To Derek Hill
Back at Homer End, but wishing I was still at Chilandari | 29 July 1985
Gruelling drive across tourist-torn Europe; soggy fish and chips on the boat; catarrh on the by-pass – the usual tale of English woes! Much love, B
To Gertrude Chanler
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 6 August 1985
I thought of you constantly on Mount Athos – not that you’re ever likely to get there! – but because I had in my ruck-sack the little telescopic Tiffany beaker; and whenever, wandering along paths that can hardly have changed since Byzantine times, I would come to a spring (at which there was usually a cross, a shrine and a bench for weary travellers), I would take it out for a drink. Everyone predicted that Derek [Hill] and I would quarrel: there were even bets on it between Barbara Ghika and Elizabeth Glenconner:700 we were happy to report that not a cross word passed between either of our lips. The book is taking for ever, and I am cancelling everything to press ahead. By November, however, I’ll be in need of a break. Much love, Bruce
To Charles Way701
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [early August 1985]
Dear Charles Way,
I’ve been away solidly for five months and have only just caught up with your letter. If you would really want to, I can’t see any objection to putting my two old twins on the stage. We’d have to talk about it. There is the possibility about a Channel 4 film.702 Options have been bought; scripts have been written etc. But I’m afraid I can’t take too much interest in it because, on the whole, I loathe films – and particularly films doctored for a so-called television audience. I can’t for the life of me see how you’d do it: but that, of course, is your business. I very much like the sound of the Spanish Civil War play703 – a subject which interests me passionately. Anyway, the point of this scrappy note is to say that we should meet sometime soon, that is, if you’re still interested. I’ll be coming down to Brecon sometime and will give you a call. As ever, Bruce Chatwin
To Patrick and Joan Leigh Fermor
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [August 1985]
Dearest Paddy and Joan,
At least I thought that going to England in August might lessen the shock, climatically. But no! Nothing but rain. Freezing cold. I went wind-surfing on a scummy little reservoir near Oxford, and my hands were white and numb after ten minutes. But what I miss most are the mountains! The country round here is tolerably attractive, immaculately kept: but then you keep running up against the cooling towers of the Didcot power-station; the antennae of Greenham Common; the nuclear installations at Harwell – all of which give me the feelings of claustrophobia.
The usual run of crises with the book, which, I suppose, does plod on slowly. Compression is what’s needed. And when talking of compression, how’s this for the thud of nomad horsemen into one line (I mentioned it on one of our walks). Juvaini704 in his History of the World Conqueror reports this unconscious hexameter from the mouth of a refugee from Bokhara after the sack of Genghis:
‘Amdand u khandand u sokhtund u kushtand u burdan u raftand’
They came, they sapped, they burned, they slew,
They trussed up their loot and were gone
Juvaini, quoted by Yule in his edition of Marco Polo, p233, says that the essence of all his book is contained in this one line.
I’m writing to Rudi Fischer.705 I sent a letter apologising for my inability to show up, and got a splendid two pages in reply. Your ears would burn at all the things he says about you. If I could get clear of all the mess, I’d go on a visit, just for the sake of it.
Otherwise not much news. I seem to see Barbara and Niko [Ghika] constantly: I’ve gone up to London twice only, and each time to dinner with them. Miranda [Rothschild] very calm, composed, and almost regal in appearance.
Much love and from E.
Bruce
To Ninette Dutton
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 14 September 1985
Dearest Nin.
Lord how time flies. To think it was a month and a half since you were here. I’ve been in London three times only: the days go by; work, sleep, work, sleep – and the rain pours down outside. Yes, it was awful: I had to leave my race across Europe too late, and didn’t get anything like enough time with you. Besides I was, as always, a little thrown by my first days in England after six months.
God knows when the book’ll be finished: but the little bits I’ve shown around – to agents etc – have all been received quite well. E. and I are off to China: to Yunnan, which is completely new ground for me – around the beginning of November.
The New York Times are stumping up the fare: then we’re going to rent a house for three months in Kathmandu, where we have a great friend706 who has, it seems, endless Sherpa guides for treks into the mountains. I might just – towards the end of February – have got sufficiently far that I dare get on the plane for Oz.
Salman and Robyn came for the weekend and it was all rather jolly. It was the most sunny day and was something of an experiment in that we had no less than 8 soi-disant writers: a lot of egos sounding off, but we were able to open the windows so all the talk blew out over the sheep . . .
Much love, B
Love to Tisi
To Paul Theroux
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 16 September 1985
Dear Paul,
Patagonia Revisited 707 isn’t at all bad looking, is it? It’d be lovely to see you. I go to China in Nov. Bruce.
To Charles Way
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 16 September 1985
I should, in early Oct, be staying at the Tower for 2 weeks. Working – but there would be time off to talk.708
To Elizabeth Chatwin
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [September 1985]
E. Oh God! – as Joan [Leigh Fermor] would say.
1. Jacob R[othschild] has twisted my arm to attend a meeting – attend only! – on Friday lunch.709
1a. where this puts the weekend, can’t say.
2. I shall have to go to Oxford, tomorrow, have lunch . . . sign books, go to the Bodleian – then London.
3. The fireplace man is coming at 9.30 tom.
4. The glass man has been.
5. The Times rang up to try and get me to review. NO!
6. Possible to put creases in grey suit?
7. It’s too much!
To Ninette Dutton
Birr Castle | Co. Offaly | Ireland | as from Homer End | 1 October 1985
E. has gone off to India for her tour. Tremendous drama at the airport as she lost her passport and couldn’t fly with the tour!710 I have sloped off to Ireland on a ‘memory tour’ of old friends – Birr, now inhabited by my friend Brendan Rosse,711 has the most magical arboretum: 4 generations of plant-hunter earls. The leaves are just beginning to turn, and it is quite magical.
Could you drop on a postcard a piece of seemingly useless information. I need to know what in the way of fanged beasts a boy of 3 in 1954 would have seen in the Adelaide zoo. Would there have been a leopard? Or a tiger? Or lion? A dingo is a bit mild for my purpose. If not I shall have to make do with a fictitious Irish wolfhound or Alsatian in a neighbour’s house.
Ah well, I’ll be in touch with plans as I know them.
Much love, dearest.
Bruce
PS There is a totally weird Australian here, a Mr Bartlett from Perth. Knows Geoff [Dutton], slightly. Literary ambitions to write Australian short stories or an updated Suetonius, in the most haunted medieval town in Ireland.
PPS re the above. If there were such a beast i.e leopard I’d like a word about its history, name etc. How much was the age? Feeding time?
To Ninette Dutton
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [October 1985]
Dearest Nin,
Many many thanks for your note on the feeding of the lions. Exactly what I need: if only for one line of the book.
The blow, of course, is Piers Hill.712 What horrible decision to have to make – especi
ally in view of the garden. My parents faced exactly the same thing over our house in Warwickshire – just that much too big. Running into just that more than they could cope with – and I must say that by taking the decision to move to a small house when they did i.e. in their late 50’s and by their acquiring their shack in the south of France, they seem to live a happy, varied and very independent life.
But I’m sure you must have somewhere in the country. I know it sounds bananas to suggest it. But what if you not exactly demolished but let go half the house? Bankers and the rest always speak of ruining your investment without realising it is you who have to live there. The site at Piers Hill is so perfect, it makes me wish there was no house there at all, but a tiny log cabin. Of course you might find just such another site and build one.
I feel so hopeless so many thousands of miles away: but I wouldn’t be rushed. My friends in Ireland, the Rosses, who have inherited a vast castle and garden with very little money are amazed by the way in which things are working back in their favour. Life in cities has become so drab and meaningless that there is, in Ireland, at least, a flocking back to land by people who want nothing more than the roof over their heads and food in return for really substantial doses of work in the open air.
We leave for Hong Kong on the 7th Nov. I’ll keep you posted with the Nepal address as from Dec 1.
Much love B
To Ninette Dutton
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [November 1985]
Gearing up for our long promised month in China – we leave on the 7th for Hong Kong. Then (???). I’ve rented an Englishman’s bungalow in the Valley of Kathmandu. Dec-Mar. Be lovely if you could come.713 Much love B
To Charles Way
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [November 1985]
Dear Charlie,
Here is the book I promised to try and find.714 My method, very often, was to check out the ‘truth’ of one of these photos – which would then unloose a flow of reminiscences . . . Best of luck, as always, Bruce
To Ninette Dutton
Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 5 November 1985
Dearest Nin,
A quick line on the eve of departure. Yes, we, apparently, do have the house all through Jan – and would adore you to come. But I do want to know what I’m inviting you to, before inviting you – if you get my clumsy meaning. What it boils down to is this. E leaves me in Hong Kong on Dec 3rd and I follow 10 days later. She is going to inspect the house – then we’ll call you. Does that sound hideously complicated?
No. You mustn’t move to town.
Much love, Bruce
CHAPTER TEN
CHINA AND INDIA: 1985-6
On 7 November 1985 Chatwin flew with Elizabeth on the first leg of their journey to Kathmandu, where they had taken a three-month lease on an unfurnished house. They stopped off in Hong Kong to make an excursion into China, the New York Times magazine having commissioned a profile of Joseph Rock, the Austro-American botanist who lived from 1922-49 in the Lijiang Valley. By late November, they were back in Hong Kong. They went to the races – where Chatwin placed a bet and won: he spent his winnings on some rare tea and a trip to the Taipei Museum in Taiwan. Then, while Chatwin lingered in Hong Kong and visited the bird market, Elizabeth flew on ahead to prepare the house in Kathmandu. On his arrival, he found her sick with bronchitis and the original house let to someone else.
To Ninette Dutton
c/o Lisa van Gruisen | Tiger Tops | Kathmandu | Nepal | Christmas Day 1985
Dearest Nin,
Well, I finally got here from China and Hong Kong. We had an unbelievably fascinating time in northern Yunnan, on the borders of Burma and Tibet. I have put off going to China for so long, for fear that the China of my imagination, a kind of ideal China composed of such congenial spirits as Li Po715 and Tu Fu did not exist. But they are still there! We met a village doctor and herbalist,716 a sort of Taoist sage who went gathering herbs in the mountains, painted orchids and bamboos and wrote calligraphies of the great Tang poems.
Hong Kong’s a bit of a nightmare, but not without a certain fascination. On the Kowloon side is the area known as Mong Kok the most densely populated square mile in the world, but it really is astonishing how people can, if pressed, live in such numbers without friction.
To my bitter disappointment, our house in Kathmandu valley fell through at the last moment. The owner, a British ex-army type let it over our heads for six months instead of our three. Typical! I knew the house, knew it was somewhere I’d work well in, and it was quite a blow. Instead, for the time being we are in a minuscule cottage, built for one of the Ranas as a student right in the middle of town. Dust everywhere! And quite a lot of noise! Plus the fact that Kathmandu is the world’s Number One capital of respiratory diseases (that I didn’t know). Elizabeth promptly got bronchitis, and has half given it to me. This country is so wonderful the moment you get out of the city that I can’t regret coming here. But I think we’re a bit unsettled and quite honestly I think the only thing is to put on earplugs and knuckle down to the book for the whole of January and then think again.
I keep worrying about Piers Hill. Do let me know if you think there’s anything I can do to help.
Had a card from Robyn [Davidson] and Salman, who are using Homer End as a weekend retreat. Bitter complaints from them about the London fog.
All my love to you, Bruce
PS Tomorrow night, for dinner, we are meeting a Mr Chang, the Number One official in charge of foreign travel in Tibet. Now that really would be something, if we can swing a trip on him. All the places I dreamed of going to: Kashgar, Urumchi, The Takla-Maklan, Lhasa – are suddenly OPEN.
Over Christmas, the Chatwins were joined in Kathmandu by Kasmin – Ninette Dutton and Chatwin’s parents having cried off. But Elizabeth’s bronchitis had worsened. ‘The city was cold and damp and polluted, I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t lie down to sleep.’ Early in the New Year, Kasmin suggested that they leave. The three of them flew to Benares and drove to Delhi where Chatwin had arranged to meet Murray and Margaret Bail. Dropping Kasmin at the Oberoi Hotel, the Chatwins accompanied the Bails to Jodhpur.There, after inspecting several houses, Chatwin found the ideal place in which to complete The Songlines, a red sandstone fort 20 miles from Jodhpur.
To Francis Wyndham
Benares | India | [January 1986]
Have fled from disease-ridden Kathmandu: the world’s No 1 capital for complaints of the upper respiratory tract – and am now on the loose in India. I have, even with near pneumonia and the constant upheavals, done some writing.
Love as always, BC
To John Pawson717
c/o Manvendra Singh | The Fort | Rohet | Jodhpur | India | 23 January 1986
Dear John,
At last I have an address that may last a month or two. Our rented house in the Kathmandu Valley turned out to be a catastrophe . . .
Can you let me know if the flat is now empty? And if not when it will be? Next, can you work out what’s owing? As it’s been such a long time, frankly I don’t want to spend all of it on repairs. Some can go to pay off the mortgage.
Can you arrange the shower to be tiled first, and put completely in working order? The same tiles as you have in Drayton Gardens. I think it’s very important that the whole thing is leak-proof. The next step, I think, should be to prepare the surfaces for painting, filling in old plaster etc. But I feel we should wait till I get back for its final colour. I don’t think I want it dead white. Or if I did want it white, then I feel the colour of the floor should be changed, bleached or something.
I’ll take a decision as to what to do with the place when I get back. Frankly, it must either be arranged so it is lettable: company lets etc., in which case I must remove all my things and have it anonymous. But the business of letting anyone into so small a space, if the things are there, is really not possible. Or at least, it causes more angst than it’s worth. Everyone, in some way or other, is territorial, and there’s no point in havin
g a place that isn’t one’s own.
I have, here, a suite of cool blue rooms in a Rajput Fort. Turtledoves cooing, peacocks honking, and little children with bells on their clothes playing hide-and-seek in the garden below. I battle on with the arid landscapes of Central Australia.
Do send other news. The baby? The projects in N.Y.? I’ve been completely out of touch now, without so much as a letter, only some asinine telexes from Vanity Fair, for three months.
as always,
Bruce
To John Kasmin
c/o Manvendra Singh | The Fort | Rohet | Jodhpur | India | 27 January 1986
Dear Kassl,
I must say communication in this country is really very dicey. We had calls from you, and then cancelled, and then when we did finally make it to the receptionist in the [Hotel] Oberoi [in Delhi] we were told you’d just gone. The first stab at this mythical beast ‘the place to write in’ was a dud. Babji Jodhpur said he had a cottage with a swimming pool in a mango orchard halfway to Udaipur, in a place called Ranakpur, where there is an astonishing Jain temple. The whole thing sounded wonderful, but wasn’t; in that a bus load of tourists were liable to swoop on the place for lunch, and besides it was all a bit cramped and there was no place to spread.718 We did, however, at H.H.’s birthday celebrations, meet an extremely pukkah gentleman, ex-zamindar type who said he had a fort in the country. Absolutely secluded, on a lake, with an ageing mother in the zennana, a kitchen full of cooks with traditions going back to the 17th century – and I might say, fabulous miniatures (though if you breathe one word to the other H.H. [Howard Hodgkin], I’ll brain you!). On the lake, spoonbills, cormorants, pochards, storks, three species of kingfisher. Slight ruckus from the peacocks in the early morning. Anglo-Indian furniture of the mid-19th century. A cool blue study overlooking the garden. A saloon with ancestral portraits. Bedroom giving out onto the terrace. Unbelievably beautiful girls who come with hot water, with real coffee, with papayas, with a mango milk-shake. In short, I’m really feeling quite contented. The cold and cough has been hard to shake off. A dry cough always is. But thanks to an ayurvedic cough preparation, it really does seem to be on the wane. Today was Republic Day, with Mrs Chatwin on hand to present the prize to the volleyball team, and sweeties to 500 schoolchildren . . . she’s gone today via Jaipur and Agra [to Delhi] leaving me to sahib-ish splendour. Over the past week I have at last been cutting some fresh furrows with the book, and I don’t think I have quite the same sinking feeling that all the rest of it was in chaos. Murray [Bail] was, in fact, a great help with Australianisms.719 I’ll have to watch the whole thing like a hawk. What one can’t help feeling is the degree to which English has been Americanised, compared to Australia. I’ve always thought that Australian writing, on a page, looks a little archaic: now I’m beginning to realise why. They went off to Udaipur, and we came here.
Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin Page 40