Under the Sun: The Letters of Bruce Chatwin

by Bruce Chatwin

  There is one astonishing film on the Bakhtiari nomads called Grass, made by Americans in the Thirties. I’m not sure it’s the one your friends saw. I suspect not. The word ‘rhythm’ is the key to all: one has to remember that the cantillation of rabbis; the to-ing and fro-ing of the Passover and, for that matter, all the prostrations of the Islamic Hadj – are the ritualised versions of an original nomadic journey.643

  I found South Africa of enormous interest. What on earth is to be made of a country in which one can be jailed for marrying a Vietnamese wife, yet be an honoured member of Afrikanderdom if married to a Japanese? The amazing aspect of S.A. is that Apartheid can no longer be seen as anything but a joke, a sick, black joke. Often, in Australia, one heard of South Africans who could no longer support the brutality etc, and had come to a better place. Yet my friends, mostly Jews, I might say, who have to put up with the indignities and yet fight inch by inch to make the system yield, were contemptuous of the runaways. There’s nothing bland about South Africa: and if, by some miracle, the country is saved from the bloodbath so many people have predicted, then its salvation will have been hammered out all the way. The scientists I talked to in Pretoria, for example, seemed to be some of the sanest, most creative people I’ve ever met: there is, one felt, a certain advantage in being so isolated, for then one can take it for granted. ‘Bob’ Brain, the man I went to see, is I feel sure a genius fit to rank with the giants of the 19th century. He and his assistant have been completely rethinking the theory of evolution, in particular the mysterious transition from ape to man. I’m a bit too gaga to explain this all in a letter: it’ll have to wait till I see you.

  Murray B[ail] took me out to see Maisie Drysdale644 on Tuesday and we had a marathon discussion in the car. I relish his company. I’ve no idea what I’ll be doing, but I have to go away and write all summer. I intend to start on the 1st of May in a friend’s house in France, and just go on and on . . .

  If, ever, I manage to get the work in hand done, I intend to go and learn Russian in Paris with Les Pères Jésuites de Maudon. Russia exerts for me the most enormous fascination; and if one doesn’t get to grips with it now, one never will.

  I am sorry for this incoherent note and send you and Francis all my love,

  Bruce

  Nin Dutton and I sent you a post card from a small town in NSW. She is recovering from the dreadful shock of Geoff’s disappearance,645 and is putting the pieces together in an incredibly courageous way.

  To Anne-Marie Mykyta

  as from Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 1 May 1984

  My dear Anne-Marie,

  I am so sorry we never made it on my return to Adelaide. Things were a really terrible and hectic rush. I literally spent hours, rather than days, in the city. And now I’m infinitely far away in a more or less empty French farmhouse, trying to summon up my Australian experience and put it onto paper in some manageable form. We’ll meet again before long, of that I’m sure. Do let me know if you’re heading this way. Much love, Bruce

  To Kath Strehlow

  as from: Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 4 May 1984

  My dear Kath,

  On getting back I found in my post the magnificent golden scroll. I hope you didn’t think I’d omitted to thank you: it simply hadn’t come before I left England. I adored seeing you AS USUAL; and you must promise me to signal PROPERLY THIS TIME when you’re next heading this way. The chances I have to tell you of getting me at the above number are remote. I can’t do a thing of work in London (Depressing place!) and at the moment I’m holed up in a farmhouse in France trying to summon up Australia. The best contact is my agent in London: Deborah Rogers, who usually knows where I am, roughly!

  In the hectic rush of leaving Australia, I didn’t get the chance to go to Canberra and talk to Mollison,646 which would be the best way of sussing out the ground. I certainly will write to [him] if you like: but I’d need to know what to write. He is a rather mercurial, but likeable character, and from what I gather he’s been under fire lately. He staked a huge part of his reputation and the gallery’s money on modern American painting; and it turns out the Australian public couldn’t care less about American painting, even though Americans come on special pilgrimages to see the Canberra collection. As Geoff Bagshaw647 rightly said: the place for the Strehlow Collection IS the National Gallery; but as I don’t have to tell you, there are complications!

  Look after yourself; and there is, as a postscript, one thing I beg of you (though it’s absolutely none of my business!). Technicolour film has a tendency to fade unless stored in the right temperature. I do think you should consult an expert on the matter. I took some footage in the Sahara – beautiful footage – and the whole thing is now a shadow of its former self, because I was unaware of this fact.

  Much love,

  Bruce

  To Elizabeth Chatwin

  France | 25 May 1984

  Not doing so badly in complete seclusion: Paris – a nightmare. Have put off Spain till after the summer if at all. Should – or rather will be – back 3/4 weeks for further research etc. XXX B

  To Penelope Tree

  Apartado 73 | Ronda | Spain | 2 July 1984

  Something always prevents me from having MY way and settling on a Greek island. For silly reasons am here in Spain. So you got the Renata A.648 You wanted it, and got it. I couldn’t read it, I have to say and frankly I’m glad you couldn’t. I too adore her – what little I’ve seen of ‘her’: but it does make me realise that NY is a very small pond. A disaster with the Australian book – in that another, by accident, had cannibalised it – temporarily. Think of you always XXX Bruce

  To David King

  Ubeda | Andalucia | Spain | 2 July 1984

  A crowd of small boys have clustered round my windsurfer – on the roof-rack. Recklessly – and with an American Ex card I bought a most elegant and speedy model. When I tried it out, of course, I fell off again and again. I have a ridiculous new book in hand – which has grown ORGANICALLY out of an article. As always B

  To Lydia Livingstone

  Apartado 73 | Ronda | Malaga | Spain | 23 July 1984

  Am stiff and back-biting after 3 months of writing rubbish. But I did buy a windsurfer. Thinking of you often and long to be back. Much love B

  To Murray Bail

  Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 31 July 1984

  Dear Murray,

  I am reunited with my post after 5 months: so you can imagine the state I’m in. Fine. You can use the flat from August 23rd for two weeks. I’ll be around but can spend my odd nights in London with friends: but nearly all the time, flat out writing (I hope) about an hour away in the country. All going very badly! I hate all this business of writers doing places – or doing them in – and wouldn’t dream of doing the same for Australia. Hence my problems, but I won’t bore you with them.

  The Cézanne watercolours are at St George’s Gallery.649 Call me the moment your plans firm up, so I can get you the keys etc.

  In haste, Bruce

  To Elisabeth Sifton

  Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | [August 1984]

  Dearest Elisabeth,

  Enclosed 55 pages of this ‘experiment’. There are many more, but in a chaotic condition, since this is like the jig-saw puzzle you despair of finishing.

  The ‘middle’ of the book, if it has one, is a revelation that, in the case of Swartkrans, the killer of the hominids was not any old beast: but a specialist predator who it appears preferred our kind to the exclusion of almost all other flesh. The coda examines the implication of the fact that at the particular moment in palaeontological history, when our intelligence suddenly appears with a Bang, there was a Beast with whom we were locked in a 1:1 relationship. All very speculative, I admit, but nonetheless arresting!

  Love,

  Bruce

  P.S. I am now intent on getting the thing onto paper first – and then checking and ‘Englishing’ it backwards. Call you next week.

  On 28 August
Sifton telegrammed Deborah Rogers: ‘Bruce’s manuscript is tremendously exciting and I am very eager 1. to see the whole thing 2. to see it published.’

  To Ninette Dutton

  Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 1 November 1984

  My dearest Nin,

  Sorry if our correspondence has gone a bit astray. I’ve been in the thick of it, beavering away on the book: by the end of the day it’s as much as I can do to sign a cheque, let alone write. And what a monstrosity it is! About monsters, no less! But touch wood, over the last few days I reached a watershed, and can, I believe, see light at the end of the tunnel. The real cause of my distraction was the annual visit to London by my American publisher, Elisabeth Sifton, who has almost become my alter ego when it comes to books. She was wonderful: not only did she take the point, entirely: she also provided the wherewithal to continue – which considering the extremely cranky viewpoint was, to say the least, encouraging.

  Alas, I can’t see my way to coming out again this winter (ours). Who knows, another month of this dripping cold climate and I may change my mind utterly. It is after all possible these days to hop on a plane. But on balance I think I’d better try and slog it out. The only date I have in mind is Midsummer’s Day in Finland at something called the Lahti Festival. By that time all being well, I’ll have cleared the decks for my so-called ‘Russian’ project650 – though, I have to say, I’m having second thoughts about beginning that at once. Wouldn’t it be better, I ask myself, taking a real wanderjahre, my head empty of grandiose (and? unattainable projects), just to roam around and write short stories. Anyway to Finland I shall go, but what I wondered is whether that coincided with – or around – your plans for Moscow.

  Many thanks for the clipping. I never read S[alman] R[ushdie]’s Tatler article651 because I had a feeling it might make me mad – and wouldn’t it just? Silly arse! It’s one thing to go knocking Australia if you’re paid to do it by an American publisher – as I believe Shiva Naipaul652 is doing – quite another when you’re invited by the city, given that degree of attention, even adulation – and then what? He got it all from a rather painted-up, ogle-eyed and not-to-my-mind-so beautiful literature-groupie who went the rounds, it seems, of every writer at the festival before latching onto him. How silly can you be? The Mayor, in my view, was dead right. But then I do believe he’s gone a bit barmy recently. He left his wife for my friend the ‘camel lady’ Robyn Davidson653 – all my fault – or so I was told! – but now he’s back again in London, full of the ‘weirdness’ of Australia. Frankly, I find the ‘weirdness’ of Mrs Thatcher’s Britain quite enough to contend with without adding to the list. And it is strange to find myself, as a Pom, becoming more and more patriotic and defensive about Australia – thank God I wasn’t so thunderstruck on my first visit – but now I see the whole thing in better perspective, I’m secretly tempted to up-sticks and move there.

  I feel for you desperately about Geoff [Dutton] – but from what Tisi654 said, I too did think it sounded – for all those reasons we discussed – as though he was going to stay. The awful thing was that I lost his letter (together with a whole lot of others!) – and although I tried to answer his questions about Afghanistan, I’m afraid it must have sounded a little limp-wristed. I haven’t heard from him since.

  My friend Murray Bail was here – a really good egg! We had the liveliest time together. It’s funny to see how well his ‘art-historical’ biography of Fairweather655 comes off in relation to David Malouf’s novel656 of the same theme.

  We’ll write again before the month’s out. Otherwise slog. But I did have a week’s break to go to a writer’s conference in Barcelona and find myself in the same platform as my No 1 hero: Andrei Sinyavsky657. Not very approachable, I’m afraid, for though he spoke perfectly good French – and rattled along when his wife was not looking – she caught us and said bleakly through the interpreter in Russian: ‘We have spoken enough French for today.’

  Much love Bruce

  PS Came back 10 days after writing this to find that the people in the house had not posted it. In the meantime I did read S[alman] R[ushdie]’s notorious Tatler article. The man is off his head! How dare he when I introduced him to Mrs Mykyta, make flip comments on that murder(s)!

  Elizabeth got back this afternoon from Delhi of all places and is a bit shattered xx B

  To Murray Bail

  Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | [November 1984]

  My dear Murray,

  I’ve been wondering how you’ve got on since the Sudanese abortion. 658 I keep on kicking myself for not being firmer at that dinner: but the Morning Herald’s letter looked so imposing, so irrefutable. Anyhow, I hope that Harare was at least something. I also felt we should have made some grand expedition in England. But you know how it is. I am usually so desperate to get the hell out of here that any moment for work is precious. The book grinds on slowly. I thought I was on top of it – that is until I began to re-read some, at which point I realised ‘This will never do’. The American publisher liked what I had done – or so she said – but, out of sheer terror, I’m going to refuse the advance offered for fear of being stuck.

  Salman, as you know, is back. What a drama! I’m a little bit cross with him for sounding off against the Adelaide Festival . . . Adelaide as an ideal location for a murder movie etc. A friend from Sydney also sent me Shiva Naipaul’s embittered rant from one of your magazines.659 All seems to me to be so pointless. I suspect that there’s quite a market in the US for writers who will tell the Americans that Australia is not quite so great after all. Anyway, I, as a Pom, have moved into a high Pro-Australia-patriotic phase, and won’t hear one word against it.

  The other night, with the wind howling round this promenade-deckof-the-Queen-Mary house of ours, I read Ian Fairweather from cover to cover. Absolutely AI. I haven’t read so enjoyable an ‘Art Book’ (which it isn’t) ever. What I never took in was how the later ‘Chinese’ pictures were all ‘remembrances of Cathay.’ What a figure!660 And what a destiny! In your hands he’s totally alive – whereas the artist in Harland’s Half Acre just isn’t convincing. Why don’t you turn your hand to Cézanne? Jon Rewald661 is, of course, the expert; but he’s a basically unimaginative man, and I reckon you could arrive at the ‘texture’ of Cézanne better than anyone. Anyway, it’s only an idea.

  Elizabeth has been in India for a couple of months. She got away from Delhi the night before the assassination,662 and managed to miss the real rumpus: all the same, she’s pretty whacked.

  All my love to Margaret and yourself,

  Bruce

  To Lydia Livingstone

  Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 8 November 1984

  Lovely to get your letter as always. Here the same old grind. Mirella Ricciardi663 sent me to see ‘Green Ants Dreaming’ in a totally empty movie house in Chelsea. Really, my new friend W[erner Herzog] was really off his head. The script, when I saw it, was a warning. Anyhow, well out of that one. Much love to all. Ranald664 here delighting us all.

  To Anne-Marie Mykyta

  Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 12 November 1984

  Something terrible happened. Your letter – which I had in a mountain of mail – got lost between here and the country:665 together with a stack of others. Inexplicable! The winter draws in here. The proverbial English gloom – and I am trying to write of the blinding light of Central Australia, for which already I ache. I’m fed up with being a soi-disant ‘writer’. It’s my experience that the moment one starts being a writer, everything dries up. I think of you often. Much love Bruce