The Digested Twenty-first Century

by John Crace

  Thank you for your letter. I am sorry to hear you feel I am ignoring you but I have had a great deal to do even though I haven’t done any of it because I am so bored. The renovation of the library is almost complete but I doubt anyone will ever use it. I certainly hope not, because then I will be left alone. Don’t you think Blake and Byron are quite dreadful? Does anyone care about them any more? The University of Cincinnati offered me 200 guineas a week but I turned it down as it’s a long way away and I might have had to do some work.

  Thank you for your letter. I am sorry that you inadvertently discovered I had been having a long-term affair with Maev by reading about it in a poem wch I had published in the Spr. To make matters worse I was only paid 3/-. I’m sure Betjeman gets more. Still, I think it might be for the best that it is now out in the open as your Mr Pussy has now told Maev it’s over. Don’t you think Leavis is a frightful old bore? And isn’t Pinter a dreadful prick? A CBE at 42. I ask you.

  Thank you for your letter. I am sorry you are upset that my affair with Maev hasn’t ended after all. It’s just she made such a terrible fuss, I felt obliged to go through with the sex thing again. I did, though, spend the whole time thinking about how I could keep your name as small as possible in the acknowledgements for the Oxford Book of English Twentieth Century Verse. I hope that reassures you of my undying affection for my darling graminovore.

  Thank you for your letter. I have been extremely unwell and very frightened and all my other friends have deserted me. You can come and live with me now, if you want.

  Yours affectionately, Philip.

  Digested read, digested: He fucked her up…

  PG Wodehouse: A Life in Letters

  (2011)

  Dear Willyum, Snorkles and Denis,

  Fiend of me boyhood, here’s some dread news. My parents haven’t got enough of what they vulgarly call ‘stamps’ these days to send me to Varsity. It really is a terrible bore as I shall now have to send a few pomes to editors and hope to pay my own way. But at least Dulwich beat Haileybury so all is not lost.

  Good tidings! I managed to sell my first novel for £2/2/6d and several American magazines have asked me to write for them. Only trouble is that they don’t want my usual public-schooly stories, so I’m fresh out of plots. Any ideas? Dear old Jeames of Jermyn Street has made me the most spiffing pair of cream golfing bags. You really should see me. Quite the man about town, I’m told. Toodle-ooo for now.

  Would you believe it? I’ve just happened to arrive back in New York at the very moment the war in Europe has started! I suppose I could go home, but it seems rather unnecessary as from what I’ve heard the Kaiser will come to his senses soon and all the nastiness will be over by Christmas. In any case I’ve been struggling with the Psmith story, so I should probably wait till that is finished before doing anything rash.

  The restaurants in New York are quite magnificent and I’ve met this charming actress called Ethel with whom I’m smitten. Ethel has quite the sweetest daughter, Leonora, so I suspect I shall be staying out here for a little while longer, especially as I have to write another 15 novels by the end of next year. I hear that London has been hit by something called Zeppelins. They don’t sound very terrifying to me. More like the name of a popular beat combo!

  Now the war is over, it just so happens that we might be back in Blighty for a while. I can’t tell you how much I’ve missed the cricket; it’s been deuced difficult to get any of the Dulwich scorers at all. Though I did hear we drew with Harrow. I’m sorry you are having so much trouble getting your books published. The last effort sent me was quite brilliant, apart from the plot and the characterisation. I’ve come up with a splendid idea for a series of stories about a gentleman and his manservant. Everyone frightfully excited and I dashed off the first 30,000 words before brekkers this morning. Must go. Some frightful do at the Waldorf to attend.

  Here I am in Los Angeles being paid $30,000 to do next to nothing and still I’m finding life rather dull. How I wish I was back watching Dulwich as I hear we’ve got a demon offie this term. But since my new play is opening on Broadway and I also have nine Jeeves books coming out, I don’t think I will make it back. But do give my love to Binky and don’t worry about the Nazis. All this talk about war is just fooey. Much more pressing is how on earth I’m to pay my $100,000 tax bill. How does the government expect a man to live?

  Well, I have to confess the war rather took me surprise, but I can confidently predict it will all turn out to be a lot of fuss about nothing. It is damned inconvenient, though, as there isn’t a decent bottle of claret to be had in Le Touquet.

  I’m sorry not to have been in touch for a while, but there’s been this awful confusion. Some awfully nice Nazi asked me to do a radio show so I thought I’d keep everyone’s spirits up by making a few jolly remarks about the food in Germany and now I hear everyone back home thinks I’m a collaborator. Nothing could be further from the truth. I’m having a perfectly miserable time in the Hotel Adlon in Berlin. It’s almost impossible to write more than 20,000 words at a time before the air raid warning goes off. Can’t the RAF give a man a little peace?

  It’s wonderful to be back in New York. The Americans are so much more forgiving about my Nazi misunderstandings, though their magazines are refusing to run any more of my stories. They say they are too Edwardian. I ask you! But at least the hoi polloi are still dipping into their pockets for Jeeves. I’m sorry you are still having trouble getting published yourself. Your last 37 rejected manuscripts were triumphs ahead of their time. Talking of which, have you read the new Kingsley Amis and Evelyn Waugh? Insufferably boring, though I’ve written to both to say how much I admire them. The critics say they are the future: if so, it’s a future of which I want no part.

  Everything going marvellously well here apart from Snorks, Bill and Denis all dying and Dulwich losing a close run chase against Charterhouse. Next we will be playing grammar schools! Still, chin up and all that.

  Much love, Plum

  Digested read, digested: Don’t mention the wars.

  Public Enemies

  by Michel Houellebecq and Bernard Henri-Levy (2012)

  Dear Bernard-Henri Levy, We have rien in common except that we are both rather contemptible individuals. A specialist in farcical stunts, you dishonour even the white shirts you always wear unbuttoned to the waist. You are an intimate of the powerful, you wallow in immense wealth and are a philosopher without an original idea. Moi? I’m just a redneck. A nihilist. An unremarkable author with no style. These, then, are the terms of the debate.

  The debate, cher Michel Houellebecq? There are three approaches. 1. You’ve said it all. We are both morons. I agree that is the most likely, but then we have no livre and we generate little publicity.2. You are a moron, but I am a genius. This, I must admit, I also quite aime. 3. We are both geniuses and we debate why we are so misunderstood and hated. This one is more tendentious, I think, but for the purposes of mutual masturbation and knocking out a livre, it has, as they say, plus de jambes.

  Dear Bernard-Henri, it is time that I quote Baudelaire, Schopenhauer and Musset to establish my credentials as an intellectuel. I think you must enjoy the hatred: why else would you Google yourself vingt fois par jour? For moi-même, my desire to be hated masks a desire to be loved. I want people to desire me for my self-disgust. Perhaps.

  Cher Michel, Yet again you misunderstand me. I do not Google myself out of self-hatred, but out of amour propre. I can assure you that nothing can dent my preening narcissism and self-regard. Those that do hate me do so purely because I am Jewish and drop mort gorgeous. Toujours les petits gens want to bring down the colossus who has it tout. Regardez mon bon ami Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Is it his fault that chaque femme who comes near lui gets all moist? It’s a cross he and I have to bear. And while I’m about it, I can also quote philosophers and artistes. Cocteau, Sartre and Botul. So there!

  Dear B-H, I must confess I have never read Botul and cannot access my library as I am now living
in Ireland. I can’t say the pays has much to recommend it as the inhabitants are trop dense to parler Français but at least the taxes are minimal and my hard-earned cash doesn’t get spent on Muslim illegal immigrants. Shall we now be a little more daring in our exchange and enter the arena of the confessional? Let me commencer by saying how much I hate my père et mère. Along with everyone else.

  Mon cher Michel, the confessional is not my style. Oui, I write a daily diary of 10,000 mots, but that is for moi seul and is the bare minimum required to record my breathtaking insights. I hate the fact that people jump to conclusions about me, based on what I write. They call me a disaster tourist. A fraud. How dare they? Even Jesus was treated better than me. But let me get one chose straight. My own père et mère were parfait. For only from perfection can come perfection, as Spinoza and Hegel might have said if they had been as clever as me.

  Dear B-H, We have more in common than I thought. We are both horriblement misunderstood by a monde that refuses to accept our own estimation of our talent, and I see now that I, too, have Christ-like qualities in the suffering I endure for portraying the world as it is and not how people would like it to be. Not that I believe in anything but my oeuvre. As for your onanism, I am not sure I quite understand your position.

  Michel mon cher, it is monadism, pas onanism! Though I admit it’s a facile mistake to make. Try to think of my faith as Judaism but with no god and moi at the centre of the univers. And quel univers! While ordinary gens were born to work in magasins and places comme ça, I was born to write and make love avec mon coq enorme. That est ma vie. As I said to mes amis Nicolas et Carla the autre jour, I write for 12 hours et puis I pleasure women for 12 hours.

  Dear B-H, sex is immensely disappointing for me as on the few occasions I manage an erection I always suffer premature ejaculation. So that just leaves writing. I know that whatever I write will be canonical, but I am unsure what to write next. Perhaps poésie? My biggest fear is that the pack will win and I will die unloved and unregarded.

  Mon cher Michel, the pack will never win and our names will live on with Kant, Nietzsche and Camus as the greatest penseurs of our generation. It does not matter what you or I write next. It is assez to know that whatever we do it will be brilliant and far too good for the little minds who will tear it to pieces. You et moi, we will live for jamais!

  Digested read, digested: Pensant in the wind.

  Liberation, Volume 3: Diaries: 1970–1983

  by Christopher Isherwood (2012)

  Wrote three sentences of Kathleen & Frank. Totally exhausted. Sent Gore a thank-you letter for having us to dinner which was not even acknowledged. Don the Angel says that’s the height of bad manners. Saw Swami and meditated very badly. Arrived in London. It’s terribly cold, and my temper was not improved by being taken to see a terribly pedestrian performance of Hadrian VII. Wrote four sentences of Kathleen & Frank before getting a near-fatal nosebleed. Still freezing cold, so went to Strand Sauna where two men exposed rather ordinary cocks. Weighed myself. 150 pounds. I am extraordinarily obese.

  Journeyed to St Tropez and New York where we dined with Morgan, Wystan, Stephen Spender and a host of young men dressed in way-out clothes. My weight has dropped to 149 pounds, and I have a small bump on my hand from where I slipped on Santa Monica Boulevard. This can only mean I have cancer. Poor Don. I do hope he will manage without me.

  Dodie Smith has asked me to read her latest book. It is cuntily pitiful, but I shall have to be polite about it. Was just settling down to write another sentence of Kathleen & Frank when I was interrupted by the extreme shortness of Michael York’s shorts. My weight has ballooned to 151. Went to the opening of Don’s exhibition of portraits of famous people he has met through living with me. I think they are brilliant, but everyone else is very bitchy about them. Crossed out a sentence of Kathleen & Frank. Sometimes I feel as if I am going backwards.

  Worked with Don on a screenplay of Frankenstein. The studio says the title is very promising. Dinner with Anita Loos and Truman Capote, before going on to several film premieres, none of which was better than mediocre. The mood in Hollywood is still against homosexuals. Why can’t the Jews be more tolerant? I have a twinge in my upper buttock. Unquestionably, it is fatal.

  Eventually got round to reading Travels with My Aunt and surprised myself by staying awake. More than can be said for Claire Bloom in Hedda. She’s really not up to it. Went to see Swami to discuss my meditation but he had died. Kathleen & Frank finally published and sold 172 copies, while the play I let Don write with me has had six performances in a bus shelter. That’s a success, I suppose. Not that I care because I have a spot on my neck which is almost certainly cancerous. Tried to read Philip Roth but gave up as he is too Jewish.

  Larry phoned me to say Wystan had died, but seemed oddly perturbed I wanted to talk more about my headache. Angel agreed Larry has no sense of time or place. Ed says he loves our version of Frankenstein, but could we do a screenplay about a mummy instead. Read Byron and Wordsworth for inspiration before having several lunches with Tennessee to discuss how boring Urban Cowboy is. Rushed to hospital with rectal bleeding. Turned out I had just eaten beetroot. My weight is 149 and a half pounds.

  Have just written a book about Swami which no one likes. I feel I should trawl through my diaries for another autobiographical novel, but I really can’t be bothered as I feel a bit dizzy. Kathleen asked me to say a few words at Ken Tynan’s funeral. So I got up and said: ‘A few words’ and sat down again. Don has another exhibition of portraits of famous people he met through me. Why is it only me who thinks he’s a genius? I have a lump that is definitely cancerous. I lie down and wait to die. The biopsy reveals it is benign. But fuck it. I’m 78 so I’m going to lie down and wait to die. I’m waiting. I’m still waiting…

  Isherwood died four years after writing his final entry.

  Digested read, digested: Goodbye to LA.

  Counting One’s Blessings: The Selected Letters of Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother

  edited by William Shawcross (2012)

  Having been fortunate enough to write hagiographies of both the Queen and the Queen Mother, I was honoured to be asked to edit this collection of the Queen Mother’s letters, which reveal her as one of the most important letter writers of the twentieth century.

  A Palace Somewhere, 1914–2001:

  Dear Medusa, Mama, the Queen, Bertie and Assorted Crawlers, Mama tells me there is a war going on. It sounds too, too terrible. So many balls have been cancelled. Last night Glamis Castle caught fire and one of the staff got a bit burned trying to put it out. I now know what our men must have gone through at the Somme.

  Thank God the war is over. There have been so many parties this summer that I feel I have scarcely spent an evening at home. Bertie keeps sending me flowers and has proposed at least twice, but I do rather think I can do better.

  How happy I am to be your wife, Bertie, though I do find the political situation worrying. Taxation is very high and Daddy says he might have to sell a painting or two. Gosh, the Labour party are awful SNOBS.

  It is most trying being away from baby Lillibet for several months at a time, but Bertie and I are absolutely loving our tour of Africa. Bertie shot a lion yesterday and this morning I bagged a rhinoceros. What very odd creatures they are. I do so miss Cowes week, but the benediction of the Archbishop of Canterbury does help with the loss.

  Thank you so much for sending me your latest poem, Mr Sitwell. It has been a great comfort while the Trade Unions have been behaving so badly.

  A Certain Person, whom I cannot bring myself to name, has been very difficult. I do hope David comes to his senses.

  How strange, though not unagreeable, it is to find myself Queen. Bertie has just awarded me the Order of the Garter. I want you to know, David, that I continue to uphold you at all times and I have absolutely no idea how my reply to your previous letter went unposted. I shall have to fire the servants.

  Your book fills me with hope, Mr Sitwell.
How fitting it should arrive on the day Mr Chamberlain should return from Munich and we can all rest safe once more. Bertie has just told me we are to tour Canada. Why Canada again? How I long to go somewhere else.

  So we are at war with the idiotic Germans again. Buckingham Palace has been bombed. Ghastly! But some good news at least as Mrs Greville has left me her jewels. Mr Churchill has committed a grave faux-pas by congratulating the Indian troops. They are Bertie’s troops to congratulate. How I miss Mr Chamberlain.

  Thank you for the copy of your new book, Mr Sitwell. I know it will help me recover from the loss of my husband.

  Life is awfully difficult without an equerry, Elizabeth, but thank you for my annual 48-hour stay in Balmoral. The fishing was magnificent. Charles is a most amusing young man, and gave me the most super towel for my birthday.

  Thank you for your poem, Sir John. I couldn’t agree more about Slough. One of my horses pulled up lame in a hurdle race at Lingfield. At least the racing does keep one so busy that I find I have nothing to say about the family divorces or the death of Diana.

  If I may say so, Elizabeth, I do think we should reward the nice Mr SHAWCROSS with a knighthood. (This important letter has only just come to light.)

  Digested read, digested: Queen Zelig, the Queen Mother.

  The Letters of TS Eliot: Volume 4: 1928–1929

  edited by Valerie Eliot and John Haffenden (2013)