The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969

by Christopher Isherwood

  Missed the gym, on Tuesday. That’s something I must never do. And now the field is clear. I have finished the proofs and have no other really pressing work; nothing I can’t do in small stages. My next job is to rewrite the Virginia Woolf article.

  October 28. A high wind, searching everywhere and causing un-ease and dryness. I’m depressed. My jaw still feels uncomfortable and worries me. (Russell McKinnon, whom I talked to the day before yesterday, tells me [his wife] Edna is dying of cancer of the jaw.) I miss Don more each day. Russell thinks he ought to stay on in Europe and study art in France and Italy. I don’t want to stand in his way but I don’t want to live without him, either. And now I feel disinclined to write the Virginia Woolf article. I simply do not have enough to say about her. But it’s hard to make up my mind to tell Stephen this—when I am only too aware that part of this decision comes from laziness and part from a desire to get back at him for accepting and then rejecting “Ambrose”!

  I love this house, though. And the calm of being here, among my books and belongings. Mr. Bayless finished the clearing of the hillside yesterday. It looks terribly bare and will probably erode badly in the first rains.

  Yesterday I saw the Picasso exhibition at UCLA291 with Jo and Ben and Dana Woodbury. It is truly marvellous, and I don’t think there is any artist who has so fully explored High Camp. In the evening, I had supper with Jo and Ben[,] and Anne Baxter and Ranny Galt her husband were there. For them, Australia is obviously a purely subjective love nest. But we all three felt that, unconsciously, they gave one the most horrible picture of the Australians. For example, Anne was sick and couldn’t attend her own birthday party. So Ranny presided and she stayed upstairs. All the women guests knew what had happened and no one went up to see Anne or tried to help her, because that wouldn’t have been the thing to do. Anne does all the cooking for the two of them, but they never have the rest of the people on the “station” in to meals with them, because that isn’t done.

  The day before yesterday, I saw Gerald Heard, Michael Barrie and Chris Wood for supper. I forgot to mention that, when I met him alone, before this, Gerald told me that he feels an important change has come over him. I couldn’t quite make out what this was, but it was apparently some kind of liberation. He feels he is becoming more and more prepared for death. He also repeated the story he told me before I left for England, that he saw a committee of drab schoolmasterish-looking men and they had just finished reviewing his case and had decided that he wouldn’t have to be re-born; though he had only just scraped through the test. Gerald says he had this vision right after the automobile accident on Oahu.292 He added, “I’ve never had an hallucination before in my life.”

  Chris was Chris, as always. He has grown another “benign” cancer on his shoulder. Gerald says, with a certain satisfaction, that this is the price you pay for years of sunbathing.

  October 29. Yesterday was devoted to Colin Wilson, who came over yesterday noon with a colleague from Long Beach, where he has been lecturing. (He leaves California today.) He at once started drinking beer and talking about his own books. Few enough people can be honestly egoistic in this way, and most of those few are bores, because they have nothing to say and because they are vain in the wrong way. Vain about their mere success. Colin isn’t a bore, because he is really intelligent and because, though he certainly is interested in success, you feel his interest is objective; it’s in success as a phenomenon. (He spent a long time discussing the question: is there such a thing as bad publicity? He had once posed for photographs with Huxley on the steps of the Athenaeum Club.) Also, he has some mad, half-serious ambition to become “the literary dictator.” While in the States, he has spent $1,200 already on phonograph records of operas. He doesn’t understand why one should travel, believes in roots, dislikes America because there is too much space, etc. etc. An opinion every ten seconds.

  He wanted to meet Henry Miller and Huxley. Miller came around to the house, with his thirteen-year-old son Tony, a very cute tough little blond boy with blue eyes. I liked Miller at once. (Jo and Ben had met him a few weeks ago, and again only a few days ago. They complained—or rather, Jo complained—or rather Jo and Alice Gowland complained—that Miller used such dreadful language and demanded so much to drink and also (said Jo) he looked at Ben “in a funny way.” This last I simply cannot believe, but never mind—) Yesterday, either because his son was present or he didn’t know us, he behaved beautifully and didn’t drink a drop. But what mattered was that he was so naturally sweet and really wise. Of course, there are traces of a pose: the homespun crackerbarrel philosopher who doesn’t understand intellectuals. But he is genuinely intuitive and plainspoken and he has digested his experience. I like his narrow squinty eyes and his bald head.

  We drove up to see Huxley, who is living in a house Laura’s friend Mrs. Pfeiffer bought after her own was burnt in the great fire.293 It is even higher up the same hillside; in fact right at the top of the lower ridge of hills, with a splendid view of the Hollywood lake-reservoir a short walk away. It’s one of those old Hollywood houses, with a garden rising from ramparts out of the surrounding scrub; something secret about it. Only you can’t help wondering why there shouldn’t be another fire right there; there is a very considerable wild area between it and the lake. At this time of drought, the hills are a somber brown-black or green-black, like the landscape of a much colder climate; Colin was reminded of Cornwall.

  Aldous looked rather withered. Colin was very brash and rather embarrassing. And Aldous’s reticence made his blunt analysis sound like an attack. Colin kept saying, “I dealt with your novels at some length in my book,” and asking, “Why couldn’t you and Mr. Hemingway have understood each other?” And Aldous was just pained. It simply isn’t in him to defend himself. What Colin was saying was that Aldous and Hemingway put together would have made one really great novelist, and this, of course, sounded rude although I knew that Colin, in his own ungracious way, was paying a sincere compliment—a greater compliment than I could honestly pay Aldous myself, because I don’t think that either Hemingway or Aldous could have produced the wherewithal to create one really great character, even if they had pooled all their resources.

  Laura was nicer than I have seen her before; good-humored with Colin and playful but not patronizing.

  As we drove back down the hill in the car, Tony Miller said, “When all of you intellectuals get talking, you never listen to each other and you never stop to think what you’re going to say next. When we kids talk, sometimes we won’t say anything for maybe five minutes.” But then he added, “I guess that’s maybe because we don’t have much to say.” Henry Miller was delighted at this. He told us that Tony hates books and writing and only cares for football and surfing and that he wants to be an engineer. He had made Tony write a hundred words on “Why I Hate Books.”

  Later we went to see Charles and Elsa, who were at the next-door house. Charles rather drunk, recited a scene from Advise and Consent; his accent wasn’t quite good enough.294 Then we had supper with Gavin and Tom Wright, just back from their trip to Arizona and New Mexico, and we went on to see Gavin’s new house on Sumac Lane, which is really quite something. Colin was taken back to Long Beach by a not-quite-sober female friend, attractive.

  Today I had lunch with Howard Warshaw, who was in town clearing up various matters after his mother’s death. He had drawn a wonderful picture of her on her deathbed, in a notebook of colored sketches he is keeping; mostly studies from Rembrandt. I felt more than ever that he is a remarkable artist.

  He told me that his mother kept, from his earliest years, a book written to him, addressing him as “You,” even when he was still a baby and speaking always of his future and then of the impact of his various doings on her life. The whole thing was written on the assumption that he wouldn’t get to read it until she was dead, and indeed he didn’t. Wouldn’t this be an excellent framework for a novel? Howard’s mother kept a similar book for his sister.

  Something I�
�d forgotten to record. The satisfaction with which Aldous told us how Corbusier built a large glass structure for the Indian government which looks marvellous but heats up to 140 degrees in the hot weather and is continually busting its air-conditioning.295 This was to illustrate the architect’s contempt for the people who have to live in his houses. (Aldous leaves for India shortly.)

  Colin Wilson said one shouldn’t learn to speak any other language but one’s own. He had been thrilled by the photograph of Henry Miller’s daughter Valentine, in the paperback called The Intimate Henry Miller. Although we were late for the Laughtons, he insisted on stopping off at the Millers’ house in Pacific Palisades on the way back from the Huxleys’ and seeing her. She was a pale little girl in curlers. Rather embarrassed by the admiration of the “elderly” Colin.

  Today I have written to Stephen and told him I can’t do the Virginia Woolf article. I think I am being quite honest about this.

  Worry about my jaw. Depression after reading the Los Angeles Times, which is full of fallout shelters. I must lay off the newspapers. The newspaper reader dies many times before his death, the nonreader not nearly so often.

  A story told me by Michael Barrie: Jesus and the Blessed Virgin go out to play golf. The Blessed Virgin is at the top of her form, drives and lands on the green. Jesus slices and lands in the bushes. A squirrel picks up the ball and runs off with it. A dog grabs the squirrel, which still holds the ball in its mouth. An eagle swoops down, picks up dog, squirrel and ball, and soars into the air. Out of a clear sky, lightning strikes the eagle, which drops the dog which drops the squirrel which drops the ball, right into the hole. The Blessed Virgin throws down her driver and exclaims indignantly, “Look, are you going to play golf or just fuck around?”

  October 31. Very sad. It’s a grey day and cold. And no word from Don. Of course I know he’s busy but I can’t help feeling anxious just the same. This is one of the days when you feel all of the six thousand miles between here and London.

  In Russia they’ve exploded the biggest bomb ever and taken Stalin out of his tomb.296 There’s a brush fire near Pasadena. And it’s Halloween, which means moppets.

  Yesterday, Prema and his friend Ram from British Guiana and Swami Ritajananda came to tea. A purely symbolic act; but Ritajananda wanted to come and he is so sweet and going away soon to preach to the ghastly French. Then I had supper with Gavin at La Mer, who told me that Speed [Lamkin] once said to him that his Jimmy297 was the only person he’d ever lived with “of my own class”!

  Sunday night, I had supper with the Bracketts. Xan298 wore black. It was like Mourning Becomes Electra. And then Ilka Chase299 and Dorothy Parker and the boy who plays Dr. Kildare300 and rather nasty Jack Grate301 and others showed up, and turned it into a very old and creaky drawing-room comedy. Watched The Power and the Glory on T.V. Olivier was awful and I could barely recognize Julie Harris. Then I was alone with Charlie and he began to tell me that [his friend]’s brain wasn’t really affected—only one lobe—and he could be cured, and the woman was going to recover, and the whole thing had been greatly exaggerated, etc. etc.302

  November 2. Still nothing from Don. I had so hoped there’d be a letter today. I’m worried, although I know how hard it must be for him to find time to write. And this morning Russell McKinnon called to say that he and his wife are going over to Europe almost at once and that he’ll be seeing Don. I sort of fear that they may persuade Don to stay on indefinitely, which is what Russell wants.

  I miss Don more and more every day; without him, life seems really quite meaningless. And I’m increasingly anxious about my jaw. The dull ache continues and there is a sore right up in the back, apparently caused by my bridgework. Yet I don’t want to go to either Dr. Lewis or Dr. Sellers; they are so gloomy and hospital minded. Patrick Woodcock would cure me if anybody can.

  And now I’m feeling a kind of horror of California—though I remind myself that I was horrified by London too. The California horror has to do with the advertisement life which is lived here. The smiles, for instance, of the women in a bank this morning in Pacific Palisades; smiles that advertised Courtesy and Customer Handling and Financial Integrity and Friendliness. Oh, I am sick at heart.

  Saw Gore Vidal last night. He is in town for a few days only. He keeps visiting at the White House. He thinks Kennedy is the most normal president we have had this century. That he is calm and undismayed and that he still enjoys his job, despite all the headaches. Kennedy wants him to be his Minister of Culture, if Gore can figure out what a Ministry of Culture should do. Kennedy is well aware that Gore’s private life might be brought up—but, as Gore says, really there is nothing concrete to bring up except his novels. So maybe it will go through.

  Gore doesn’t think there will be a war over Berlin, but he greatly fears the growth of fascism in this country and its victory in a few years. Meanwhile, he has written a play about the last Roman emperor of the West, Romulus Augustulus. And he was busy writing a scathing review of the military novels of Evelyn Waugh.

  November 5. A glorious day. I feel absolutely sick with misery. No word from Don. It’s not so much that I really think anything awful has happened to him as that I long for a word. Without him my life is pointless.

  Jaw still bothering me. And I have the shits. I am at the lowest ebb, despite the vitamin pills which a man at the gym sold me for ten dollars a hundred.

  This afternoon I have to go off to Trabuco for two days. I hate leaving this house, simply because a letter might come from Don tomorrow. I am a mess.

  November 8. Got back from Trabuco yesterday. Came down here to see the extent of the fire—L.A.’s biggest ever—which has been burning all through the surrounding hills from Bel Air to behind the Pacific Palisades. (There is ash everywhere, and if you open any of the windows it begins to drift in. This morning the World War II bombers kept swooping over the ridge which backs the view from my workroom window, dumping borate on the flames. They fly daringly low. Once I saw a great tongue of fire shoot up and lick at one of them. It is moving to see them being used for such a sane purpose.) Then, yesterday evening, I went back up to Hollywood and attended Kali puja, for no reason in the world but to please Swami. I hate the puja itself as much as ever—no, not hate, but it is quite meaningless to me, with all these posturing women fixed up in the saris. Even Sarada, with her hair loose on her shoulders but oh so elegantly arranged, seemed theatrical. Sat next to Jimmy [Barnett], now down at Trabuco, and gossiped cozily in whispers, waiting for Swami to asperse us with Ganges water. This he did vigorously, looking as if he were ridding a room of flies with DDT.

  When I got back yesterday evening, there was a packet of my lecture transcripts from Santa Barbara, plus some photos a boy in London took of me and Don, plus a long letter, full of love and work and so all is well. The packet took so long to arrive because it was opened by the customs, which is rather embarrassing, considering the tone of the letter. But probably all this Kitty and Dobbin stuff bewildered them.

  Aside from the worrying about Don, the visit to Trabuco was a great success. It is very agreeable down there now. Franklin [Knight] (Web Milam’s cousin) the only brahmachari,303 Jimmy, Eddie [Acebo] the Mexican boy, Len [Worton] the British ex-sailor,304 Richard Thom and a Richard (Epstein?) the son of one of the Epstein brothers who used to work in movies.305 Franklin sort of holds the place together, as solid as a barn. Jimmy says he is much happier down there, because the work is more varied. Eddie wishes he could study more; and he complains that at the meetings of the Vedanta Society[,] Trabuco is always slighted and given the smallest allotment of funds. Len just gets on with the job, navy style. Neither of the Richards will stay, probably. Richard Thom is as sly and enigmatic as ever. Richard Epstein is frankly only there on a short visit, “to acquire merit”; he is a good-looking, [. . .], compulsively talkative boy with a sloppy figure, a chain-smoker.

  Ritajananda, who came down with us, is leaving this week to take over the French center in Gretz. He is marvellously plac
id. Vandanananda is still sulking whenever Swami is present. But he made a point of saying, “Welcome to Trabuco,” as soon as we arrived. A possessive act. And it obviously gave him great satisfaction that I went out walking with him both mornings. The Trabuco ranch is baked hard and grassless by the sun. There are big patches of cactus, full of rabbits and snakes. A fire probably couldn’t even take hold here. It’s going back to desert. But, in a few years, when the water is piped in, the whole surrounding country will begin to be built over.

  As we sat in the cloister, with that marvellous, still empty prospect of lion-golden hills opening way into blue distances and the line of the sea, I said to Swami: “You’re really certain that God exists?”

  He laughed. “Of course! If He doesn’t exist, then I don’t exist.”

  “And do you feel He gives you strength to bear misfortunes?”

  “I don’t think of it like that. I just know He will take care of me. . . . It’s rather hard to explain. . . . Whatever happens, it will be all right.”

  I asked him when he began to feel certain that God existed. “When I met Maharaj. Then I knew that one could know God. He even made it seem easy. . . . And now I feel His presence, nearly every day. But it’s only very seldom that I see Him.”

  Later, when Ritajananda had joined us, he said, “Stay here, Chris, and I’ll give you sannyas. You shall have a special dispensation from the Pope.” He said this laughingly, but I have a feeling that he really meant it. I said, “Swami, that would be a mistake worthy of Vivekananda himself.” Just the same, it staggered me.

  Swami says that the Hindu astrologers predict that the world will come to an end next February 2. (Rosamond Lehmann told us the same thing in London, only according to her it was merely the destruction of California and it was to be on February 5, I think.) However, even the astrologers are praying that it shan’t happen. I remarked to Swami that Ramakrishna had predicted another incarnation for himself on earth and that this, in itself, contradicted any such prophecy. He agreed.