The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969

by Christopher Isherwood

  Don had a very good synchronicity this morning—two actresses, both in films, Jane Fonda and Eileen Heckart, want to be drawn.

  Yesterday afternoon, at L.A. State, I had to have tea with Dr. Vida Markovi,389 who is head of the department of English at the University of Belgrade. She had especially asked to see me, because she so much admires The World in the Evening! And certainly she seemed to know it much better than I do. What she particularly admired was the character of Elizabeth Rydal and her psychology when dying. She seemed very bright about other British writers, which was reassuring. A very handsome, strong but not mannish woman, with a wide humane forehead. You felt she could have run the Yugoslav underground single-handed. She wore a filmy summer dress which seemed too insubstantial for her. She was accompanied by a young man from the State Department with a ruddy face and a moustache. I don’t know if he was a cop. Elizabeth Sewell390—as well as Shroyer, Coulette, Jean Maloney391 and a Dr. Collins—also took part in the meeting. I do like and really admire Sewell. She has a bright dry British intelligence which goes with her non-nonsense face and humped back. We chattered away, disposing of Snow and [Lawrence] Durrell, and paying tribute to Compton-Burnett. Once I caught the eye of the State Department man and he winked at me.

  Yesterday evening, Don and I had supper with Bill Roerick. Tom Coley392 is recovering from a nervous breakdown, during which he would wake up in the night to see a man in the room— a man in an old yellow cloak or wrapper, who had no face, or rather a skull with skin stretched over it. Don was sure that all this was a mechanism to get rid of Bill and stop living with him. Tom is now down near La Jolla. Bill was a bit saintly about it all. However, he indulged in a little bitchery of Bob Buckingham, whom he accused of putting on airs and acting artistic—in other words, forgetting his place. Bob’s son Robin is dying of a kidney disease. There is nothing to be done for it.

  May 27. A detail I forgot to add to the last entry—this specimen of academic market-jargon: “Last February I wrote inviting you to speak at the University of California at Berkeley in August and you indicated an inability to accept at the fee we then could offer. . . . etc. etc.” In brief, having tried to jew me down to some ridiculous and impudent offer of theirs, they now, with anal squeals, agree to pay my fee. So I shall go up there on August 30.

  More grading all yesterday. It’s the dullest work. Not even many amusing mistakes.

  I also forgot to record a talk I had on Thursday last with Richard Naylor, who is perhaps the brightest of my creative writing group. He was much worried about the feeling of not belonging to The Others. If he became a writer wouldn’t that cut him off from them? On the other hand, he has this uneasy feeling that writing is his dharma—he didn’t use that word—and that he ought to force himself to work. I developed a theory—I don’t know if I really believe in it—that one should abandon oneself to the will of Art in the same sense in which one speaks of abandonment to the will of God. No doubt this is a very dangerous doctrine for the merely lazy. And yet perhaps it would reduce the would-be writers if they would wait for “the call” instead of rushing in to mess up a lot of paper.

  Yesterday evening, a party at Jack Larson-Jim Bridges’ house. The usual complaint, too many people eating awkwardly on laps, and Roma wine served, a headache in every glass. John Kerr’s393 drunken smile, respectful in the presence of Culture (me); Romney Tree’s anxious smile which seems to advertise, but without much confidence, her way of life.394 Betty Andrews insisting that we all come and see her in some gruesome play about Henry VIII. A plump dyke brusquely objecting because Don said the fight between the cats during the credit titles of Walk on the Wild Side was cruel, and Don disgusted with himself later because he had made a silly crack about dykes in general with particular reference to Barbara Stanwyck. . . .395 Oh, why record any of this? The thing to remember is that Jack and Jim are really very sweet and likable, and if you don’t like catchall parties, well, why go?

  May 29. Yesterday I had supper with Tom Wright. Gavin was there and told me, to my horror, that Paul Kennedy may be dying of cancer of the lung. However, I called Barbara Morrow today and she says the tests are negative so far, though they are still not certain it may not be bone cancer.

  Today I sort of wound up my duties at L.A. State, including telling Byron Guyer that I am definitely not coming back there in the fall. It was rather sad to say goodbye to some of the students, although I know them so little—sassy David Smith, handsome melodramatic Nick Barod, silly mystic Glenn Porter, grinning fatty cat Charles Rossman. A long talk today to Richard Pietrowicz about his surprisingly good fragment of a Roman novel. He says his parents are illiterate and cannot imagine why anyone should want to write. He has no money and has got to go into the army shortly. Should he risk everything on writing this summer and trying to get the novel finished? Yes, I said—which was what he hoped I’d say.

  Bill Roerick came by yesterday at his own suggestion for a drink, with a young man named Carson who had been somehow connected with the Judith Anderson show. Roerick full of vanity, talking about how he had never thought himself good-looking even when young, etc. etc. However, he told a very funny story about the British government being bankrupt after the last war, so a Mr. Cohen, a troubleshooter from America, is called in. Mr. Cohen asks to see King George all alone. He says, “You’ve still got Australia and Canada, haven’t you? Vell—here’s vat you do—put them in your vife’s name.”

  Tom is preparing to leave on another trip to Mexico and Guatemala. If this is a success, he thinks he may settle down there for a year or so. He is absolutely caught up in the mystique of Mayan ruins. But, at the same time, he knows all about the stock market, which took a huge dip yesterday but recovered strongly today. Gavin, also, was worried about the market. And to think that never, in my whole life, have I had anything to do with it!

  May 31. A beautiful day, after the wretched one yesterday for the Memorial Day holiday. Antisocial as I am, I can’t help being rather glad about this. Anyhow I am in a bad mood because I have a foul cold. It won’t be better for several days I fear.

  Charming David Rubin appeared at the door this morning, having hitched a ride all the way from Covina or wherever he lives, to bring his term paper—and now I find half of it is missing! This afternoon I plan to get the car serviced, read the rest of Gavin’s novel, visit Paul in hospital and decide whether or not to buy Simone de Beauvoir’s autobiography (volume 2) which sounds interesting. I am not going to the college this week again but I shall go next week and pick up the rest of the papers and grade them and turn them in. And that will be that.

  The Englishwoman has been crawling along. Now I must fetch a whip to her. And I must get chapter 14 of the Ramakrishna book done before next Wednesday.

  Talked to Bruce Zortman yesterday. Charles [Laughton] remains in New York, mysteriously involved. Bruce thinks it isn’t really his health but some dreary blackmailish business, but he was so very vague that I couldn’t quite understand what he meant.

  June 2. The day before yesterday I went to see Paul and found him very depressed, with charley-horse pains in his legs. He said, “I’m twenty-eight and all I’ve got to show for it is a shadow on my lung and an enlarged liver.” It was so sad to see him, all alone in the hospital—the Temple, which, I must say, is one of the nicest, perched on the top of a hill—and hiding a dreadful anxiety: what is the matter with him? The doctor admits that he doesn’t know. Yesterday, on the phone, Paul told me that they have discovered something in his bone marrow which “ought not to be there.”

  As for me, Dr. Allen discovered a cyst in my ear. He didn’t seem alarmed about it though, just said he’d look at it again in a month’s time.

  Another pair of events: two checks Don received within a couple of days, from Count Rasponi and from Dorothy McGuire,396 had a discrepancy between the sum expressed in words and the sum expressed in figures.

  Read Gavin’s novel the day before yesterday. I don’t like it. It’s false. Just a piece of ginge
rbread, which wouldn’t matter, except that it takes itself seriously. Of course I couldn’t possibly tell him this. Luckily, I hit on some criticisms of the ending with which he entirely agreed.

  Don and I went to a party at Gavin’s last night. Jane Fonda was there with her phoney Greek boyfriend,397 and old Barbette, whom I liked, and Dorothy Parker with Alan. I’m afraid Dorothy really is a dead loss to us all; something has been permanently smashed and there’s no use hoping it will ever work again.

  After the party, drunk, Don told me he wants me to go away to San Francisco and leave him alone all summer. He still wants it this morning, though less aggressively. I wish he would go away. If I do, I know I won’t be able to work and I shall just waste several months. Still, I must seriously consider it, because I realize that his reasons for wanting to be alone are serious, however selfish he may be in seeking this solution.

  Don also said this morning that he would like to have a mantram and he wished Swami would give him one. Swami, of course, would like nothing better than to initiate him—and get him into Trabuco for that matter—but only after he has attended several months of lectures and classes. It’s the first time Don ever said this.

  June 5. In the late afternoon of the 2nd, after I made my last entry, Elsa called from New York to tell me that Charles was going into hospital next day to have one of his kidneys removed. Today, Michael Barrie told me that the radio news says quite definitely it’s cancer; Elsa wasn’t specific about this. But she did say that Charles is terrified and that he is quite unprepared to die. He doesn’t want to come back here; he talks of going to Europe. He wants to discuss things with a Zen Buddhist. He dismisses Vedanta, saying that it’s “Indian.” Elsa told me all this with perhaps just a faint tone of “you see, he doesn’t need you, he needs me” and she said that she felt she had become very strong. She is still slightly resentful because Charles loves seeing Terry, who has settled in New York now, it seems.

  As for Paul, he has been vomiting, and now the doctor is taking another sample of marrow and they have also given him a T.B. test.

  Oh, the horror of modern medical death! The hospital has become a sort of earthly purgatory which you have to pass through.

  Don terribly upset, desperate to have a life of his own but not sure how to set about it. I feel I should go away for a while and yet I do not want to, with all this work to be done. Don seems to pin his faith on the building of the studio in the garage, but I am doubtful. Surely it won’t be that simple?

  In the presence of all this suffering, what do I do? Get drunk at the Selznicks’ on Sunday night and incapacitate myself for all of yesterday. So now I have decided to give up drinking altogether for a long while. I am sloppy and fat, despite the gym; and yet everything demands that I should be disciplined and alert. I ought to become more and more of a workhorse; it is the only happiness for me. There is not all that much time left, and I have such an infinity of things to do. Right now, I have fallen way behind and must postpone the finishing of chapter 14 for another week—not to mention getting on with The Englishwoman. Still lots of test papers to grade.

  June 7. The test papers are all graded now, except for four or five which are waiting for me at the department office. I shall go to the college tomorrow, grade them and hand in the rest of the cards, and that will be the end of it.

  Yesterday evening, Don came up with me to Vedanta Place, talked to Swami and told him he wanted a mantram. Swami seems to have been pleased and surprised—as well he might be, after nearly ten years! He told Don how to meditate and said he’d initiate him next December.

  Woke this morning feeling really toxic. My whole gut is sick, and my tongue burns. There are times in the day when I feel so awful that I would gladly go to bed, and yet I perk up, work or go to the gym. I guess this is just being middle-aged.

  Forgot to say that I was disappointed in The Charterhouse of Parma. It is so smart-alecky, and Stendahl has a vulgar show-off mind. No wonder Balzac liked it. Toward the end—as in the Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes—you feel that the author is getting bored.

  Have also finished the two first Claudine books.398 There are really first-rate things in them. And however one may be put off by the frequent whiffs of cunt and dirty drawers one must remember that this is artistically right for the subject matter. Colette never gets bored with her story.

  Swami is being threatened by mad Marlene, who is now in San Francisco. So the boys have fixed up a buzzer system, between his room and the monastery. If Marlene arrives in the middle of the night and starts to smash in Swami’s door, he merely has to flip the switch and the entire monastery is alerted like a fire station. The boys can be over in eighteen seconds!

  June 10. I don’t know if this will pass for a synchronicity: I have been twice “honored.” Just heard that the Mid-Century Book Society has chosen Down There on a Visit as its July selection. Or rather, half of it. The other half being—irony of ironies—Iris Murdoch’s An Unofficial Rose, which I refused to review because I found it absolutely unreadable! Also, tonight, I am to be given an honorary degree or some kind of award, by USC at what they describe as a “banquet,” at a rather tacky French restaurant on La Brea. Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier are the other guests of honor, but they are pretty certain not to show up.

  Paul Kennedy says he feels better; but he had some mysterious treatment which knocked him out a couple of days ago. And, when I phoned, the nurse I talked to said it was a shame because “he’s so young”—which sounded bad, to put it mildly. The Laughton mystery deepens; Charles and Elsa are said, by their Eddie,399 to be coming home this week, and Charles hasn’t had the operation. Again, this may be good, may mean that it’s too late to operate.

  My grades are all in, and nothing remains but to start “vacation” work—i.e. get the hell on with Ramakrishna and the novel. I have been very bad, not doing any of this today, but Florence Homolka came in and photographed us both. She is a huge blundering but not unsympathetic cow—a poltergeist, Don says. She knocked down a picture, trampled the flower beds, nearly wrecked the table. And she takes pictures so slowly that you can’t hold the pose.

  A new symptom: my tongue burns nearly all the time—as if I’d been smoking, though I haven’t smoked at all.

  June 14. The “banquet” turned out to be nothing more than an end-of-term dinner for the USC chapter of the National Collegiate Players. We had to pay for all of our own drinks except the first one, and then sit through a regular prize-giving—best actress, best actor, etc. Then an old fuddy-duddy got up and introduced me, informing the audience that I’d spent two years in a monastery in India and written a one-act play called Mr. Norris. Also, for some inscrutable reason, he quoted my translation of the Chaitanya hymn, “Oh mind, be humbler than a blade of glass”! One of our hosts addressed Jo as “Mrs. Masculine.”

  Paul Kennedy has got cancer; Vic Morrow told me. He doesn’t know this yet. I went to see him on the 11th. Strange and terrible how he has already lost so much weight and turned dull orange yellow and looks shrunken. But he is in high spirits because the pain in his legs has gone. They are giving him radiation treatments every day. He throws up a lot and doesn’t care for food. His nose bleeds. But he plans eagerly to get out and go to parties. His legs are horribly thin.

  Gerald is also an invalid still, but a recovering one. He has a marvellous tailored robe which Michael has had made for him: tight-waisted, with full skirts and hanging sleeves—a kind of number which Ivan the Terrible might have worn. He talked of the absolute necessity for legalizing euthanasia. I cheered him by telling him that homosexuality became legal last year in Czechoslovakia. (Read this in Encounter—along with the less cheering news that An Unofficial Rose has been chosen by the Book Society.)

  Yesterday, Mr. Haslam and two assistants started work on the garage and the balcony. There is something shocking about the way workmen attack a building; it seems cruel. Don agreed. He had seen a bulldozer deliberately gather its strength together, dash acr
oss a lawn and smash into an old house—which made a horrible creaking screaming noise, Don says; adding, “It was like a fight.”

  My tongue still burns. Worried about this.

  June 18. Another double: George Sandwich died last Friday and Vishuddhananda, the head of the Ramakrishna Order, died yesterday. Swami got through to Amiya on the phone. She was drunk, said George had died in her arms and she had tried to get him to chant the name of Holy Mother.

  On Saturday we had the usual ghastly Father’s Day lunch for Swami.

  Elsa called yesterday. She and Charles are back here. Now it seems that the cancer is doubtful; there may be something different the matter with him. But really it is impossible to get anything definite and reliable out of Elsa, so determined is she to melodramatize every instant of her life.

  Dull foggy weather. My tongue burns; no better, no worse. Don is in a flap. Have I ruined his life? Or not? Or what? Last night, he saw a man sneaking around the house. This must have been about one a.m. We turned on all the outside lights. No further sign of him. This morning, a letter from the woman who wants him to do the drawings for Cassini. Shall he refuse to draw Princess Radziwill400 from photographs? It is against his whole method of work; but he doesn’t want to lose this connection because it offers independence financially, which means independence of me.

  But another double came up; a good one for him—they are holding an exhibition of portraits of contemporary writers at Cheltenham401 and want some of his to exhibit; and Rex Evans wants two of his drawings for an assorted summer show. This would help advertise Don’s one-man show in the fall.

  My mood is bad, as you see. Sour and worried. I am not getting on with my work. Of course the builders are a disturbance. But one can’t help rather loving the amazing Danish boy Evan, who sings and jokes and skips around, shovelling concrete and banging at plaster and staggering under loads of lumber as if he really knew that work is Mother’s Play. In contrast, the fattish degenerate face and figure of the non-Mormon assistant, sucking at a cigarette and loafing.