Time to Be in Earnest

by P. D. James

  Our daily routine is well established. Dick and Mary’s apartment is on Seven Mile Beach within yards of the warm translucent sea. In the morning, before breakfast, Dick and I walk along the firm sand, splashing through the surf for half a mile in either direction, returning to take our morning swim with Mary, who gets up later. Early in her marriage she had polio very badly, was in an iron lung and nearly died. She can’t tolerate the English winter, which is the reason why she and Dick live in Grand Cayman. After our swim I laze under the palm trees until it is time for lunch. The afternoon is similarly sybaritic and I don’t put on shoes or change from shorts and T-shirt until it is time to go out for a meal. The restaurants are varied and good, and I particularly like the Wharf Restaurant, where we sit under the lights on the pier in warm scented darkness, and wait for the tarpons to be fed, swirling and leaping as the bucket empties in a silver stream.

  Grand Cayman is one of the few remaining British colonies and the people are obviously well content with a system which produces security and prosperity. I learned something of the history. Columbus discovered Grand Cayman on his fourth journey in 1503, apparently by accident when blown off course on his way to take on water at Dominica. He named it Tortuga after the turtles for which it was, and remains, famous. Francis Drake arrived in 1586. Because the island is unwatered there seems to have been no indigenous population and the earliest inhabitants were pirates, remittance men and escaping slaves.

  It is a colony without taxes and since people keep all the money they earn, there is no need for the equivalent of a welfare state. It is a socio-economic system which could only work in a small and self-contained community. Income is derived from a tax on imports and on every legal document signed in the colony; since Grand Cayman, for obvious reasons, is one of the world’s most flourishing financial centres, this imposition is lucrative. I went to a meeting of the Legislative Assembly. There are fifteen members elected by districts and an Executive Council of five elected by the Assembly with the Governor General and Attorney General as ex officio members. The Assembly is modelled on the House of Commons with a Speaker but no Prime Minister. The debate I listened to was lively, with the multiracial members questioning the Customs Officer on the problem of controlling the traffic in drugs. Grand Cayman is a convenient staging post for drugs entering or leaving the United States. I was intrigued to see that the Minister of Health was called Anthony Eden.

  Grand Cayman is an island with remarkably little crime, which is hardly surprising since almost everyone is personally known and the only way of leaving is by boat or air.

  I have stayed at a number of British embassies abroad when on my travels and always there has been high security, often with armed guards. Walking along the beach with Dick I saw that the Governor’s garden stretches down to the beach with no fence and a simple notice on a post stuck into the sand: “Please respect the Governor’s privacy.” That notice seemed to sum up the spirit of the island.

  SATURDAY, 6TH DECEMBER

  I arrived home in the early afternoon. Andy was waiting for me at Gatwick and drove me to Marks & Spencer on my way home to stock up with food. Polly-Hodge gave me her usual cool greeting to demonstrate displeasure at my absence, and then followed me around the house for the rest of the day. Everything was in good order. Joyce, with her usual efficiency, had sorted the post into matters requiring attention, those that were urgent and papers for information only. What on earth would I do without her?

  Next week is going to be exceptionally busy, but I shall think about that tomorrow.

  SUNDAY, 7TH DECEMBER

  I awoke after a very good night’s sleep with the firm intention of going to 11 o’clock Mass. I set out with a quarter of an hour to get to Margaret Street, but neither bus nor taxi appeared and I was obstinately disinclined to go down into the Underground. Eventually a 94 appeared, but the journey was slow and it was obvious by the time we reached Marble Arch that I would be at least twenty minutes late for the service. So I went into Marks & Spencer instead and bought myself a skirt. I was rewarded for this triumph of Mammon over God by leaving my umbrella in the bus.

  Waiting for the 94, I was reminded somewhat irrationally of Billy Brown of London Town, that squat round little man of the war years with his bowler hat and rolled umbrella invented by some functionary of the Ministry of Information to demonstrate the perfect citizen. Billy Brown never lost his ration card, never travelled unnecessarily and his blackout was always impeccable, showing no chink of light. The poster showed him standing at a bus stop with his left hand raised and read: “Face the driver, raise your hand / You’ll find that he will understand.” Underneath some wit had written: “Of course he will, the silly cuss / But will he stop the bloody bus?”

  FRIDAY, 12TH DECEMBER

  The last few days, all filled with activity, seem to have merged together.

  On Monday at 9 o’clock Faber sent Andy to take me to Queen Square, where I signed 1,000 copies of the novel between half-past nine and a quarter past twelve, a feat achieved by setting up a production line of someone to open the book at the title page and slide it before me and someone else to close it and pack it.

  On Tuesday morning I attended a lunch for the Regent’s Park and Kensington North Conservative Association Women’s Group at the Henry VIII Hotel in Paddington, and spoke afterwards. I had arranged for Andy to collect me at 3:15 and take me direct to Buckingham Palace, where there was a meeting of the Patrons of the Royal Society Project Science. The Duke of Edinburgh as usual got through the business sharply and we then retired to a room overlooking The Mall for tea. This is served in surprisingly large cups and accompanied by delicately sized and delicious sandwiches.

  We then went to the Royal Society for the President’s reception. Despite my ignorance of science, I love going to the Royal Society, particularly to look at the documents, the books and the pictures, and there are always interesting people to meet. On Tuesday I had a lively discussion with a young scientist about religious belief. He said that, as a Roman Catholic, he had never been troubled by any conflict between science and religion; they represented two entirely different modes of thought. I said that surely some of the more esoteric doctrines, such as the physical Assumption of the Virgin Mary, were hard to accept. I don’t think he did accept it. He said that religion should be reduced to its essentials and the extraneous paraphernalia ignored, although perhaps the word “reduced” isn’t really appropriate. “At heart,” he said, “it’s really very simple.”

  On Wednesday morning I was at the British Council to give a short talk at a lunchtime meeting in aid of the Council’s Benevolent Fund. They had held a poetry competition and I was asked to read the winning poem. It is always good to return to the Council to meet old friends and to hear what is happening in the Literature Department. One of the most encouraging things I have learned recently is the success of an application to the Lottery to cooperate with a publisher in sending a complete set of Everyman books, not only to every secondary school in the United Kingdom, but also to all overseas British Council libraries. We have in English a language of incomparable beauty, versatility and richness and a literature, particularly poetry, surely unsurpassed, and it is extraordinary to me how little we understand of its importance to this country’s reputation overseas.

  Yesterday, 11th December, I was one of the speakers with Roy Hattersley and my American editor, Charles Elliott, at the Oldie lunch at Simpsons. It was, as usual, crowded, cheerful, and the food was excellent, if hardly suitable for oldies counting calories. Roy Hattersley spoke entertainingly about what he saw as a deterioration in public life since the days of Attlee, and Charles was interesting on the difference between gardening in the United States and in England—or, in his case, in the Welsh Marches. We were to speak for ten minutes only so I was fairly lighthearted, but I misjudged the event. For some reason I hadn’t realized that I was expected to discuss my latest novel. Instead I attempted not very successfully to be amusing.

  Th
is morning Joanna Mackle called for me at 9 a.m. and I drove with her to Faber to sign another 750 copies of A Certain Justice. The 1,000 I signed last Monday have already been sold.

  Back in the afternoon to attempt to catch up with the post, and then in the evening to talk to the Association of Women Solicitors and Lawyers at St. John’s Gate in Clerkenwell. They had procured copies of the novel, which I signed, and which were sold after the dinner. The meal was supposed to start at 7:30 but it was closer to 8:10 before we sat down and 9:50 before I rose to speak, which is much too late to do justice to any subject.

  Another late night, which is making me realize even more that winter evening engagements will have to be cut down.

  SATURDAY, 13TH DECEMBER

  This morning to Westminster Abbey to lay a wreath on behalf of the Johnson Society of London. As usual, and through anxiety not to be late, I arrived too early so walked up as far as the Army and Navy Stores and then back to fill in time. I had it in mind to sit quietly in St. Faith’s Chapel in the Abbey, but access to this was blocked; indeed it seemed impossible for anyone to go further than the main nave without passing the desk and paying a charge to see the Royal Chapels. The Abbey was very crowded and I wondered how long this ancient monument could withstand the tramping feet and press of so many millions. The middle part of the nave was roped off for private prayer, or for those wishing to sit quietly, but the background noise was like the subdued roar of the sea.

  The party from the Johnson Society was due to congregate near the tomb of the Unknown Soldier at 12 o’clock, at which hour the Sub-Dean announced that there would be a short prayer, and invited people to stand still or sit for this. Most stood, but others continued their somewhat aimless perambulations, whilst a family with two small boys made an exit, half-hurried, half-furtive, as if afraid of spiritual contamination.

  The short ceremony at Johnson’s grave was impressive and rather moving. We processed with the Beadle in front, followed by the Sub-Dean and then myself, carrying the wreath of laurels and white carnations, then members of the Society. After the Dean had spoken a short welcome, I laid the wreath. I had been asked to say a few words and I decided on the following:

  I lay this wreath on behalf of the Johnson Society of London to honour a great Englishman and this country’s greatest man of letters: Samuel Johnson, moralist, essayist, lexicographer, critic, poet, genius of both the written and the spoken word. We honour him both as a writer and as a man, remembering his generosity and humanity and the courage with which his great heart endured poverty, frustration, neglect and private pain. With all lovers of the English language, which he celebrated and glorified, we rejoice in the legacy of literature which is his lasting memorial. It is fitting that he should be buried here in the London he loved and among the greatest of our land; fitting too that, on the anniversary of his death, I should end these few words by speaking in his memory the prayer which he himself wrote and offered up before writing: “Almighty God, the giver of all good things, without whose help all labour is ineffectual, and without whose grace all wisdom is folly: grant, I beseech thee, that in this undertaking thy Holy Spirit may not be withheld from me, but that I may promote thy glory, and the salvation of myself and others: grant this, O Lord, for the sake of thy son, Jesus Christ. Amen.”

  I wondered whether it was entirely accurate to describe Johnson as our nation’s greatest man of letters, but decided that it was. Shakespeare is thought of primarily as a poet, Dickens as a novelist. The term “man of letters” suggests a polymath of literature as well as one whose whole working life has been devoted to its cause. Laying the wreath, I thought how much Connor would have liked to be with us. Samuel Johnson was his great hero.

  After the wreath-laying we went to the Vitello d’Oro near Church House for an Italian meal, and then to a small conference room where I gave my talk. The Society had suggested that “The Moral Responsibility of the Novelist” would be an appropriate title, and I found this more challenging than my usual talk about the craft of writing detective fiction. Inevitably an overriding question asserts itself: If the novelist has a moral responsibility, what is the morality from which that responsibility derives? The answer would have been obvious to a devout Christian like Samuel Johnson, as it was to George Eliot or any of the Brontës, but we no longer live in a predominantly Christian society. Thus to speak of a novelist’s moral responsibility seems to imply that there is an immutable value system, an accepted view of the universe and man’s place in it, with a set of ethical rules of conduct to which all right-minded people conform. Even if this were true—and I do not think we can claim that it is in our increasingly secular and fragmented society—one could question whether it is the business of any creative artist to express or promote it. Dr. Johnson, of course, had his own view of the matter:

  It is justly considered as the greatest excellency of art, to imitate nature; but it is necessary to distinguish those parts of nature, which are most proper for imitation; greater care is still required in representing life, which is so often coloured by passion or deformed by wickedness. If the world be promiscuously described, I cannot see of what use it can be to read the account; or why it may not be as safe to turn the eye immediately upon mankind as upon a mirror which shows all that presents itself without discrimination.

  Many of the Victorian novelists, and particularly Anthony Trollope, laid claims to moral purpose in the novel and were probably prudent to do so. After all, there still hung about novel-reading the sulphurous whiff of indolent and almost decadent self-indulgence. I don’t think that even the most didactic novelist today would claim that his or her words should reform either institutions or people, although we may all have an urge to nudge society’s inclinations in a direction more agreeable to our own beliefs and prejudices. I imagine most writers today would probably agree with that eighteenth-century, less well-known writer, Richard Cumberland:

  All that I am bound to do as a story-maker is to make a story. I am not bound to reform the constitution of my country in the same breath, nor even, (Heaven be thanked!) to overturn it, although that may be the easier task of the two. Nature is my guide; man’s nature, not his natural rights. The one ushers me by the straight avenue to the human heart, the other bewilders me in a maze of metaphysics.

  Certainly, for me, the intention of any novelist must surely be to make that straight avenue to the human heart.

  In the talk I went on to discuss the novelist’s responsibility under the headings of subject matter, characterization and style. It can, I think, be argued that it is absurd to claim that the question of moral responsibility can enter into the novelist’s choice of subject simply because the idea of choice, of a conscious selection or rejection, is illusory. Every novelist writes what he or she needs to write, a subconscious compulsion to express and explain his unique view of reality. If creativity is the successful resolution of internal conflict, the creative writer seeks out of this conflict to make sense of his experience of the world, to impose order on disorder and to construct a controlled pattern from his own internal chaos. In support of this theory, that a writer’s choice of subject is more apparent than real, we can see how genre writers tend to stay with that genre, and how easily we recognize the mind’s topography in such very different novelists as Thomas Hardy, Graham Greene, Virginia Woolf, Barbara Pym, John le Carré, Jane Austen, P. G. Wodehouse, all of whom create a distinctive and immediately recognizable world.

  The crime novelist does not reject romantic fiction or science fiction in favour of murder through conscious choice. He or she needs to deal with the atavistic fear of death, to exorcize the terror of violence and to restore at least fictional peace and tranquillity after the disruptive terror of murder, and to affirm the sanctity of human life and the possibility of justice, even if it is only the fallible justice of men. A distinguished writer of novels of espionage like John le Carré is as much fascinated by personal treachery and betrayal as he is by the shoddy international bureaucracy of spy
ing and the dangers and excitement of the chase. Espionage is his internal as well as his external world.

  Even so, there must be an element of choice both in subject and treatment; no artist is so at the mercy of his subconscious that he is totally without control of his imagination. But if the novelist has a duty to consider the effect of what he writes on the sensitivities of his readers, it is surely also justifiable to ask whether those sensitivities are reasonable or whether criticism and complaints are a subtle attempt at censorship. There are fashionable views on gender, race and political correctness which a writer would be ill-advised to ignore if he wishes to avoid controversy, and which take some courage to confront.

  When it comes to style, it seems to me that the only moral responsibility is for the writer to do his conscientious best with such talent as he has been given to eschew plagiarism, avoid slovenly or meretricious writing, abjure jargon and platitudes and to strive always for that distinctive individual voice which we call style.

  I ended the talk by considering the morality of the fiction I have chosen to write. I do, in fact, get asked from time to time whether it is justifiable to use murder, sometimes appalling murder, to produce books which are primarily for entertainment and relaxation. In short, does the detective story trivialize death and suffering? And isn’t it true that the detective story too often subjugates all the elements of a good novel—psychological truth, setting and atmosphere, characterization—to the dominant needs of the plot, so that the writer, handcuffed to the need to provide a puzzle and shackled to the conventions of the genre, can never write with total honesty or truth? Some of these criticisms are as perverse and irrelevant as complaining that Jane Austen fails to deal adequately with the Napoleonic Wars or with the barbarism of the early-nineteenth-century criminal justice system, or that Bertie Wooster has an imperfect understanding of the socio-economic consequences of twentieth-century capitalism.