The Sixties: Diaries:1960-1969

by Christopher Isherwood

  More about Riverside later, if I get around to it.

  The amazing courage of Allan Carter (Michael Sean, Shawn?) lying there in Santa Monica Hospital after the car wreck. He still can’t move one leg at all, but he jokes and chatters away. No hero could behave better.658

  Ever since April 6 I have been going to Dr. Paul Macklin, a chiropractor in Santa Monica who was recommended by Jo Masselink and Bill Brown. I think he has done something for my chronically stiff neck, though nothing whatever for my thumbs. Am also on a nonfat diet for Dr. Allen, which is getting to be a bore. He found that my cholesterol count was up too high, though not much.

  June 4. Yesterday, Swami rang me up to say that he’d finished reading my novel, and that, “As I finished reading the last scene there were two tears running down my cheeks.” What an angel he is! He was obviously every bit as relieved as I was that he didn’t have to say it would offend Belur Math. In fact, he went so far as [to] suggest that it ought to be sold at the Vedanta Center bookshop! I doubt if he really quite meant this, however. He did also say that there could be no question that the monastery in the novel is Belur Math, because there is no other monastery like that on that part of the Ganges.

  So now I can relax and just let some time pass before rereading the manuscript for final changes. I can’t help feeling that the slang used by the brothers could be improved. Also, Don is reading it right now and I await his verdict.

  Dr. Macklin told me yesterday that my arthritis, such as it is, is incurable but can be prevented from becoming worse. He also told me arthritis is said to be often caused by aggression!

  Have decided to give The Shoes of the Fisherman a try, if George Englund wants me.659 I’ll probably see him in a couple of days.

  June 26. On the 23rd I mailed a typescript of A Meeting by the River to Vidya in Gretz. After reading it, Don said he thought Oliver is too sympathetic toward Tom in the big scene. Also he didn’t like Oliver identifying with Patrick on the rock and Tom turning into Penny. I decided to leave the first passage as it is, for the present; but I see that he is absolutely right about the second and I’ve already changed it. Also I slightly rewrote the passage in the last section, where Oliver says he feels that sannyas is an entering into freedom. (This was a remark made by Vidya.) I think I’ve now taken the sentimentality out of it.

  Gavin has read the novel. He says it is “extraordinary” but I don’t feel that he really likes it very much. Now Don Howard and Jack Larson are reading the two available copies. They were both to supper with us last night, along with Jim and Clint and Gavin and David Hockney, who has just returned here, to teach for a few weeks at UCLA.

  Latest worry, a mysterious rupture of a blood vessel on the nose side of my left eye; it happened during the night, two nights ago. Don reminds me that the same thing happened about twelve years ago, only worse, and that it went away again soon.

  This afternoon I visited Michael Sean at the hospital. He now has the neck brace off and he really does seem to be getting much better. The bang on the back of his head is a relatively undramatic pink healthy-looking scar. He has some small scars on his belly, from shooting one of the most dangerous beaches on Oahu and getting torn by the lava. In fact, what with his surfing and skiing and tobogganing, not to mention the crazy risks he took whizzing down our hill on his skateboard, that auto accident was long overdue! All the times Don and I have visited him, he has never once shown the least weakness, never stopped joking and laugh-ing—although there were certainly times at the beginning when he was badly scared; the surgeons were frankly pessimistic. The only thing I dislike about him is his compulsive and almost sadomasochistic flattery. There are always other visitors present and he invariably tells them what great guys we are, what true friends, what geniuses, etc. etc. I can’t shut him up by telling him (as I shall some day in private) how I have been moved by his courage— because, when I do say that, I shall mean it. The things he says he doesn’t really mean. Oh yes, he means them up to a point but, because he says them in public, they are cheapened and devaluated, like advertisements.

  A sign of the times: Lee Heflin saw a young man, bearded and with long hair, who goes around wearing a crown of ivy and roses. And there was that boy at Riverside who had a sweater inscribed, Jesus is Boss. He also wore a button: Draft beer not people.

  On the 18th we had the customary Father’s Day lunch at Vedanta Place and this time the boys, directed by Jimmy Barnett, put on a musical show consisting of Vedantically-revamped lyrics from My Fair Lady.660 It was rather shocking, how slickly they went through their hoofer routines—linking arms, stepping forward to the mike with arms out-stretched, sidestepping, singing with legs planted firmly apart in the Al Jolson stance, etc. etc. Only the very stupid or pure in heart can listen to this kind of thing without squirming. I squirmed—all the more so because one of the songs was directed at me!

  Some specimens:

  Lectures and pujas, receptions for swamis,

  Wednesday-night-living-room questions for Swami,

  Saturday Ram Nam where everyone sings,

  These are a few of our favorite things . . .

  Now the clock strikes, time for vespers!

  There’s no time to spare,

  When you’re in Vedanta your life is complete

  With favorite things to share . . .

  I came to the hills and I found Vedanta

  I know I am safe, never more to roam.

  My life has been blessed with the sound of Brahman

  Now at last I’m home . . .

  Aow, Mistafah Christafah Ishtafah,

  Blimey, he’s a blinking limey and a real fine bloke.

  We call ’im Mistafah Christafah Ishtafah

  Oh how I wish I were like ’im.

  Now in his Harris tweed and denims

  And his shock of bloomin’ hair,

  Every Wednesday night in livin’ room

  He’s in his easy chair,

  And when his voice rings out melodious,

  What music fills the air!

  Now he’s a chappie mild and mannered

  With a proper savoir faire

  With his bushy-browed expressions

  He will soon your heart ensnare.

  And when he starts in tellin’ stories, chum

  He’s quite beyond compare!

  That’s Christafah, our Christafah,

  You’ll never find another like him anywhere.

  I squirmed, but I was touched of course and pleased. It is a family, even though I know so few of my relatives and can’t honestly take much interest in them. Some woman came up to me afterwards and well-meaningly cooed, “Now you know how much we all love you!” Well, perhaps I am mildly liked—as an institution rather than a person—and that’s quite sufficient.

  I have always been and am now more than ever alien from the society as such. Only Swami’s loyalty has forced them to accept me—for of course there must be all manner of lurid (and fairly accurate) rumors about my life. And then there are those dreadful novels of mine for the faithful to gag on. The fact that I’ve written a life of Ramakrishna and translated the Gita must only make my novels the less excusable in their eyes. It really is a very strange and comic situation—but I’m so accustomed to it that I seldom think about it.

  Still this utter dryness when I sit down to meditate. I ought to mind about it, I know. But, if I minded, that in itself would mean that I wasn’t dry.

  Happiness with Don, by and large, since his return. And good health with even a slight loss in weight, down to just a speck under 150. Dr. Macklin really does seem to have made my neck much better, but my right thumb and left big toe are as bad as ever, most of the time.

  Am still waiting to hear from George Englund about The Shoes of the Fisherman. Robin French thinks the job is definitely on. I don’t really want to do it, but I do want to do something, and it’s always nice to be earning.

  July 5. Well, today I have just been told by Robin that the Fisherman job isn’t on
, because they have unwillingly got to let Morris West write a draft script, otherwise he won’t let them renew the rights. Now that I can’t have it, I’m disappointed, of course. Especially as I have nothing to do.

  Never mind, cheer up, the gruesome Fourth of July holiday is over. As always I felt the terrible oppression of the crowding Folk, pressing in on our lives. Every year there are millions more of them.

  Ben Masselink says that a whole gang of teenagers have occu pied one of the apartments across the street from them. They play the radio at unearthly hours and shout at people on the street through a loudspeaker. “Will the boy with the blue surf board please come up?” etc.

  Latest inscriptions in the tunnel to the beach and on the wall: Overby can leap, also. Overby is alive. All is Overby.

  This is a time of great happiness with Don. Yesterday evening, as we were having dinner at Ted’s while the fireworks exploded outside—we found we simply couldn’t be bothered to watch them—we began trying to think of marriages which we found “moving.” After long efforts, we thought of four—the Masselinks, Michael Wilding and Margaret Leighton, the Stravinskys, Jimmy and Tania Stern. We couldn’t think of any pairs of men!

  I think Don Howard really likes A Meeting by the River. I was so much surprised to hear that he once seriously considered joining an Anglican monastery. Vidya likes it too and has now sent it on to Edward Upward. So far the necessary changes seem to be very few.

  July 11. Have just heard from Edward. He likes the novel, or rather he likes the way it’s constructed —that’s what he stresses. Then he says that he’s “uncertain” about Oliver’s “motivation.”

  Obviously the reader isn’t meant to accept Patrick’s view that Oliver is becoming a monk in order to escape the ambitiousness which is natural to him but which he knows their mother wouldn’t approve of in him. . . . On the other hand the reader can’t quite believe that Oliver becomes a monk solely because the social work he’s been doing doesn’t seem “real” enough to him. (It’s to Oliver’s advantage, of course, that the reader can’t believe this.) . . . Surely such a man becomes converted not only or even mainly because life doesn’t come up to his expectations but because he comes to feel that the horrors of the world and the flesh are too great ever to be removed by any kind of social action, and that such action can only have meaning when it is performed sacramentally? I may be wrong in thinking this is how Oliver felt (particularly after being in the Congo) but if I’m not wrong, couldn’t you add a sentence or two—possibly in Oliver’s second letter to Patrick—which would indicate that Oliver wasn’t insensitive to material horrors and that his becoming a monk was at least partly motivated by them?

  I have copied this part of Edward’s letter down because his writing is so tiny and untidy, and I want to be able to study it apart from the rest.

  Edward goes on to tell me that Hector Wintle is dead. Now I’m sad that I didn’t see more of him during my visits to England. He was, in later life, a mysteriously happy person—after being such a cheerfully gloomy young man. His happiness was something you felt immediately, and he never tried to describe it or explain it to me. His obituary notice never mentioned his novels—so I’m glad that I did at least speak of him as a writer in Exhumations.661 Apparently he had always said he thought a coronary was the best thing to die of, and he died of one, at home in his garden.

  July 18. This morning Don was putting something into one of the envelopes in the carton of photographs when an album fell on the floor, open. It was open at the two pictures of Hector Wintle.

  Am depressed today. Partly (mostly) because I have what appears to be a cyst on the inside of my lip which Dr. Allen obviously doesn’t like the looks of. He has told me to call him if it hasn’t gone away by Friday, and then I fear he’ll want to cut it out.

  But also I’m depressed because we got terribly drunk for no reason the night before last, and I have been drunk far too often lately. It’s such a boring vice and I have really no excuse for indulging in it, because it doesn’t do anything for me except bring on black depression.

  It now looks like I have a T.V. job, my first, a Christmas Spectacular about how “Silent Night” was composed, in 1818. The good thing about this, aside from the money, is that I think I could work quite harmoniously with Danny Mann.

  On the 16th I had quite a long talk alone with Swami, after attending a lunch for Swami Sambuddhananda, from India. I told Swami that Vidya wanted my novel dedicated to him as Vidyatmananda rather than as John Yale. Swami evidently didn’t like this, but said I should do it if Vidya wants it. It seems that Vandanananda brought back a bad report from Gretz; Vidya is said to be throwing his weight around already and making enemies.

  Swami said that Maharaj had told him, morality is unimportant if you have devotion to God—“but of course we can’t preach that,” Swami added. I said that that was all very well, but I personally could feel no devotion at all. Swami said, “Anyone who says he has devotion or thinks he has devotion, doesn’t have it. . . . People come to me every week and talk about their devotion to God, and I don’t believe them.” Also, he told me that, when he was fourteen, one of the swamis said to him, “Do you know what destructive means?” Swami said yes. “And do you know what constructive means?” Swami said yes. “Then be constructive, be constructive, be constructive.” Swami went on to say that we must look on people’s good qualities, not their faults, and I felt, as so often before, that he was saying this to me personally, because he observed my aggressions.

  When I left Swami, I was full of good intentions, but already I’m back in the usual bad mental state. Never mind. The point is, Swami loves me—I don’t care why and I can’t possibly ever get to know why —but I ought to be able to feel that I’m under the protection of his love. Isn’t that more than enough?

  July 26. One month till my birthday. Why can’t I try to spend it more fruitfully? I have wasted so much time—very nearly two months —since finishing the last draft of A Meeting by the River.

  Above all else, I should dwell constantly on the thought of God. After the cancer scare last week— it proved to be non-malignant, merely a cyst—I had such a reaction of simple thankfulness and humble good humor. And then this horrible scene on the 21st. A shameful relapse to the mood of the bad old days of 1963. But never mind all that. The point is, I must keep praying to Ramakrishna to be able to love him. If only I could do that, then nothing else would matter, and in fact I should have a completely secure refuge from any outside disturbances—and, in addition, I should be of far more use to Don.

  Lee Heflin reports that the latest word the kids use is “freaky.” “Let’s go into the woods and freak out” (take acid). About the squares who disapprove they say, “Listen to the freaks calling the freaks freaks.”

  July 28. Despite what I wrote two days ago I have frittered away this morning. What I need, when I’m not working, is a program. Even if the program included deliberate idling, that would be far less depressing than involuntary idling.

  The evening before last, Betty Harford, Jim and Antoinette Gill, Jack Larson, Jim Bridges, Don and I had a picnic on the beach. It wasn’t a success. The sun was setting on the hilltops, instead of out at sea, where we could have sat watching it—and that also spoiled the effect of the many surfboarders, which would otherwise have been magically beautiful. And then the beach itself was so dirty. And the food Betty and Antoinette had brought was wrong— nearly all cold, including raw tuna and beefsteak tartare. Betty’s son Chris (who’d been surfing since six this morning!) came up with two wet water-shrunk friends and wouldn’t touch it. And then Jack would talk only of the deaths of Monty Clift and Frank O’Hara, making a tremendous figure out of Frank as one of the half dozen who are running New York culture and whose loss will be a deathblow to the city. Jack was very manic and had been telephoning all over the place—to Salka [Viertel] in Switzerland, for example. He is determined to get Joe LeSueur to come out here, lest he should commit suicide as the result of bro
oding on Frank’s death by himself.662

  No word about the T.V. job.

  The only achievement for me has been at the gym. The Air Force book rates the standard for forty-five to forty-nine years as twenty-three reps for exercise 2. I do thirty. Thirty-three reps for exercise 3. I do fifty-five. Twenty reps for exercise 4. I do twenty—though only just. Yesterday I weighed between 147 and 148. I still keep up the low-fat diet.

  August 19. A week from today is my birthday, when I’ll start a new volume, I think. But I am really very bored by diary keeping. I don’t seem to be getting anything out of it at present. The last valuable entries were the ones about India.

  Well, who knows, perhaps my entries about this trip to Austria will be worth something? It does seem now as if we really are going there quite soon. Danny Mann likes the outline I have done, and if ABC passes it then we are planning to go to Oberndorf before the teleplay is written.663

  Am reading Hesse’s Steppenwolf with great enthusiasm, after a sticky beginning. Then I’ll try his [Das] Glasperlenspiel, though I doubt if I shall like it. Some other books I plan to read or reread are: Cocteau’s Journals and Opium, the rest of Dante’s Divine Comedy (I never quite finished the Inferno!), the book of extracts from Ruskin edited by Rosenberg,664 Gide’s Et Nunc Manet and So Be It,665 Moore’s Memoirs of My Dead Life, Yeats’s Autobiography, Anaïs Nin’s Diary, Denton Welch’s A Last Sheaf and A Voice Through a Cloud, Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, Samuel Butler’s Notebooks, some at least of the Nietzsche Portable,666 of Byron’s and D.H. Lawrence’s letters.