thought you were better in full-blown features.” ’
To Michael Davie811
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 24 June 1987
Dear Michael. Thank you. Thank you especially for rescuing me from the ever-increasing horde of travel-writers. We’re here for most of July – after the 8th or so . . . so as we’re in walking distance from Ewelme. Bruce
To Colin Thubron812
as from: Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 9 July 1987
My dear Colin,
Well. That was way in excess of any demands of friendship, etc! I am most touched and grateful to you on two main counts: a. that you took the point, and, out of that chaotic mass of material, managed to extract the sense of what I would liked to have said (rather than did say, which, of course, is quite another matter.) b. that you should have had to spend such amounts of time and energy. People seem to have no idea just how long it takes to put a piece like yours together.
Anyway, here’s to you – and I’m sure that China will be as rewarding – and more – as the Russians. I can’t wait!
We seem to be haring around the fringes of the Iron Curtain all summer: then back here – end of September when we must meet up.
Incidentally: one little thing I did not put in. When visiting the excavation at Swartkrans with Bob Brain, one of the questions uppermost in my mind was man’s use of fire: the myth of Prometheus is absolutely crucial, to my mind, in understanding the condition of the First Man – since it is with fire that Man could adequately protect himself at night from the predators. When I was an archaeological student, it was accepted wisdom that fire – that is, domesticated fire – was late in Africa. 70,000 was the first recorded date as opposed to 500,000 from the Pekin[g] Cave. On the other hand, many excavators in Africa have hoped – and even thought they detected – traces of fire among the remains of Homo habilis, our first ancestor.
Bob and I discussed the pros and cons of the first hearth over lunch. Then, in the first few cubic centimetres which we – or rather the foreman George [Moenda] – excavated that afternoon, there were some fragments of bone which looked most definitely charred! Since the level in question would date somewhere close to 2 million, I got very excited – though he, sanguine as ever, was inclined to pooh-pooh the discovery. This morning, however, I had a letter in which he says the bones were definitely burned. In other words, I may, conceivably, have turned up at Swartkrans on the day the world’s earliest hearth was found.813
Time – as you say in your piece – will tell!814
As always
Bruce
To Charles and Brenda Tomlinson
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 14 July 1987
Dear Charles and Brenda,
How kind of you to write! All in all The Songlines is a pretty odd production: the fact that I wrote the last chapter just before what was all but the last gasp gives it a very rough quality – to say the least! But I have an idea that what’s written is written with all the glaring defects: and if I’d tried to deliver everything I had in mind, the result might be even more incoherent than it is.
&
nbsp; When in Yunnan, I bought a number of these little marble plaques: which were set into screens and have Taoist overtones. They’re not very old: mid 19 century at best, but they do preserve the feeling of mountain poetry a little. The poem on this one roughly translated is
The clouded cliffs jut up
jaggedly in ragged points
Hope you like it. We’re off to Czechoslovakia via the Bayreuth Festival – Lord preserve us!
much love B & E
To Murray Bail
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 17 July 1987
Holden’s Performance [Bail’s new novel] has just reached me – and is going to Czechoslovakia on Mon. I am ⅔rds through a piece of wild ‘Pragueois’ writing which I hope to finish by the end of the year. Vague plans may mature for an Australian winter (ours) but I’m not sure. As always B