Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  Pains in the penis, bladder and rectum. Enlarged prostate? Felt awful. We had to go to a concert by Bob Craft—in memory of Dylan Thomas. But the music had nothing to do with Dylan. And Igor’s setting of “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” seemed almost insultingly feeble—coming right after the magnificent voice of Dylan himself, on a record. How I loathe concerts! That’s a prejudice I’ve never lost. The audience was large and contained several people I dislike meeting—Peggy Kiskadden, Mrs. Herbold, Curtis Harrington, Bernardine Fritch.119

  Knopf and I saw [Dore] Schary this afternoon. He thinks the script is “brilliant.” Tomorrow we’re supposed to get it all finished.

  October 23. Got back from San Francisco yesterday. We went on the train—the Lark. Perfect weather. The trip a real success.

  Now I’m free of MGM and really have to get down to work. Jessie Marmorston’s vitamins and hormone shots have made me feel wonderful—though Bill Kiskadden maintains that the hormones may induce cancer of the prostate—and there’s no doubt that the vitamins make you fat.

  While in San Francisco we saw Wystan a good deal. According to him, what I have to do is go on writing and solving the “I” problem in narration. Gerald, on the other hand, is more interested in my relationship with Don, which he regards as a most significant biological (or should I say evolutionary?) experiment.

  More of all that later.

  November 1. An elderly couple are staying at the Hookers’. The lady is iron-silver haired, sour-sweet faced. I was telling Evelyn about our projected trip to Key West, to visit Tennessee Williams and watch the filming of Rose Tattoo. Evelyn asked if we were going by plane. “Oh yes,” I answered, “if you go by train it takes for ever.” “It took the pioneers for ever,” the elderly lady put in, with her sour-sweet smile, “to cross this country.” A typical puritan rebuke.

  An old page in my notebook—probably written quite early this year:

  Simple questions like, “Fill it up with ethyl?”—why are they so depressing? Almost the last straw.

  A young Negro driving a truck piled high with auto junk—fenders, parts of the chassis, etc. As he peered up from under the sun visor on the windshield, it looked as if he were being crushed by the weight of metal above him.

  Ladislaus Fodor says: “In my young days I edited the most highbrow magazine in Hungary. The least thing we were talking about was God. God came into my plays like a butler.”

  An old actress—one of the public’s discarded toys.

  November 2. Slowly, slowly. Make no plans for writing. Don’t say: I ought to write. Just wait until inspiration orders. Be content with daily jottings. Put down anything that occurs to you, however seemingly silly. All that matters is to cultivate the habit of recording. I’ve been saying that for the last thirty years—and yet I don’t do it.

  December 1. Worried about the Caskey problem. I feel there will have to be a showdown with him, now that Tennessee’s here.120 Bill tries to maintain the fiction that this house is a place he can drop into, any old time—and my life ditto. It is pathetic, of course, like Gus Field’s indiscretions121—but both are intolerable. Bill doesn’t really like Don—why should he? So I have no right to put Don in this false position, just because that’s easier than quarrelling with Bill.

  Now we’ll see if Don gets through this next physical, and how the trip to Mexico goes off, and how I’ll spend next year—will it really mean going to India and writing the Buddha picture?122 It all sounds like fun and I am lucky. But I mustn’t lose touch with Swami—I’ve seen hardly anything of him—and with Gerald. That is more important than anything else, including my writing.

  Tennessee’s letter to Kazan, about his play.123 It seemed to indicate such appalling desperation that my first instinct was not to take it seriously. Must talk to Tennessee and try to find out more.

  It seems chilly, almost northern, here after Key West.

  We went to see Gerald this morning and he told us about his experiences while taking mescaline. These are points he made.

  The drug took about forty-five minutes to begin working. Its effects lasted more than twenty-four hours.

  In Gerald’s case, the phase in which objects are seen with heightened intensity soon gave way to a merging of all objects into brilliant light, and an experience of what Gerald called “the second level”—the consciousness or power which projects the objects. Gerald claims that he was also aware of upper levels above this. He was also aware of power—the tremendous power of which this universe is an expression. He felt no terror, or even awe. He felt that this power was far too great to concern itself with punishment. There was no question of forgiveness, even. In the presence of this power, the little faults and failures of the personal ego seemed too small for mention. “The idea of a Last Judgement,” said Gerald, “is utterly ridiculous—because one sees that there’s no Last and no Judgement.”

  The really bad things seemed to him to be malice, and mockery of others. Also, he felt very strongly that one shouldn’t be reserved, shouldn’t have secrets. Nothing really mattered except letting yourself go with the cycle—birth, life, death—and not resisting it. Not holding on to possessions or power.

  Gerald experienced no sensations of touch, taste or smell.

  He developed psychic powers for a while, and saw “between people’s eyes.” He saw why Aldous had to be blind and Maria have cancer, but he didn’t see her dying of it soon. He saw an immense will and ambition in Willy Forthman. It alarmed him.

  He only had one hallucination—that a tree outside turned into an X-ray tube and the ferns around it became Javanese dancers.

  Unlike George Huene, who wandered all around the garden, Gerald had no wish to go out. Everything was “here.” George also ended up feeling this, however. He squatted down and plunged his hands into the soil in order to “get in touch”—and he said, “This is all you need.”

  I believed what Gerald told us. It was, indeed, very moving and at once applicable to myself—so that I saw how I should have to behave more charitably toward Caskey than I’d intended. I can’t simply reject him—or Gus Field. Just the same (Don noticed this too) there was a good deal of vanity in Gerald’s narrative. It was all built up to prove that he went much further than Aldous, not to mention George. Of course, I can quite believe that too, because meditation is the ideal preparation for mescaline, and Gerald really has done plenty. Gerald more or less admitted that he had advised Dr. Osmond not to give me mescaline, because I’d “been through so much.” This annoyed me. But I blame myself for not having insisted on it more.

  One other thing—Gerald was particularly shocked by the way people moved and walked. He described it as “spastic.” He said that their movements, as seen under the influence of the drug, betrayed such terrible tensions and inhibitions.

  December 11. Sitting on the second floor verandah of the Miramar Hotel on the beach at Guaymas.124 The sun is about to set. Jo and Don are sketching it. Ben is in his room, writing up notes for an article.

  We drove down here today from Hermosillo; the night before that, we slept at Gila Bend, having left Los Angeles early that morning (December 9). We’re on our way down the west coast to Mexico City, where Jay Laval and Christmas parties await us.

  I’ll be glad when we leave Guaymas, the day after tomorrow. This place keeps reminding me of my unhappy visit here with Caskey, just over two years ago. Well, what am I to say about all of that? The vacillations of my attitude toward him are merely depressing, now. The sad thing to realize is that a relationship can eat itself away and slowly be destroyed. I had a talk with Caskey before I left, and what it really amounted to was that I had to prevent myself turning it into a quarrel, as an easy lazy way of washing my hands of him.

  Well, I think this trip is going well, anyhow. And if I learn nothing else from the memory of the other one, let me at least realize that I can never never be kind enough or considerate enough of Don’s feelings and problems. He has been through a horrible experience.125 />
  It’s so restful being with Jo and Ben. Jo really bosses everything, decides everything—and that’s what I need, right now. I sleep like a dog, in consequence, and have a terrific appetite. Mexico is one of my very favorite countries, anyhow—but I’d die rather than live here. I don’t understand Latins.

  Don’s joy, when he is happy, is so wonderful. So is Ben’s utter satisfaction when we get the right brand of Tequila (I’m sipping it now) or the dinner is good. Jo is much tenser. She has constant pain in her back, and there’s the eternal strain of “keeping up.” She gave her age to the customs at Nogales as forty-two. Don thinks this is ten, if not fifteen, years out.

  Driving out of Gila Bend very early, we saw that much-advertised sight—the planet Venus fading slowly into the dawn. At night, in Hermosillo, the shops and vacant lots containing tractors for sale were all brilliantly lighted up, like movie theaters. As we left Gila Bend, a line came into my head: “The Department of Death announces the departure of His Holiness the Pope, now loading at Gate Number One.” Would “now unloading” be better? Actually, the Pope seems to be recovering.126

  This afternoon we strolled on the beach, and Ben lay down on the sand and said that whenever he did this in a foreign country he dreamed of being a beachcomber. This is a true revelation of his character. At lunch he started talking to me enthusiastically about three-day drunks. Jo discouraged this conversation as subversive. If she thought I was a real drinker I believe she’d never see me again—for his sake.

  It’s funny. If one said this about almost any other woman, it would mean she was a bitch. But Jo isn’t one, and I’m really very very fond of her.

  December 12. This morning we went fishing. This was a great occasion for Jo and Ben, because it represented the chief ceremony of our initiation into the ritual of their holiday life. If we failed, we would be excluded—not because of their wish but because we would have failed to share in the most important of their experiences.

  We didn’t fail. That much is certain. Because the weather was perfect, and we both sincerely enjoyed most of the outing. The trip out of the harbor, amidst the islands and under the shadow of the fretted red rocks, streaked white with guano where the sea birds sat like saints in cathedral niches. There were pelicans, cormorants, loons, hawks and great black frigate birds sailing above. Also porpoises breaking the water, and one baby seal. Don and I were the first to catch fish—a mackerel and a sea trout respectively. Then we got into a school of mackerel and all caught lots. And then Jo caught a real big fish, a sixty-pound grouper, and made such a fuss that it was exactly like a woman having a baby in the street. Later, the mate of the boat we’d rented cooked some of the mackerel on board. They were delicious with beer. Ben kept exclaiming, “This is the life!” and gloating over the unfortunates who were driving up and down the Hollywood Freeway. Jo let out cries of utter anguish: “I’m so happy!”

  When we got home, Don somewhat surprised me by saying exactly what I’d been feeling—that he’d enjoyed himself up to a point, but that he found the catching of the mackerel boring and inhumane—it was so ridiculously easy and we got nearly forty between us, and, of course, gave them away when we returned. (It must be said, however, that an old man got them and either ate or sold them—they weren’t wasted.) And then Don added that Ben’s remarks about city life made him want to rush into a bar and drink cocktails and race up and down the freeway forever.

  I record all this for the sake of recording, not from bitchery. Because, actually, a foursome holiday is only healthy if it includes some criticism. I can’t imagine coming down here with two more suitable people than Jo and Ben, and I feel confident the trip will be a success.

  December 14. Yesterday we drove down here (Álamos) via Empalme, Obregón and Navojoa. Most of the way, the country was flat, dusty, rather uninteresting. The road in from Navojoa to Álamos is full of chuckholes but not too bad.

  There is a hotel here, the Casa de los Tesoros, which is run on a kind of luxury-amateur lines. That is to say, the hot water is hot, there are fires in the rooms, everything is clean—but, you have to “mingle” with Mr. and Mrs. Gordon and their guests. The Gordons are writers, documentary moviemakers, puppeteers, professional bohemians, owners of Mexico’s beauties—you’ve got to see them through their eyes. Well, anyhow, whatever their faults or virtues, it’s most useful to find such people at a place like this. Mr. Gordon cooks—well, but not as well as he thinks.

  Our fellow guests were a Mr. and Mrs. Martin. He a retired Greyhound bus driver, with white hair and (we think) a mechanical leg. She a fair-haired eager little creature, who has worked in offices and as a waitress. She read about puppets in a book and made some—beautifully—Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus. She took a class in school on how to tell stories to children. Mr. Martin looks severe, but doesn’t want to be. I think he is a member of Unity. They are going to settle in Mexico, at Lake Chapala, probably. It’s their first trip outside of the States. I think they are only recently married.

  Hard to describe her sweetness and her quality of pathos. Perhaps she is almost a saint, because, unlike the merely good, she doesn’t seem provincial or stupid. She is so alive that she could talk to anybody—Aldous, Einstein, Eisenhower—and not lose any dignity.

  This city is a sort of ghost town—formerly founded on great riches of silver. Now the tumbledown houses are being restored by Americans. But the place isn’t quite beautiful enough. Only average.

  The sort of American who comes here is violently possessive, and refers to people stateside as suckers. The only question is: what does one do, here?

  Last night, a fiesta. Professional gamblers (illegal but winked at) ran two kinds of roulette games. One with a toy train running round a track and stopping opposite numbers. The other with a wheel into which you shot a dart through a blowpipe. The dart often missed and the croupier had to take another shot.

  Am writing this in hot sunlight on the plaza, while Jo and Don do water colors, watched by children. On the church tower sit buzzards with outstretched wings, sunning themselves. Don said they were drying out the Mum.127 In an hour we’ll leave for Culiacán, our objective for tonight.

  December 15. Culiacán is a dusty dirty town, and the Hotel Maya—without being horrifying—had almost all the features of the classic Dirty Hotel. There were chickens and roosters outside. A bad smell from some kind of filth in the stagnant water of a cistern. Strident radio from a billiard saloon and barber’s, below. This recommenced at 7:00 a.m. this morning. Jo, talking to me on the house phone, said, “Shall we dance?”

  Also there was the classic fanlight over the door which let in a shaft of electric light—right into Don’s eyes as he lay in bed.

  The old man from San Diego with a Cadillac and a Mexican driver, who’d made it down from Hermosillo since that morning and planned to reach Mazatlán the same night. Hearing we’d been six days on the road he exclaimed, almost with indignation, “What have you been doing? Walking?”

  Now we’ve arrived in Mazatlán and have moved into the Siesta, in time for lunch.

  December 16. Yesterday afternoon we drove out along the beach to an unfinished luxury hotel they’re building. An American had gotten his car stuck in a sand road. Ben tried to help, without success. Then a man came along with a jeep. He was an American merchant seaman, out driving with a lively and gaudy Negress named Gaby Tondelayo, who told us she came from Haiti, but that Paris was her second home. She claimed to be an entertainer and invited us to come and see her at the Café O’Brien. We did, yesterday evening, but she wasn’t there.

  I don’t know if the merchant seaman’s jeep car did pull the other car out of the sand, or not.

  I’m not writing down these details for any reason at all except that I want to get back into the journal habit and overcome the sloth of not writing. Very faintly, since yesterday or the day before—yes, it was at Álamos—I glimpsed an idea for a novel. Something quite unlike me—Kafkaesque—about a journey. A journey which is meticulously d
escribed and yet unreal: the reality being the relationships between the characters. Maybe they are all dead—as, in a sense, the characters are in Hemingway’s The Sun Also Rises.128 Also, I see elements in it of The Day’s Journey, my projected film.129

  We spent the day on the beach, and Ben speared a rooster fish. Again, Don and I reacted against his and Jo’s excitement. The killing of the fish seemed merely senseless, and Don said that Ben suddenly seemed “oafish.”

  December 17. Drove to San Blas. This is an almost perfect South Sea island landscape, with straw huts, naked children, palms, overpoweringly green shiny vegetation. The hotel out on the Playa Hermosa had quite nice rooms reeking of antimosquito spray, and horrible food. The boredom of the immense flat sea and beach, with the water so shallow that you could wade into it until you were exhausted or got stuck by a stingray. One sensed the desperation of a tropical exile. Yet the place is so beautiful, especially where the river flows into the sea.

  December 20. Here at the Hotel Frances in Guadalajara, after a night at Lake Chapala. The great lake is majestic and sad, even though it has shrunk so much, and [Witter] Bynner’s house is one of the most attractive places I’ve ever seen.

  Why is it so hard to write this diary? Because the mood of the diarist is objective and solitary. One needs to be alone, while writing—and on a trip like this one never is. Well, I shall keep making marks on the paper.

  [1955]

  January 13. Back at Mesa Road. Nothing from MGM yet. The problem of Don’s future—shall he continue with college?

  Am fussed, though for no real reason. What I miss is the contemplative side of my life. I want time alone—time just to stare out the window and take stock.

  The novel still seems attractive, though still very vague.

  The weather is cool but beautiful.

  The inner life has to be recultivated—ruthlessly.

  We all got sick in Mexico City, except Ben, and this colors my memories of it. Much was beautiful—but underneath was a feeling of harsh unease and tension. I don’t think I could ever settle down to live at that altitude. And the settlers like Allen Walker were so busy proving how sensible it was to live there, because steaks were cheaper, etc. Tito [Renaldo], a rather tragic figure, uncertain if he had made the right choice.