Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  Draft letter, Poggio al Pozzo | Siena | Italy | 1 December 1977

  Dear Deborah,

  I am delighted by the news. From all you tell me I would much prefer someone like Jim Silberman to handle it than be pressed through the mangle of Harper and Row et al. Especially with this peculiarly dotty book. The 5000 bucks sound fine to me: the dollar just would have to go down, now of all times. I don’t think I shall come over. The cost by air is horrendous and I can’t face the train or bus in this weather. The best thing is that Kasmin brings out the contract on December 23rd.

  I would like to [write to] Silberman myself, because I have certain minor changes that could, if he thinks fit, be included in an American edition. The thing that most concerns me is the blurb: Don’t repeat this to T[om] M[aschler] but I thought Cape’s blurb a. rather over the top b. downright misleading.

  There were certain things I flatly refused to say in the text for fear of sounding pretentious, but as none of the reviews picked up agreed that the book had, despite the collage effect, a pattern, a form even, but no one quite picked out what the form was, I wonder if it would help to do a bit of explaining.

  Lots of other things have been said about Patagonia. I saw and did lots of other things in Patagonia, but cut them out for a specific [reason].

  A. The book is the narrative of an actual journey and a symbolic one, admittedly using very concrete symbols.

  B. Patagonia is the furthest point to which Man walked from his origins on foot: therefore it is a symbol of his restlessness. Maurice Richardson described it as a ‘springboard to the Void’.

  C. From the moment of its discovery, the southernmost tip had a tremendous effect on the literary imagination, especially writers obsessed with The Voyage in this world and the Voyage out of it. Hence in the text: the Baudelaire, Coleridge, Poe, Donne, Cendrars, even Shakespeare, are never chosen at random.

  D. The form of In Patagonia described in the Daily Telegraph as wildly unorthodox is in fact as old as literature itself. It is supposed to fall into the category or be a spoof of Wonder Voyage: the narrator goes to a far country in search of a strange animal: on his way he lands in strange situations, people or other books tell him strange stories which add up to form a message. [Is not the Gilgamesh epic nor the Argonautics nor Beowulf.]

  E. All the stories and characters were chosen because they illustrate some particular aspect of wandering and/or exile – all the reasons for emigration are there: political, criminal, pressure of family, the lure of the sea, or the passion, simply, to move. Cain, Abel, Moses, Aaron etc

  I am of the view that the photographs even perhaps the map don’t help.

  I had in mind to write in another text beside the one of Blaise Cendrars which I love. Which should give the game away a bit more:

  The most important from Chapter 1 Moby Dick.

  ‘Then the wild and distant seas where he rolled his bulk; the unbelievable, nameless perils of the whale: these, with all the attending marvels of a thousand Patagonian sights and sounds, helped sway me to my wish.’

  I did not put this in because George Gaylord Simpson, doyen of American palaeontologists, has used it already for his 1930’s travel book Attending Marvels. And a very good book too!

  In Lima Chatwin had learned from Monica that her mother Isabelle had been raped by her employer when hired as a governess to a Scots family in Patagonia. On 28 November 1977 Monica wrote to Chatwin expressing her ‘pain and shocked horror – yes, horror’ over a paragraph in In Patagonia which dealt with this ‘pitiful experience’. (‘One night the whisky-soaked proprietor went for her and laid her down. She ran from the house, saddled a horse and rode through the snow to Punta Arenas.’) She sent the letter via Chatwin’s father, to whom she wrote the following day: ‘Bruce came to me knowing some of this story – I told him the truth and begged him – literally begged him, in your home that night, not to print anything of my Mother’s story . . . But I am asking you now, if you can, because you are a lawyer, to urge Bruce to change the text of page 173.’ On 3 December she also wrote to Cape: ‘This paragraph is full of conjecture and half truths and quite clearly impugns the honour of both my parents.’ Chatwin had given an impression of Isabelle – ‘never Bella!’ – as a ‘rather cheap adventuress’ preying on the soft heart of a lonely old man when, in fact, she was ‘respected by all who knew her’. Another objection was to the footnote in Chapter 72 concerning the bankruptcy and imprisonment of Chatwin’s great-grandfather, Robert Harding Milward. And there was a question of copyright. ‘While I gave Mr Chatwin access to my father’s “Journal” and a letterbook covering the years 1912-16, I certainly did not give him my permission to photocopy my father’s Journal.’ To Chatwin, she wrote: ‘I understand now why you insisted on staying on, shut up in your room upstairs while we were in the process of moving house.’ She accused him of having ‘lifted’ sections ‘word for word from my father’s Journal – ‘which is our one inheritance from him.’

  To Monica Barnett

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 14 January 1978

  Dear Monica,

  I am most sorry not to have written before. The postal service has all but broken down in Italy. I did not receive your letter until after Christmas, acted on it, and returned to London to see what could and should be done.

  In Patagonia will be published in the United States by Summit Books, who are a subsidiary of Simon and Schuster. The process had already gone farther than I knew, but, mercifully, the letter came just in time to halt the printing.

  I deeply regret what has happened and take full blame for misinterpreting your wishes. I had understood that you wished to exclude all reference to the circumstances of your brother’s birth.460 I phrased the episode vaguely and this has led to the trouble.

  The picture I wanted to convey was of two people, of different ages and backgrounds, both stranded at the end of the world; both wronged by a society (which, for all I can learn of it, was considerably off-beam), both of whom found consolation in each other’s company and fell in love. Otherwise, to me at least, their behaviour is inexplicable.

  That your father should have looked after her is typical of him: his sympathy for the underdog was automatic; hypocrisy was an anathema to him. That your mother should have returned to a place that must have been hateful to her, that she should have supported him through his disaster, is surely proof of her rocklike character and her devotion. That the Milwards (please let us mention no names) misunderstood their relationship is history. That the ‘true Britisher’ element in Punta Arenas ostracised them is something I learned from two people, who recalled events before 1919 with astonishing precision (though I fear one of them hispanicised the name ‘Belle’).

  But the idea that your mother, in her condition, would have had ‘carnal relations’ before her marriage is something that never entered my head. If there are innuendos to that effect, I most humbly apologise for them and promise they are not there intentionally. It is safe to say that no reviewer (and I think no reader unaware of the facts) has picked on the episode.

  The image of my great grandfather loomed over my life almost as much as ‘the piece of brontosaurus’. After my grandmother’s death I found his court suit and sword in a tin trunk. But you are quite right about the footnote, though it does give a hint of the somewhat fantastical nature of C[harles] A. M[ilward]’s family in England. It does not now belong in the text, but it did have a place in the original draft.

  I did not take the facts of Harding Milward’s bankruptcy from family sources, but from a standard biography of Winston Churchill. Milward apparently looked after the finances of the young Winston. The naval historians whom I consulted also make it clear that the decision to ignore Consul Milward’s report on the Dresden came from Churchill himself, then First Lord of the Admiralty. I voiced the possibility that the two were connected, but that paragraph sat like a lump in the text and I cut it out.

  It is quite clear that the footnotes and the offendin
g paragraph must come out of future editions. There is a paperback in the pipeline; possible foreign translations, and then a reprinting since the first edition was small.

  The changes I have forwarded to the US publisher are as follows.

  p.148 Cut footnote.

  p.157 Cut ‘The Milwards’ and ‘as Milward gossip maintained . . .’

  p.173 Para 1 should now read:

  Meanwhile the ex-consul’s life had taken a new direction. He had met a young Scotswoman called Isabel, who had got stranded penniless in Punta Arenas, after working on an estancia in Santa Cruz. Charley looked after her and paid her fare back to England. He was lonely again once she had gone. They wrote to each other: one of his letters contained a proposal.

  Belle came back and they started a family . . .

  p. 174 Change Bella to Belle . . .

  2nd para ‘Belle kept the books: she would carry on for nearly forty years . . .’

  The question of copyright. In your house I made rough notes from the letter-book and the stories. Only when you allowed me to take the manuscript to the photocopier, did I get copies of The Wreck, Smallbones, The Doctor and his Wife, The Albatrosses, The Emperor of Brazil, The Dancing Pygmies, Hobbs and the Onas, The Salesians and the Alakalufs.

  The Albatross story is probably the ‘best’. The Wreck was essential to my tale but I had to paraphrase it to bring it down to size. But by far my favourites are Smallbones and the Doctor’s Wife, both of which I would love to have used but are long and plainly belong to your story rather than mine. Instead, apart from the marvellously funny paragraph on Dom Pedro, I stuck to three small stories which concern the fate of nomadic peoples, a vital sub-theme of my book.

  In Patagonia went to press when I was in Brazil last spring. In Cape’s view my letter confirming your ownership of the stories was sufficient as long as there was an acknowledgement. I, however, insisted on crediting you on the copyright page for those stories which were reprinted almost verbatim; though not for the ones which were, for better or worse, contracted, paraphrased or adapted.

  I always wanted C.A.M. to [do] the talking. His tone is inimitable. Had I never seen the manuscript the result would have had the character of a reconstruction from secondary sources. For me it is clear when he does talk, he is talking out of your source-book.

  To clarify the position we should retain the copyright on the title page and adapt the note as follows:

  Captain Charles Amherst Milward.

  I could not have written this book without the help of Charley Milward’s daughter, Monica Barnett, of Lima. She allowed me access to her father’s papers and the unpublished manuscript of his stories in her possession. This was particularly generous since she is writing her own biography461 in which the stories will appear in full. My sections 73, 75 and 86 are printed with minor alterations. His other stories, from sections 72 to 85, have been adapted from the original.

  Please can you confirm whether you agree? I hate to try and rush you after what has occurred, but additions and subtractions are complicated and costly at this stage. The book is being offset in America and not reprinted. The publication is announced for the spring and if it fails to meet the date, it will have to be delayed till Fall. I have asked them to hold back till I hear from you. As each day counts, would it be too much for you to send me a cable to Holwell Farm?462

  Please forgive.

  yours ever,

  Bruce

  To Valerian Freyberg

  Inscription to In Patagonia, 16 February 1978

  For Valerian, when he’s a little older and feeling restless. Affectionately, Bruce

  To Ivry Freyberg

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 22 March 1978

  I’m crazy about my godson and want to see him more and more often.

  I may be off to India in the week to interview the redoubtable Mrs G.463 now making a comeback. Wonderful to see you all! Much love, Bruce

  To Cary Welch

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 21 May 1978

  Dear C.,

  I got back from Injuh to find your very welcome cheque, all the more welcome in that I have bought a flat in Islington, tiny but remarkable flat sitting in a garden with wild ducks nesting all round.464 You would never have guessed what I’ve been doing: interviewing, travelling with that nightmarish lady, Indira Gandhi, have covered virtually the whole of India, from Cape Cormorin to the Himalayas, on her whistle-stop tour.465 She’s far worse than you’d ever imagine. I was prepared to allow her at least a dimension of greatness, but all you find is a lying, scheming bitch. If she were really evil, that would be something. If she were really Indian, that also would be something. Eventually I decided she was the memsahib behind the silver teapot congratulating General Dyer466 on his courageous action at Amritsar. One of her ex-Cabinet Ministers said to me: ‘The atmosphere round Mrs G[andhi] is like that of Arsenic and Old Lace.’467

  She charmed me at first, I have to admit. But I couldn’t stomach the pettiness of the lies. Her enemy Charan Singh468 summed her up when he said: ‘Mrs Gandhi is incapable of telling the truth even by mistake.’

  I did have some extremely funny times. Not the least was our visit to the Durga Temple in Benares, where a monkey with mastitis tried to rip off her sari. When I told the Rajmata of Gwalior that she had dipped herself in the Ganges, she said: ‘Sacrilege!’

  Now Benares is a place I wouldn’t mind holing up in. Where else do the Ancient World and Twentieth Century Decadence meet in such harmony? The only trouble was a temperature of 42 degrees centigrade, with the result that I came back feeling a bit dessicated.

  Sorry for the quick note. We hope to be over shortly, love B

  On Mr Dhavan’s desk (her Assistant Private Secretary) I found a manual for ventriloquists called Mimicry and Monoacting.

  To Monica Barnett

  Draft letter, Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 10 June 1978

  Dear Monica,

  Now it’s my turn to apologise for the delay. Your letter reached here the morning I flew to India to interview Mrs Gandhi (and that’s another story). The one to Deborah Rogers had got there three days earlier. I spent six weeks in India and since coming back have hardly had time to eat, let alone think.

  In the meantime the advance copies of the New York edition of Patagonia have arrived here, not seen yet. I’ll have the publishers send you and Lala469 a copy each. If there’s anyone else you can think of I’d be very happy to do the same . . .

  Now, with regard to the stories, I accept your position and most sincerely apologise for the misunderstanding. If I am in the wrong, then I am deeply in the wrong. But I recall the matter differently: I was not at all certain, in Lima, whether you would allow me to photocopy the journal, and was therefore extremely pleased, when one day after lunch when Gertrude and Elizabeth were there, you gave me the manuscript and told me I could go to the photocopiers. I have a copy of a letter to you dated 4th of May 1975, which starts:

  This letter confirms that I have photocopied biographical material relating to your father the late Charles Amherst Milward, and also a great part of his uncompleted book. I have also taken extensive notes. I understand that you have no objection to my using it in the book I shall be writing about Patagonia. I also understand that this permission is subject to the following condition: that you hold full copyright over the material in your possession and that when you come to write the full biography of your parents there shall be no prevention to stop you using the same stories that I will have used. The same will apply to any photographs that will belong to you.

  On my return to England I shall ask my literary agent to confirm this arrangement so that it is watertight.

  yours ever,

  Bruce Chatwin

  To Desmond Morris

  c/o Deborah Rogers Ltd | 5-11 Mortimer Stree | London | [June 1978]

  Dear Professor Morris,

  I did enjoy our conversation last week about my wolf child470. I enclose a fien
dishly bad photocopy of the piece and hope you didn’t mind my quoting you – or half-quoting you – in the final passage. If you feel that it’s wrong, please don’t hesitate to let me know through Deborah [Rogers].

  I thought you might like a copy of the book I wrote for Tom [Maschler] last year. American edition, I’m afraid.

  Yours sincerely, Bruce Chatwin

  While following Mrs Gandhi on her election tour, Chatwin had met Sunil Sethi, ‘the 23 yr old whizz-kid of Indian journalism’, who was starting out on India Today. Chatwin found him ‘an exhilarating companion. He had been everywhere in India, roughing it. He could take in Hindi and spit it out in English from the sides of his mouth.’

  To Sunil Sethi

  Holwell Farm | Wotton-under-Edge | Glos | 18 June 1978

  Dearest Sunil,

  Well, that was a cheering letter. I had been waiting for it with a certain tetchy anticipation. Admittedly, it came at the end of a more cheering week. Had it come the week before, I might very easily have taken the next plane to Delhi. I was laid out. Laid out with such a monumental depression that I couldn’t drag myself out of bed in the morning for fear of what frightful things the day had in store. I think I gave you to understand I was going back in such haste to see someone.471 This is not my usual practice: usually I delay departure for England (Le Tombeau Vert) until the last possible moment. However, when the someone met me at the airport, I knew that something was seriously wrong (frightening how people can change in a month), and for three weeks the wrongness built up in a crocodile of misery, while I battled at my typewriter with that beastly woman who had ruined my journey to India. Emotionally, I always seem to suffer from transcontinental dislocation. Anyway for the past month I’ve been cursing myself for leaving YOU and you’ll have to put up with it.