Liberation

by Christopher Isherwood

  Elsa Laughton has just discovered that Ned Hoopes(?) has finished a book about Charles, after pretending that he had given up the whole project. It seems that he had kept duplicates of all the interviews which he and Elsa did together. When Elsa first heard this, she was so upset that she took to her bed. Now the question is, can Ned be legally restrained from publishing?143

  My latest worry, a small hard pimple inside my mouth. The tooth Dr. Kurtzman pulled out is still sore. My hand is still tender; I think it’s getting better, though.

  November 14. Very strong wind, nervous making. Hunt Stromberg called this morning, just back from Texas. Talked about how Oliver Reed144 is interested in doing “Frankenstein” and Vanessa Redgrave maybe is, but the only cold fact is that Boris Sagal is definitely in, because Universal trusts him not to exceed the budget. Oh yes, and Hunt would now like us to do Pride and Prejudice! I called Robin French this morning and asked him to make a last-ditch attempt to interest them in Jim Bridges. But then, I don’t know if Jim really wants to; I suspect that he might try to wriggle out at the last moment.

  We rush about, seeing films; the festival is on. Yesterday, we dashed to Santa Barbara, arriving on campus to find that we had literally only three minutes in which to see a Charles Demuth145 show. Then to Bill and Paul—but thanks to Bill’s social instinct we had to have supper with dull old Wright Ludington, and I drank wine because I was so bored and now my weight is up to 150 or over, nude. The only satisfactory part of the trip was that I slept nearly all the way home and was simply amazed to find myself back in our carport, after what I’d thought was a brief doze.

  The only good news, I’m getting along steadily with my work on the reconstruction of the 1945 journal. Sometimes that’s really interesting.

  The day before yesterday, we had supper with Robin and Jessie French. Their house is so dark and gloomy and Robin has such an air of resentment, when you see him at home. He appears to spend most of his home time fiddling with gadgets, taking them apart to see how they work—with a sort of sulky listlessness. They have two huge dogs; Robin makes rather a thing about their being dangerous, and he tells, with obvious satisfaction, how he was taken to court by the neighbors because the dogs bark so much in the night.

  The young man who wrote The Andromeda Strain was there: Michael Crichton. He is six feet seven, fresh faced, obviously very intelligent and a bit arrogant. Jessie told me later she thinks he is Jewish, “You can tell by the way he moves his hands.” (Don says this is the only interesting remark he has ever known Jessie to make!)

  November 17. Yesterday morning I woke to find that the congestion in my lungs had got up into my throat; I had almost lost my voice. Saw Dr. Allen. He didn’t seem much impressed but agreed that I had better not go to Claremont and give my talk about film writing, at the men’s college. I showed him my hand and he didn’t seem much impressed by that, either. He even implied a criticism of Dr. Ashworth’s surgery, saying that he hadn’t expected so much scar tissue. He evidently doesn’t expect it will get much better. When I said that the thickening at the base of my little finger felt like a ring, he grinned and said, “You’d better get a diamond and have it set.” But I like his good-humored cynical manner; it is much more cheering than worry and concern.

  This morning I had a dream: Either Asaktananda or Vandanananda—definitely not Swami—was talking about Vivekananda and how he had switched from Jnana Yoga to Bhakti Yoga, and he added that this showed Vivekananda’s “humility.”146 After Asaktananda or Vandanananda had left the room (it was in the Hollywood monastery) I turned to some of the monks who had been listening and said, “Do you notice how he always hits the target right in the middle—he’s like a revolver—the way he said humility?” This was a vanity dream; I was pleased with myself for my analysis of the swami’s statement; I felt that the others would never have noticed the significance of the word “humility” if I hadn’t pointed it out to them. . . . Still and all, this was at least a dream about something religious. I doubt if I’ve had one in the past six months.

  This afternoon, Hunt tells us, Sheinberg is having a meeting with him and Boris Sagal. This means that Sagal is definitely in. Hunt says that he asked Sheinberg if I should come along and Sheinberg said no. “That’s because he’s in such terrible awe of you,” Hunt said. “That’s the way I want it,” I said. Hunt also told me that photographs of possible locations for “Frankenstein” have arrived from England and that they are “as if the descriptions in the script had come to life.”

  December 4. Colin Wilson wrote a good notice in The Spectator, to add to the yes votes, and the Beesleys obviously think that I have had a triumph. But I don’t, and the cold fact remains that the sales up to the 20th of November were only 1,815! Richard Simon tries to make this sound better by saying that the season has been bad and that there may be a pre-Christmas spurt.

  My cough has dragged on ever since the last entry here. But I am due [to] give my talk at Claremont the day after tomorrow.

  Am still worried about the little lump inside my lip.

  Hunt has told us to rewrite the scenes of Agatha’s death and the meeting of Polidor and the Creature. The Creature is to demand to have Agatha brought back to life. Hunt wants the change because it will strengthen the role of the Creature. The idea originally came from Jack Larson, who said he thought we should have stuck to Mary Shelley’s version and had the Creature appeal to Frankenstein to create a wife for it. Hunt also wants us to do something to make Frankenstein play a more aggressive part at the end of the story. This because he has now begun casting, or trying to.

  Yesterday we saw a young producer at Columbia, Henry Gellis, very square and serious. Gellis wants us to write a religious story for him—by which he means a story in which a very rich man gets disgusted by his riches and turns to God.

  I am creeping along with the 1945 journal; sometimes I feel really fascinated by it, other times I have to force myself.

  In the mornings I wake up and think of death—not with terror yet but with a heavy heart. Because there is my darling beside me and the prospect of our parting is painful beyond all words. Love is agony, but Proust is a shit for saying so the way he did. A saint is right to speak against attachment. But saints suffer too. Prousts just sneer and whine, so they have asthma instead.

  A few mornings ago, I had a dream that there was a little white kitten in bed with us. And it could speak. It spoke for both of us. It was sort of a soul of our relationship, our guardian angel.

  All this time I haven’t seen Swami, because of my cough. I’m afraid he isn’t getting any better. Now he’s being treated for arthritis.

  Bart Johnson called this afternoon, after nearly a year. He has now broken off his second marriage. He said, “I’m a loner” and “I’m a sexual mugwump.”147

  December 11. I saw Swami twice, this week. Both times, he seemed listless and said he felt giddy. But he did also say that he kept being aware of the presence of the disciples of Ramakrishna around him. At the vespers of the puja, two days ago, he came into the temple and bowed down before the relics and gave the devotees his blessing.

  This morning, he called to ask me to come to both his birthday celebrations—on the 26th and on the 27th. The reason for this is that, this year, they are having two celebrations, the first for the women and the second for the men, on the two successive days; and Swami wants me to come on the women’s day also because Amiya is arriving to stay. I’m sure he dreads her coming and all the hostility it will arouse; and I’m supposed to help cushion the shock!

  It has been frightfully cold at nights, which makes the basket extra snug.

  Hunt Stromberg left for Texas today and won’t be back until after the New Year. Now he is all excited about our next project, “The Mummy”—it is taken for granted that “Frankenstein” is going ahead and that we shall spend months and months with him in England, beginning early in the spring. I don’t even think about this yet. No use getting into a flap. Hunt believes we can have Bran
do as Polidor.

  Dr. Allen says the pimple in my mouth is a varicose vein which can be burnt off if necessary. He had my chest x-rayed and couldn’t find anything wrong. The cough continues.

  Ted is crazy again and has lost his job. This is upsetting Don even more than usual, because he is beginning to foresee the time when Jess and Glade will be dead and he will have to take responsibility for Ted’s welfare. He thinks that Ted’s attacks will become more and more frequent and finally be his permanent condition.

  December 16. Yesterday I saw Dr. Ashworth. He didn’t seem at all discouraged by the condition of my hand, said that it will gradually loosen up. (His assistant remarked that this process sometimes takes as much as a year!) Dr. Ashworth has given me a splint which I am to wear at night on the little finger, to straighten it up. He says that it is not a question of straining the finger; in time it will yield even to a very slight but continued pressure.

  On the evening of the 12th, Jon Voight and Marcheline Bertrand got married at a dreary furnished house in Brentwood which they have just bought. The ceremony demonstrated the psychological confusion of nowadays; one foot in squaresville, the other in hippie dom. Jon and Marcheline’s folks were present, Jon wore a tux, Marcheline a veil, and they were married by a judge. But a lot of the guests were dressed “casual,” including John Boorman (in a turtleneck) who had to give the eulogy (or whatever they call it) and who referred to marriage as “this battered institution”—a phrase which might well have been intended for his wife. His speech shocked the judge, who then spoke, insisting that marriage is a very serious matter indeed. Then came the “vows,” which Jon and Marcheline had rewritten in would-be flower-child style. Jon forgot his lines altogether and finally had to excuse himself, exclaiming “actors!” Marcheline knew all her lines and said “I love you” in a tone of absolute firmness. It was obviously her wedding rather than his.

  Later, John Boorman expressed possible interest in filming A Single Man. We encouraged him as much as we could.

  That was the day Don finally shaved off his beard. I am so happy to get seven-eighths of his dear face back again; he still has a fairly thick moustache.

  The day before yesterday we saw Gavin, for the first time since his return from Europe and New York. He has been having dizzy spells due to the effect of the cold on his low blood pressure. While we were alone together, Mark told me that Gavin became terribly upset in New York by fears that Mark would leave him if he became sick and couldn’t “keep up.” Don is afraid that Gavin is seriously sick, right now.

  In London, Gavin had seen Tony Richardson and said he has become very conservative; he has got himself a girlfriend and is making a film written by John Mortimer.148

  Last night we saw part of Peter Brook’s Lear film with Scofield. Realism of this kind swallows up Shakespeare in a flood of galloping ponies, fur, snow, Danish extras and storm noises; it becomes all plot and no contents. What a showy Jewish ass Brook is—hardly better than Kazan. And how dull Scofield was—not to be compared with Laughton in the part.

  We left it in the middle for a wonderful film about Australia, directed by Ted Kotcheff, called Outback. You are shown an inferno not run by devils but by thick-skinned, noisy beer-drinking men who drag you down into the mud with them and then behave with unexpected unsentimental group-decency. The film has made absolutely no impression here and is about to close.

  December 26. We’ve had rain on and off for the past four days and more is expected, though the sun is shining this morning. On Christmas Eve, Don had a hideous experience. In the midst of a downpour, while he was sitting in his car at the stoplight at the bottom of the California Avenue incline, waiting to turn onto the Coast Highway, two teenagers whose brakes had gone out crashed into him from behind. He had to wait an hour for a tow truck, leave the car on a garage lot (all garages were already shut for the holidays), find a place to rent a car (nearly all cars were already rented and he could only get an aged Toyota). I was out at the gym and getting my hair cut, so didn’t receive his phone calls. He arrived home drenched and in a state of delayed shock, took half a bottle of wine with him into his studio and relaxed. Nevertheless he pulled himself together marvellously and came out with me in the evening. We visited Dorothy Miller who was adorable as always, heard about Don’s accident with delighted groans and then described her latest falls and injuries. She is so full of inward joy that her complaints seem purely camp.

  From Dorothy’s, we went on to a party given by Joe Goode and Mary Agnes Donoghue. Billy Al Bengston and Penny Little and Peter Alexander and a lot of other artists were there. We felt great warmth from Billy and Joe; they both kissed us. But the party got wearisome and I drank too much Greek wine and had a headache all yesterday. Also my back is bad again, probably from the damp.

  Yesterday I saw Amiya, who arrived from England a few days ago. There had been much talk about her arthritis and I was surprised to see her looking so well, marvellously fresh faced for a woman nearly seventy. She is staying at the house of a rich young-ish gay [. . .], and there was an all-male party in progress. Amiya loves being with “the boys”—her friendly condescension toward them and her conscious broad-mindedness is intensely offensive, but they are seldom offended; after all, she is a countess, and that still means a great deal—in Bel Air. Poor old thing, I am fond of her; she means very little harm. But, oh God, how she talks. She told me the whole history of the Sandwich family, about which she is writing an article for the Reader’s Digest. She stresses the fact that she is (temporarily at least) the only Sandwich—now that her stepson’s renounced the title and become plain Mr. Montagu, there can be no Earl of Sandwich as long as he’s alive.

  Last night we had Christmas dinner with Leslie Caron and Michael. Much talk from some European intellectuals about the “evil” in Stanley Kubrick’s new film A Clockwork Orange. Don and I were disappointed in it and unimpressed by the violence. Polanski’s Repulsion (which we saw for the second time, some days ago) did, on the other hand, seem frighteningly evil. You got the impression that he had dabbled in the Forbidden and become dangerously involved. [. . .]

  No words can describe how happy I am with Don, just now. But oh how difficult it is to enjoy happiness in and for itself!

  1972

  January 1. We saw the New Year in at Jack’s at the Beach, with Gavin and Mark. We started eating too early and had to sit too long afterwards, not really wanting to stay but not knowing where else to go. Mark, who wasn’t even drinking wine, was bored and silent; we would have been much more at our ease without him. The hostess made us wear cardboard hats and gave us noise makers. I asked Gavin to be my literary executor in the event that both Don and I are killed in an airplane crash or other disaster. I think he was pleased.

  For several days now I have had a painful back, right down at the bottom of the spine. I hope it will get better before the 7th, which is the Vivekananda puja (early this year), or sitting in the shrine reading the Katha Upanishad will be misery.

  Beautiful bright cold weather, with the sun going down yesterday and today into a hard-line blue ocean.

  Don is writing a diary too, which makes me disinclined to write this. His will be far more interesting, because he’s in the first flush of composition. He told me he worked two hours on it this morning. He will read this one day but I don’t suppose I shall ever read his.

  Jim Charlton showed up this week, on a short trip from Hawaii. He wears his hair rather long and keeps saying “right?” in the middle of his sentences. “I saw this man down at the bar, right?, and he told me we’d been at school together . . . etc.” He talks a great deal about Mark Cooper,149 still: indeed he repeated word for word his description of meeting Mark which I heard when I was over in Honolulu with him, on my way back from Australia. I felt that he had called me chiefly to see if I would have him to the house and if Don would receive him; he still challenges you to reject him. I couldn’t be at my ease with him. To relax toward Jim I have to be alone with him for at least
one whole day. But I still feel some of that old charm. He’s a bit like an aging actor, with all his tricks, including his much-too-deep “masculine” voice.

  Two things about Christmas I forgot to mention. One is that Glade had a most alarming attack during dinner with Jess, Ted and Don—this was not so long before I arrived. She began to gasp and couldn’t breathe and was terribly scared. Ted was so shocked that he became quite sane and concerned; but Glade absolutely refuses to see any doctor. . . . The other thing is that the kimono which I bought for Don in Japtown was a great success, which relieved me enormously; I had been afraid that he would be furious with me for paying so much money, nearly a hundred dollars. Our relations between then and now have been blissful, until this afternoon when I was unintentionally rude to Avilda Moses. I had called to tell her that she and Ed should come to us later for dinner, and I added—with what Don calls my fatal habit of supplying superfluous information—that Irving and Shirley Blum were going to be late, too. Don heard me and blew up, saying that I’d suggested that we couldn’t endure their company alone, even for a short while, before the Blums arrived. You would never be rude like that, he continued, to one of your friends; and he said how utterly selfish I am. . . . But now I’m forgiven.

  A man from Simon and Schuster’s publicity department rang from New York to say they want me to come there at the end of this month and appear on the T.V. show called “Today” and maybe some other shows. He implied that this is because Kathleen and Frank is going to get good notices and be talked about; but I don’t know how they know this. Still and all, I’m inclined to go, and so is Don. Simon and Schuster will pay my fare and expenses, and anyhow we can probably stay with Vera and Bob.