by John Calder
The circumstance that made Dead Fingers Talk sell, and which totally diminished any prospect of an obscenity case being brought against Burroughs and ourselves, both for that book and for the novels that followed it during the next few years, was a long attacking review in The Times Literary Supplement. Like all TLS reviews it was anonymous, but we later learnt that it had been written by John Willett, a deputy editor, and the leading British authority on Brecht. Entitled “UGH”, it ran for a full page and was less a review of the book in question than a condemnation of all of Burroughs’s work. The reviewer had taken the trouble to buy and read Girodias’s Travellers Companion editions of the three novels that had been digested for our carefully selected volume of extracts. He attacked the style, the syntax and the language, but above all the subject matter. Here are a few extracts:
Struggling upstream through it [The Naked Lunch] is not unlike wading through the drains of a big city. The first shock effects are strong as the rash reader plunges in, then a steady nausea follows which hangs around him long after he has fought his way into the fresh air, finally boredom with the endless monotony as he tries to pick up his stinking feet and skip… On and on it flows, lapping slowly around what soon becomes a stereotyped debris; ectoplasm, jelly, errand boys, Ferris wheels, used contraceptives, centipedes, old photographs, jockstraps, turnstiles, newts and pubic hairs…
Such is the texture of the grey porridge in which Mr Burroughs specialises… Three brimming books… Now the author has fished out an assortment of lumps… stirring the mixture and topping it up to make a fourth, slightly more hygienic bucketful which can be cast before us swine.
Glug glug. It tastes disgusting, even without the detailed but always callous homosexual scenes and the unspeakable homosexual fantasies – pure verbal masturbation…
The review goes on and on, printing extracts to underline the reviewer’s points, always expressing disgust, and ends with the following comment:
If the publishers had deliberately set out to discredit the cause of literary freedom and innovation they could hardly have done it more effectively. Let us hope that they are left to appreciate the probable impact on their own reputation, and indirectly on that of the other authors on their list, without any interfering body turning them into martyrs. Any juryman can vomit, but only one verdict can clear up the mess: that of the book world itself.
The review appeared on 14th November. The following week the TLS printed my reply, nearly as long. I objected to the attack on me as a publisher, but defended the book, pointing out that Burroughs could be viewed as a visionary and a moralist, who detested nasty things in society that we have cause to fear, and might avoid if we knew about them. I also pointed to his originality, humour and satirical talents. The same issue carried another letter from Michael Moorcock, which called the review “pompously subjective, thoroughly distasteful and inaccurate”. He also defended Burroughs on literary, scientific and moral grounds. Apart from his own novels, Moorcock edited New Worlds, the most distinguished science-fiction journal of the time.
Then came the deluge. For thirteen weeks the correspondence grew in volume. More and more pages were devoted to it every week. Much of it was reported in other newspapers, and the circulation of the TLS grew considerably as ever more people wanted to follow the attacks, counter-attacks and arguments that were put forward. The anonymous reviewer came back several times and never retracted, but increasingly he was on the defensive as Burroughs’s fans and supporters came forward, both in numbers and in the force of what they had to say. Eric Mottram, then lecturer in American literature at King’s College, emphasized Burroughs’s seriousness and importance, Kenneth Pitchford, an American, describing the original review as “a hysterical scream”, stated that Burroughs might well be one of the most important living writers, but even if he were not, he deserved to be seriously reviewed, given that serious critics took him seriously. Anthony Burgess came in late, pointing out that many things in life are revolting and that he was revolted by some of his own subject matter, as in The Clockwork Orange, but that the function of fiction was to describe the unpleasant as well as the pleasant. He referred to William Burroughs himself as “that courteous, hospitable, erudite, gifted and dedicated writer”. Many publishers wrote in, notably Victor Gollancz, Robert Lusty and Roger Straus. My duel with Mr Gollancz in the course of the correspondence was almost as extensive as my duel with John Willett (the anonymous reviewer). I treated Gollancz with courtesy and respect, suggesting that our differences, for we shared many causes and had taken part in the same campaigns, was a generational one. I also assumed he had not read Burroughs. Back came Mr Gollancz: “Mr Calder, in the pride of his shining youth, must not accuse even a palsied old man of commenting on what he hasn’t read. I choked down The Naked Lunch in America last spring, in spite of almost intolerable nausea.”
One correspondent who had not read the book she was attacking was Edith Sitwell. Her letter deserves to be quoted in full:
Sir – I was delighted to see, in your issue of the 14th instant, the very right-minded review of a novel by a Mr Burroughs (whoever he may be) published by a Mr John Calder (whoever he may be).
The public canonisation of that insignificant, dirty little book Lady Chatterley’s Lover was a signal to persons who wish to unload the filth in their minds on the British public.
As the author of Gold Coast Customs I can scarcely be accused of shirking reality, but I do not wish to spend the rest of my life with my nose nailed to other people’s lavatories.
I prefer Chanel Number 5.
Much of the correspondence dealt with censorship issues in general, rather than with the book under consideration, and many red herrings were also thrown in. On 26th December I received a surprising Christmas present from Harold Hobson in the correspondence – not about the book, but about me, as some of the letters had previously abused me in several ways. Hobson’s warming tribute ended as follows: “I have known Mr Calder for several years; there are few among my professional acquaintances about whose character I have formed such definite opinions. Mr Calder is a man of absolute integrity. His catholic and adventurous taste in literature has led him to publish some of the decisive books of our times. His courage is unshakeable: nothing will move him from what he thinks to be right. I would put a child in his care, and my bank account in his keeping.”
The final editorial came on 30th January 1964, and it was obviously written by the editor himself to close the correspondence. It summed up the arguments, drew no final conclusions and was moderate in tone. From my point of view, the correspondence had cleared the air, established the author’s reputation in Britain and made it impossible in practical terms for any prosecution to be brought. We followed Dead Fingers Talk with The Naked Lunch later in 1964 and continued with the other novels. There was one we could not bring out in Britain, because Barney Rosset at Grove Press bought world rights and sold it to Jonathan Cape out of spite over our Henry Miller quarrel. It was Nova Express. Burroughs did not like this any more than I did, but there was nothing he could do.
Burroughs had by now moved from Paris to London. He found a flat in James Street, off Piccadilly, where he soon had a new entourage that included Michael Portman, Antony Balch, Ian Sommerville and one or two others. I did not see him often, but sometimes arranged to sit down with him to clean up a manuscript before publication, a job that bored him. He was only interested in what he was writing that day, not in anything he had done in the past, even a week earlier.
* * *
I have recorded briefly the 1959 Aldermaston march in which I took part. I marched again in 1960, but this time it was rather more like a planned party. Roy Jones, badly crippled, but hungry for new experience and excitement, wanted to come along, so we pushed him in a wheelchair. Bettina was along for part of the time, Reggie Smith (R.D. Smith, drama producer of BBC radio) was with us for much of it, pushing the wheelchair and chatting to Roy, and we had
Reggie’s wife, the novelist Olivia Manning, and others from their circle. There was always a crowd of actors, BBC personnel and young girls surrounding Reggie – a popular, effusive, clubbable personality, and a mainstay of the many pubs around the BBC in Langham Place. I ran into Michael Hemans, the gynaecologist who had performed a Caesarean operation on Christya to deliver my first child. He was in a caravan with a young crowd, a mixture of jeunesse dorée and political friends. I realized for the first time that Hemans was a communist, although a champagne one. There was certainly much champagne in his caravan, which operated as a slowly moving bar. I think Marion was there for at least part of a day. One interesting sight was seeing Tom Maschler of Jonathan Cape driving up to the middle of the march and parking his conspicuous car behind a pub as we camped by the road with our picnic lunches at about one o’clock. A minute later he came out from behind the pub, casually dressed, walked around the groups who were eating their lunch, nodding to some, speaking to others, and then, when the march resumed, walking casually back to the pub. A few minutes later I saw his car whizzing past us on the road back to London. It was trendy to be on the march, but it required a lot of effort. It was at about this time that he wrote, together with Frederick Raphael, a book called The Success Man, which Cape published under a pseudonym. It was a guide to becoming a fashionable, social success. The book was as shallow as its authors.
I cannot be absolutely sure that the march I have just mentioned took place in 1960. It may have been in 1961. By then CND, the highly successful campaign to get out of the nuclear arms race, had enormous support and it was tearing the Labour Party in two. But the campaign, in the opinion of many, was too tame to be really effective, and a splinter group was breaking off as Canon Collins and Bertrand Russell differed on policy. Lord Russell then formed the Committee of 100, dedicated to civil disorder along Gandhian lines. The reason to limit the campaign to one hundred celebrated people was that the authorities were always reluctant to arrest people who were well known and would attract publicity. I joined the Committee, although I was not one of the first hundred members of it. In any case it soon became a movement of several thousand. There was to be a big rally in Trafalgar Square on 17th September, and this was definitely in 1961.
One evening I received a phone call just as I was leaving the office. The big demonstration had just been banned by the police. The organizing secretary had to get a leaflet out to the entire mailing list overnight. It had to be stuffed into envelopes, addressed and posted instantly. The purpose was to urge our supporters to defy the ban, to come anyway and risk arrest. The volunteers were ready, but they had no premises; could they come to my flat, which they had been told was big enough? I said yes, and got home just as they began to arrive. They brought trestle tables, chairs, boxes of leaflets which had just been printed and envelopes.
The trouble was that Bettina and I had tickets to the theatre that night. Feeling guilty, I left them all – there must have been about thirty – and returned to find the flat a hive of industry. There could be no question of going to bed, so we joined the workers. Then from about three o’clock in the morning, three of us in different cars began to circulate around different London post offices, pushing hundreds of envelopes through the letter boxes. The reason for the dispersal was to attract as little attention as possible. If tens of thousands had been delivered to the All-Night Post Office in central London on even the next day, it would have excited comment, and the letters would have been seized, because they summoned supporters to an illegal gathering.
On the big day, a Sunday, there was a lunch party at my flat with Tondi Barr, a friend who ran the catering at the Tate Gallery, Lucy and Roy Jones, Marion and perhaps one or two others. Then we walked to Trafalgar Square, which was already teeming with people. There were police vans and policemen everywhere, but they had stopped trying to prevent people entering the square. On the steps of the National Gallery, waiting to be arrested, was Lord Russell, surrounded by prominent members of the Committee, mostly playwrights, artists and political figures. I was soon separated from my companions in the south-east corner, near Nelson’s column, and everyone around me started to sit down and hug their knees. I did the same, and a few minutes later was picked up and thrown into a police van. From there I was taken to Bow Street Police Station and pushed into a cell with about a hundred others. More kept arriving, and we were all standing and crushed together. Then we were taken out again and deposited in another police station in Hampstead, and two hours after that, when it was too full, moved to yet another, somewhere near Barnet in the outer suburbs.
I finally spent the night with one companion in a small cell. He was a young Air Force man, not yet twenty, on leave, who had felt compelled to take part.
Late the next morning another police van took us to Bow Street Magistrates Court, where we had a long wait before we were in front of the magistrate. I think about thirty thousand had taken part in the demonstration and some thousands had been arrested. When I finally arrived in the dock, there were about ten of us in line, and I was the first. The Air Force man was next to me, and beyond him were John Osborne, Robert Bolt, Arnold Wesker, John Arden and others. “How do you plead?” I was asked.
“Guilty of necessity,” I replied, and went on to give my reasons. I was heard for about a minute and then stopped. “How do you plead?” the Air Force man was asked. “Guilty of necessity,” he replied. The same answer was given by each of the others, and no further comment was allowed. We were each fined, I think £50, and released. The hearings went on all day in that and many other London courts simultaneously.
The ringleaders, including of course Russell, were all given several months in prison. To send a world-renowned eighty-nine-year-old philosopher to prison on a matter of conscience was highly newsworthy, and liberal opinion everywhere was outraged, giving extra strength to the Committee of 100, which by now had put CND in the shade. I was to remain an activist from then on.
Two of the others from the lunch party had been arrested, Bettina and Tondi Barr. They were in adjoining cells in Greenwich, where Tondi had rung every few minutes for assistance and then asked them to send out for champagne: she was dying of thirst! They both appeared in front of a magistrate in Woolwich who Tondi knew well, and no one could stop Tondi when she wanted to speak her mind. Both the police station and the court must have been pleased when they let her go.
One of the active directors of the Committee of 100 was Pat Pottle, a radical printer, who had escaped arrest, but was wanted by the police. I put him up in my flat for about three weeks. There was a false ceiling with an attic above it, and there was a ladder always ready that he could pull up after himself if the police ever came looking, but they never did. Pat found other places to hide, and I had secret meetings with him during the next few months. He was to hit the headlines years later when he was charged with helping George Blake, a spy for the Russians who was probably a double agent and about whom there is still much controversy, to escape. Pat was acquitted after giving a brilliant speech in his own defence that I only read in his obituary in 2000.
David Mercer, my author, was deeply involved in all this, and he had been commissioned to write a television play for the BBC about civil disobedience. This rather hampered his political activity, because he did not dare get arrested. At a big demonstration at the RAF Wethersfield Air Base outside London, I took part in a sit-down, blocking the entrances, which went on for all of a long day and into the night. I was sitting beside David’s wife, Dilys, and on the other side of me was a ship’s doctor in a duffel coat. I had gone in a warm town overcoat and proper suit, believing it a good way to give a more favourable image of the demonstration, but I was cold and wet, as it rained sporadically. Every half hour we could see David Mercer driving anxiously by and peering over at us. We were kicked by irritable RAF officers trying to get through, and at one point Ludovic Kennedy, then a BBC reporter, stuck a microphone under my nose and asked me why I
was doing this. When I began to tell him and he heard my accent, he pulled the microphone away and asked the ship’s doctor, who also began to give him an articulate answer. Again he pulled away the microphone and found a young working-class boy who no doubt gave him the answer that he wanted: that it was all a bit of a lark.
David Mercer finished his play, A Climate of Fear, and we later published it as part of a trilogy of documentary dramas in a volume entitled The Generations in 1964. It was a success on television, although the BBC was much criticized by the right-wing press for commissioning and airing it. David Mercer is really the father of documentary television drama. We were to publish many more of his plays, although at one point we lost him to Methuen. He was a strange mixed-up character, full of guilt at not having stayed true to his father’s vision of a socialist society with working-class values. With fame came middle-class living standards and attitudes, and he coined the phrase “Hampstead Man” to describe himself and others like him. Interestingly, his brother became a nuclear scientist and was knighted for it.
My cell mate, the Air Force man, had been arrested outside the court by the RAF as we came out and was sentenced to an open prison. I corresponded with him and went to visit him once. He was quite miserable. Some time later he wrote me and asked me to send no more letters, and I lost touch.
* * *
I cannot exactly place the date when Beckett and Burroughs first met. There were only two such occasions, and I was present on both. The first was after a Frankfurt Book Fair, probably 1963, when Girodias, who must have been in reasonable funds at the time, gave a large dinner in his restaurant for about twenty people at a long refectory table, in the basement of his building, where at one point he also had a theatre. At one end of the table, sitting with Maurice, were two métisse girls, both bed partners of his; Barney Rosset was at the same end. In between were other Olympia authors, talking about their own interests, and at the bottom were Beckett, Burroughs and myself. The table was conversationally split in three, and there was little contact between the three sections. Barney was interested in the girls – they were not the only ones there – and in their relationship to their host, scenting something kinky.