Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

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Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1 Page 89

by Christopher Isherwood


  Both Igor and Vera were adorable, as usual; and Bob [Craft] was in a friendly mood. They served magnums of champagne, which Gerald managed to drink and disapprove of, simultaneously. They’re planning to go to Greece in June. Igor looked very well, but complained of all kinds of ailments. Michael kept Bill Stroud off in a corner, as if he weren’t big enough to listen to grown-up conversation.

  The night before last, I saw Harry Brown. We got drunk together and played pool at the Try Later bar. Harry, though obviously drinking heavily, was quite cheerful and looked sunburnt and much slimmer. He blames Speed for the breakup of his marriage, says he’s still in love with Marguerite (“I only pulled a gun on her once, to keep her at home”) but is anxious to marry again as soon as he can afford it.

  As for our buying the Sycamore Road house, we’re still waiting to hear from Hal Greene. I think he is passing through a phase of final jitters about parting with it.

  Since our return, Don’s morale has been fairly good—despite the depressive behavior of his mother, who seems determined to shed as much gloom around her as she possibly can. She refused to come and look at our movies the other night, on the ground that she didn’t want me to see her so fat! All this upsets Don, of course; and his problem of what to do with himself remains unsolved. All I can do is to try to stop him getting panicky and remind him constantly that there’s plenty of time.

  April 8. Grey all day yesterday. Grey again this morning. Dangerous idling weather.

  Last night we had supper with Jo and Ben, and they showed their slides of our Mexican trip. I wanted to see them, to recapture some of the Mexican atmosphere, for my novel. What chiefly struck me: the dark blueness of the sky, the extraordinarily strong light of the setting or rising sun striking upward at the undersides of the palm trees and making their fronds flash with a metallic sheen, like swords. The bandstands—some of them imported from France, perhaps: fancy lace ironwork, supported by naked girls. The disproportionate size of the great twin-towered baroque churches. The utter absence of any sort of landscape gardening: buildings arise and stand up unapologetically in the midst of dumps and barren lots.

  I absolutely, absolutely must get on with the novel. Just add page to page, without too much considering, until I have a first draft—no matter how short, how crude.

  Quoted by Gerald at the Stravinskys’ party: “Talent does what it can, genius does what it must.” I don’t really understand what this means.

  April 9. Grey again today, but there was a bright spell around lunchtime which I could have taken advantage of but didn’t, because Don had gone into town and I didn’t feel like going on the beach alone. Instead, I’m grateful to say, I’ve worked on the novel. Another page. All that matters right now is to go quietly, almost stealthily ahead—to sneak up on the pony in the field and catch it while it’s grazing.

  Otherwise, everything seems either negative or neutral. The war situation gets to look worse and worse in Israel.324 We saw Jo and Ben off to Portland and Seattle this morning, and they’ll return next week only to leave again for Florida till June 1st. Hal Greene has given us no word about the house. No signs of a job or a sale of material to TV, radio or film—other than the tiny windfall from Jacob’s Hands.

  Last night we had supper with Marguerite. She’s now staying at one of the Duquettes’ apartments—$150 a month with only a shared bathroom and no kitchen.

  Marguerite herself didn’t make a very pleasing impression. She talked indiscreetly of Kazan’s efforts to seduce her—yet admitted that when he called her in the middle of the night she changed into morning clothes (“because I knew he’d keep me a long time”) and drove clear into town to his hotel. Furthermore, when he opened the door to her with no clothes on, she went into his room “as if there was nothing the matter” and lay down on his other bed. Nevertheless, she told him that he was completely unattractive to her!

  Don was much depressed after this and began to slip back into one of his black, self-hating moods. He has been almost entirely free of them since we got back here. I hope he finds an art school or something regular to do, soon. At least, he has started at Harvey Easton’s gym, and Easton has told him to eat more, which is good because I often think his tenseness is due to undernourishment.

  April 10. Supper at the Weingartens’, last night. Jessie looked much slimmer and younger, after her serious heart attacks—but later in the evening her face was very tired. Two daughters were there, with husbands, a British doctor and his wife, a man who was something to do with smog control. The British doctor is a member of Jessie’s team which is researching the causes of coronary disease. They think it has something to do with an excess of male hormone in men, of female in women.

  Dinner was dull, as it always is at their house. Not enough wine, and the beef was tough. The British doctor was covertly aggressive—wanting to pick a quarrel with someone over Cyprus.

  Larry, unusually friendly, talked about the old days in Hollywood and how beautiful the city used to be. (The smog expert thought that the problem was practically hopeless, as long as automobiles are automobiles and rubbish is incinerated.) Larry was Jackie Coogan’s press agent. He told stories of fortunes made and lost in real estate.

  April 13. Rain the last two days, and it still hasn’t cleared properly. Tomorrow I’m to go up to Santa Barbara with Swami, see the new temple and spend the night.

  The novel is started (seven pages) which is some encouragement; but I’m really still pushing ahead through the darkness, hoping some light will break.

  We’ve just been to see Scott Poland in the UCLA hospital. He really is a very sweet boy, and I wish Don would make friends with him. Don made another big scene last night, and cried. It was the usual thing: his terror of the future and his guilt because nothing has been started yet. Also he was terribly depressed by Madame Bovary, which he has just finished. Last night, he said he wanted to have a talk with Evelyn Hooker about his problems—but today her number didn’t answer, and I have the feeling he’ll back out of it.

  Meanwhile, it begins to look as if Hal Greene had found a house for himself, which would mean that we could move into 434 Sycamore without much delay. But he wants us to put up more money—nearly 20,000 in all, plus 3,000 odd for the furniture. This will save us interest later, but it will mean that we shall be down to our last couple of thousand dollars, until I can make some more. Don immediately volunteered to add his one thousand dollars he has saved up, remarking: “After all, if I expect to be treated as an adult, I ought to share expenses.” This is typical of the quality in him that makes all his character problems not only bearable but endearing. I never for one moment regret our having settled down together—and it is much more often for better than for worse.

  Yesterday I had supper with Tom Wright. Speed and Paul [Millard] were there. Speed whispered to me that they had been having “a big fuss” and I got the impression that Speed wants out. He seems to be regretting his old freedom.

  In the afternoon, we had drinks with Kazan. He isn’t a very pleasant character, I think. He talked quite bitchily of Tennessee. Tennessee’s new play is opening in Miami on Monday,325 being done by some local theater group. How I wish we could be there! Since making Baby Doll,326 Kazan has really fallen in love with the South, which he describes as “grotesque and tragic.” He says he never understood Faulkner till he went there and saw it for himself. At first he was threatened and the set was actually fired on. A Negro who was being hunted by the marshal took refuge with his company. But later, everybody got along fine.

  Well, here’s the end of this volume at last. I’m so glad that I’ve gotten back the diary habit and I hope I won’t ever lose it again. Will try to start the new volume tomorrow.

  1 Travelers crossing the equator for the first time are tried at a mock “Court of Neptune” and subjected to ritual practical jokes such as ducking or being lathered and roughly shaved.

  2 “I was in the war.”

  3 The French Catholic novelist Georges Bernano
s had lived with his family on a buffalo farm in Brazil during the war.

  4 As in Konrad Bercovici’s 1926 novel The Volga Boatmen, filmed by Cecil B. DeMille the year it was published.

  5 The liberal leader, Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, was assassinated in Bogotá April 9, sparking major riots and disrupting the Ninth International Conference of American States; General George C. Marshall, as secretary of state, was leading the U.S. delegation.

  6 “America big, France very little … Piss.” (Isherwood’s spelling evidently reflects Caskey’s poor pronunciation.)

  7 Xavier Herbert’s 1938 novel about the Australian outback.

  8 His dog.

  9 Literature and drama critic, then writing weekly for The Sunday Times.

  10 Poet and translator from Chinese and Japanese.

  11 German-born English painter, grandson of Sigmund Freud.

  12 Naif painter funded by Peter Watson; Waugh mentions “Scottie” Wilson in the opening chapter of The Loved One (1948).

  13 More Poems, XXIII.

  14 Rassine was the dancing master, Helpmann the Rake.

  15 Novelist, essayist and travel writer (1881–1958).

  16 Heath was executed for the savage sexual murders of two women.

  17 King’s Counsel, i.e., a barrister who serves as counsel to the Crown, taking precedence over other barristers.

  18 I.e., Member of Parliament.

  19 A Dewey victory in the November 2 presidential election was so confidently predicted that newspapers announced the outcome wrongly with banner headlines; Truman was the winner.

  20 The Seven Storey Mountain: Autobiographical Reminiscences (1948).

  21 See Glossary under Ramakrishna.

  22 Pedro Armendariz (1912–1963), Mexican film star.

  23 Francis Turville-Petre; see Glossary.

  24 Possibly Sasha Pitoeff, a member of the theatrical family.

  25 Evidently slang for music halls or dance floors.

  26 The School of Tragedy, later The World in the Evening.

  27 The Easiest Thing in the World.

  28 The owner of 333 East Rustic Road.

  29 A black acquaintance.

  30 Mann had committed suicide in May; see Glossary.

  31 Probably for the Vedanta Society magazine, but never written.

  32 “California Story” (1951), given not to Lehmann but to Harper’s Bazaar and later reprinted in Exhumations as “The Shore.”

  33 “The heaven of my hands protects you.” The French novelist and poet Raymond Radiguet, Cocteau’s lover, died at twenty.

  34 For Britten and Pears, on tour in America.

  35 Of the Vedanta Society.

  36 On November 18 or 19, Charlton brought three or four men to Isherwood’s house for a drink and got into a fight with one of them. Charlton deliberately allowed the man to bloody his face because, as he later told Isherwood, the fight might have attracted the police if he had tried to defend himself.

  37 Don Bachardy’s older brother; Isherwood did not yet know the correct spelling.

  38 During the raid at the Variety on December 4, Isherwood and Charlton were questioned at the Santa Monica police station. Both denied being homosexual, and they were released.

  39 Based on the relationship between Denny Fouts and Tony Watson-Gandy.

  40 Based on Isherwood’s friendship with Michael Leopold.

  41 Based on Strongheart (the film dog) and Gerald Heard’s theories of psychological evolution.

  42 Kelley was arrested for indecent exposure in a round-up of gay nude swimmers on the Riviera Beach near Point Dume.

  43 Eleonora von Mendelssohn, a German actress in Max Reinhart’s ensemble; her brother, Francesco von Mendelssohn, was a Viertel family friend.

  44 Rudolf Forster.

  45 In fact, οδεις means no one.

  46 In Christopher and His Kind, Isherwood explains they parted May 12 and Heinz was arrested May 13.

  47 The film My Foolish Heart, adapted from J. D. Salinger’s story “Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut,” premiered in 1949 and launched a popular song of the same title.

  48 North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25, the start of the Korean War.

  49 Caskey had returned to California in April; his “blue discharge” from the navy (neither honorable nor dishonorable) made it unlikely he would be drafted.

  50 Influenced by the work of Austrian emigré architect Richard Neutra.

  51 Natasha Sorokin, Moffat’s wife; see Glossary under Moffat.

  52 Author and translator, widow of journalist Lincoln Steffens (1866–1936) and afterwards wife of playwright and screenwriter Donald Ogden Stewart.

  53 The Rake’s Progress.

  54 Isherwood was reviewing it for Tomorrow.

  55 Saint’s image, probably made of wood and painted or carved.

  56 The Dutch forger; see Glossary.

  57 Her birthplace; see Glossary.

  58 The photographer Alfred Stieglitz (1864–1946) had been Georgia O’Keeffe’s husband.

  59 In Wales.

  60 In the Isle of Wight.

  61 A technique derived from Zen; see Glossary under Benoit.

  62 Their new car, a Ford Anglia.

  63 A slight misquotation from the Theologia Germanica; see Glossary under Eckhart.

  64 Sylvia Berkman’s Katherine Mansfield: A Critical Study; the review, for Tomorrow, was reprinted in Exhumations.

  65 Kathleen Isherwood’s London house.

  66 The Huntington Hartford Foundation; see Glossary.

  67 For the Vedanta Society magazine, later reprinted in John Yale’s book What Vedanta Means to Me (1960).

  68 The films, made in 1949 and 1946 respectively.

  69 Isherwood and Caskey were both now back in South Laguna.

  70 Isherwood and Caskey gave the party. The guests included two men besides Caskey in whom Isherwood was interested; Isherwood later recalled that he probably argued with Caskey afterwards.

  71 Sam and Isadore.

  72 See Glossary under UFOs.

  73 Baroness de Chantal (1572–1641), widowed at twenty-eight with four children, took a vow of chastity and found a spiritual advisor in St. François de Sales. He called her “the perfect woman”: of noble family, a faithful wife, devoted mother, and good housekeeper. She founded the Order of the Visitation to enable ladies of delicate health to lead the religious life by emphasizing humility and meekness rather than corporal austerity.

  74 The Devils of Loudun; Huxley was recovering from a severe attack of iritis.

  75 By William Goyen and Donald Windham respectively.

  76 John van Druten adapted Isherwood’s Berlin stories for the stage.

  77 Co-producer with Starcke of I Am a Camera.

  78 Van Druten’s agent.

  79 At the end of November 1951, I Am a Camera transferred to New York where it became a hit and Julie Harris a star as “Sally Bowles”; Isherwood spent Christmas with his mother and brother in London, and in February 1952 he visited Berlin—for the first time since 1933—where he saw Heinz Neddermeyer with his wife and son and visited his former landlady, Fräulein Thurau, now famous as Fräulein Schroeder (Schneider in Van Druten’s version). Caskey had joined the merchant marine.

  80 “California Story” for Harper’s Bazaar.

  81 Cambridge, where Forster was a Fellow.

  82 They had just met in New York; see Glossary under Costidy.

  83 Murtogh David Guinness (b. 1913), younger brother of the second Baron Moyne.

  84 Isherwood had a 1929 dual language text with John Carlyle’s translation (edited by H. Oelsner):

  … “Sullen were we

  in the sweet air, that is gladdened by the sun,

  Carrying lazy smoke within our hearts;

  Now lie we sullen here in the black mire.”

  and:

  for to describe the bottom of all the Universe is

  not an enterprise for being taken up in sport,

  nor for a tongue that cries mamm
a and pappa.

  85 Swami Asheshananda.

  86 Ross covered the filming of The Red Badge of Courage for The New Yorker; Gottfried Reinhardt was the producer.

  87 James Agee (1909–1955), American novelist, poet, critic, screenwriter.

  88 In fact, the Latin-American festival welcoming back the souls of the dead is generally celebrated on November 1, All Saints Day.

  89 Straddling the border of Arizona and Mexico.

  90 Ted’s Grill.

  91 Edward Whymper, Scrambles Amongst the Alps in the Years 1860–1869 (1900).

  92 Composed in 1924 for viola and small chorus; inspired by the Song of Songs.

  93 Stalin’s death in 1953 was announced March 6. For the Faraday Box, see Glossary under Garrett.

  94 Heard’s term for the homosexual and for the homosexual’s desirable role in social evolution.

  95 Walter Benton’s 1943 book of love poetry; the Masselinks liked it, but Isherwood did not.

  96 The dancers.

  97 President of South Korea, 1948–1960.

  98 For passing atomic secrets to the Soviets.

  99 Dodie Beesley was a great admirer of James (her 1949 play Letter from Paris is based on “The Reverberator”).

  100 Great English Short Stories (1960).

  101 Ramakrishna and His Disciples eventually appeared in 1965, and the stories about Basil Fry and Francis Turville-Petre became “Mr. Lancaster” and “Ambrose” in Down There on a Visit (1962).

  102 On Diane.

  103 The World in the Evening had appeared in June.

  104 Isherwood’s secretary.

  105 Reinhardt’s secretary.

  106 Caskey had begun a business beading sweaters.

  107 Isherwood had punched Harrington; see Glossary under Harrington.

  108 Henry Cornelius, the director of the movie I Am a Camera, had suggested that Isherwood come to London for the filming starting in October, and Isherwood wanted to see the London stage production (John van Druten had liked Dorothy Tutin as “Sally Bowles”). But Bachardy could not get a passport without permission from his draftboard, and this depended upon the outcome of his physical, also scheduled for October. In addition, Isherwood was uneasy that Bachardy was not yet twenty-one.

 

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