Yesterday, I showed Don the first twenty-eight pages of this second draft of my new novel. He was far more impressed, even, than I had hoped. He made me feel that I have found a new approach altogether; that, as he put it, the writing itself is so interesting from page to page that you don’t even care what is going to happen. That’s marvellous and a great incentive to go on with the work, because I always feel that Don has a better nose than almost anyone I know. He sniffs out the least artifice or fudging. He was on his way out after reading it, and then he came back and embraced me and said, “I’m so proud of old Dub.”
What still bothers me very much, however, and makes me hesitate to go ahead, is the problem of plot. How much should there be? How entangled should William be with Charlotte, and with her son Colin? The point is, there are two strands of styles interwoven in this sort of writing—the lyric, sub specie aeternitatis thing which observes William like a wild creature, an antelope, with his daily habits and his whole symbolic meaning as a type, and then there is the mere plot approach, which ties this particular individual William up with this particular individual Charlotte and Colin. Too much of the second is death to the first.
The day before yesterday, I think it was, Florence Homolka died. I feel really sad about this. She was a bumbling tiresome clumsy creature, but sweet and kind and quite talented, and I had known her oh so long, right back into the Caskey era, when we used to go to her house for evenings with Chaplin, etc. She seems to have died quite suddenly, of what the radio said was a “respiratory ailment.”
November 30. To see Charles at the Cedars yesterday afternoon. Elsa wanted me to go, to influence him if possible to agree to come back to the house, which he has violently refused to do. When he was told I was coming, he said that he had something he wanted to talk to me about. He was sleepy and in pain but quite lucid. He said, “The preoccupation is with death, isn’t it?” What he really wanted to ask, though he didn’t put it directly, was whether or not I approved of his having seen the priest. I told him I certainly did. He said he would like to see another priest, a better one, but he didn’t make it clear in what way better. I tried to tell him that it didn’t really make all that much difference if he got to see another priest or not. He should speak to God, ask for help. Because God is there. “I know,” Charles said. And then, either before or after this, he said that having seen the priest had already helped “quite considerably.” He kept dozing off and I was holding his hands and praying to Ramakrishna to help Charles through his suffering and dying. I even said, which I have never said before, “Do it for Brahmananda’s sake, for Vivekananda’s sake, for Prabhavananda’s sake,” and somehow this was “put into my mouth,” it seemed. All mixed up with the praying—which moved me and caused me to shed tears—were the caperings of the ego, whispering, “Look, look, look at me, I’m praying for Charles Laughton!” and then the ego said, “How wonderful if he would die, quite peacefully right now at this moment!” It is most important not to make these confessions about the ego as though they were horrifying. They are not—it is mere vanity to pretend that the ego doesn’t come along every step of the way; it is there with you like your sinus and its instructions are no more shocking than sneezing.
The really important question is, why should one pray to Ramakrishna for Charles? Does it do any good? Granted that Ramakrishna is “there,” available, only waiting to be asked, shouldn’t one simply tell Charles to ask him, or ask Christ, or whatever avatar he believes in? I must ask Swami about this when I see him next.
Coming out into the world of the healthy, on Hollywood Boulevard that evening, with the chilly wind making the Christmas decorations swing from their moorings, I must say it did seem most horribly important not to have cancer. Even hustlers without scores, shivering at corners and maybe needing even the price of supper—ah, how lucky they seemed!
December 4. I have decided to go right ahead with the novel and finish this draft; it’s the only way I shall find out more about the inwardness of the story. Am also trying to make up for lost time on the Ramakrishna book.
The last three days have been beautiful and peaceful, outdoors and in. The last two evenings we have spent at home, reading; a thing we haven’t done in a long while. Mexico is still on; and I feel better about it now, because I believe that Don means to make it a success.
There isn’t anything else of interest to report. We met two nice boys, both painters, who are friends of Jo and Ben: Paul Wonner and Bill Brown. They have studios on the vast empty top floor of an old building in Ocean Park, and their work is influenced by Francis Bacon and (a little bit) Keith Vaughan. More about them later, I hope. Frank Wiley came by to be drawn by Don and left the first part of his new novel and his journal, on the title page of which is written in rather beautiful script: “Herein is contained the journal of the sentimental education of Franklin Evelyn Wiley Jr., Ensign in the United States Naval Reserve; appended by extracts from a forthcoming work of purest fiction.” (I suppose that last ungrammatical bit is to guard against snoopers; but just the same the thing is much better lying around here than on that aircraft carrier. So fictional it isn’t.)
December 8. Swami, when asked about prayer, said that it is good both for you and for the person you pray for; and he added, “You see, when you are speaking to God like that, there are not two people, it’s all the same.” He also said that all that was needed was faith that the prayer would be answered. You didn’t have to be a saint. If you had faith, then it would be answered. He said this with that absolute compelling confidence of his. He made you feel he was quite quite sure of what he was saying.
Don is definitely to be initiated on the 18th ([Holy] Mother’s birthday) before we leave for Mexico.
Last night we went to supper with Michael and Gerald, and got drunk. Don says he watched me and was aware how determined I am to get drunk. He said, “I got the feeling that the alcohol wasn’t even really necessary.”
Gerald has insisted that if the magazine takes his essay on death it must be anonymous. I can’t help feeling this is some kind of malice against the Vedanta Society—testing them to see if all they want is his name on the cover. Meanwhile, he doesn’t at all insist that I shall take his name out of my manuscript which I think will be published by the society as An Approach to Vedanta.fn408
Talking about drinking with Don gave me an idea for my novel. William should be an elderly man in the morning, a mature man at noon, a youth in the late afternoon, a baby at night. You could say that about me. I wake feeling definitely my age. I get working, drink coffee, take Dexamyl and feel much more alert and creative. I go to the gym and often develop quite surprising energy; I am almost youthful. And then, at night, there’s this urge to get drunk, to let go altogether and let the others look after me, like a baby.
The novel is actually going quite well. I do wish I could rattle off some kind of a rough draft of the whole thing before we leave, but I fear that’s quite impossible. There’s amazing richness—or rather, amazing opportunities for discovering richness—in the material.
The Stravinskys are back. Talked to Vera this evening. Haven’t called Elsa for several days, and feel guilty about this. Charles is back home.
December 14. The American Express, which was supposed to get the Mexican train tickets, has goofed (Don hates that word) and so now we shall have to fly direct from here, on the 23rd, which is hateful but at least gives more time. I might even really be able to get the draft of my novel finished. I have already reached the scene at the gym, which leaves only the supermarket, the supper with Charlotte, the meeting with Colin in the bar, and whatever else follows that. If the finished novelette is to be as long as Prater Violet, that would be approximately 120 pages. This draft wouldn’t be more than seventy, I should think.
Charles is said by Elsa to be right on the brink. He nearly died last night, of some infection in his lungs. She is anxious that I shall be present and read at the funeral. Am going to see them this afternoon.
The 11th and 12th we spent up at Santa Barbara. Don drew Thomas Storke, the editor who got the Pulitzer Prize for exposing the John Birch Society,fn409 and Judith Anderson (I mean, Don drew her, not that Storke exposed her!); we also saw Douwe Stuurman, Geo Dangerfield, and stayed with the Warshaws and got even drunker than usual. Next day we had lunch with Wright Ludington and saw around his mausoleum of a house. It seems almost incredible that he should deliberately have designed a gallery for his paintings which has to be lighted at all times by electricity. Indeed, it seems incredible that he could live in that building at all. Yet the stillness of the hillside is magical. And the view of the mountains and the ocean. And the safety of the sun-trap wall by the pool. And the secrecy of the little stone garden among the olive trees. Oh God, he is so dull. But very well-disposed toward Don.
Judith Anderson is rattling around in an even less habitable house, in a valley back from the sea along the Ojai road. The country is marvellous; a pocket of the old California. But she lives there in such an uncomfortable grim British way. And she hardly seems capable of fixing even a cup of tea. Don did two wonderful drawings of her. We drove back to town and saw Gavin’s film, Another Sky. It rather haunts me. It is far too long, but photographically beautiful and it has a kind of unemphatic relentlessness, like [Antonioni’s] L’Avventura or La Notte.
The Stravinskys came to supper on Monday evening, along with the Huxleys. Bob Craft told us that Igor and Vera were quite transformed while in Russia.fn410 They were so happy to be speaking the language in which they were really fluent. All their pride in Russia emerged—especially, of course, Igor’s. Igor, like Picasso, is still really a tolerated exception in the arts; the authorities still don’t approve of what either of them stands for. Igor was chiefly pursued by young people, to whom he is an avant-garde champion. But more of all this, I hope, tomorrow night, when we have supper with them, at their house.
December 17 [Monday]. On the 14th, I saw Elsa and Frank [Laughton], but Charles was unconscious. Frank says he said, during a brief lucid interval, “I’ve fucked my whole life away.” That evening, I was to have met Don at Musso Frank’s. He didn’t show up until hours later. I got very drunk. We finally had a late supper down in the Canyon and I told him that I wasn’t going to Mexico if I had to fly. I also told him that I was psychic and that I could see he had a nun as his familiar. He was rather impressed by this. I simply cannot remember or imagine what made me say it.
On the 15th, Don said he was going away out of town for the night, with a friend. Vera had called and asked if we would bring Gavin to supper. So I went with [Gavin] alone, after telling him that I wasn’t coming to Mexico. He was sad, but very nice about this. I got terribly drunk again. After we’d returned from the Stravinskys’ (I can’t remember anything they told us!) Elsa called to say that Charles had just died, about half past ten.
Yesterday I saw Elsa and Frank and it is all fixed that I’m to be the speaker at the funeral on Wednesday. I had supper with Frank Wiley and got drunk again. I really must cut this out; my hands have started to shake.
Today, Don has decided that he doesn’t want to go to Mexico without me. So here we shall stay. I look forward with appetite to getting a lot of work done. Tomorrow is Don’s initiation.
December 20. Don’s initiation duly took place. It imposed the usual states of aversion and boredom on him that nearly everyone goes through under the circumstances: the long boring puja first, the devout women, the reek of Sunday religion. He didn’t stop for the end of the homa fire, or lunch. And now, like I did, he has forgotten his mantram and must go up to Vedanta Place to check it with Swami! Never mind. The deed is done, and of his own free will. And that’s all that matters for the time being—maybe for years to come. It will catch up with him.
Yesterday was Laughton’s funeral. Ray Bradbury wrote Elsa a letter which could be nominated for the all-time slime-and-honey prize. I hope to get a copy of it later. But these are my impressions:
Dear Elsa—I am a writer, but today I have no words. This morning, my second daughter came into my room crying, and told me that Charles was dead. And now all I have to offer you is my daughter’s tears—
I’m sure Ray thought this was exquisitely beautiful. And, indeed, you have to be a very very good writer to produce such horror.
Elsa said that she wanted the Mitchell Boys Choirfn411 to sing in Latin, “Because English is so full of repetitious words, like God.” As a matter of fact, by barring the Catholics, she merely let the Protestants in through the back door. She asked for a “nondenominational” service and got the usual Episcopalian thing.
I really don’t care to dwell on the streamlined horror of the ceremony itself; at the Hollywood Hills branch of Forest Lawn. They have constructed an Early American church with a tall steeple (copied from the one at Portland, Maine, where Longfellow went as a boy, the brochure tells us) right in the midst of this San Fernando Valley scenery: pylons, Warner Brothers, the T.V. station on top of Mount Hollywood, and a fine dim view of the mountains through smog. A whole crew of attendants, with white-topped caps, looking rather like the crew of a yacht; they take off their caps to a funeral procession as though the owner were coming aboard. Miles of electric cables. Flowers arranged as if in a florist’s shop. The truly obscene contrast between the nicey-nice church behavior and all the cameras and newsmen outside, sticking their lenses practically down Elsa’s throat, even while the service was still going on. The coffin was surprisingly heavy, though there were experts to aid us official pallbearers: Raymond Massey,fn412 Taft Schreiber, Lloyd Wright,fn413 Jean Renoir,fn414 Bill Phipps and me. I think Bill Phipps was the most genuinely upset one present. But when I got a little weepy over the “I am the Resurrection and the Life” speech, there was a movie camera whirring away at me instantly, like a rattlesnake. Elsa said later, “I wish it had been a grey day, it softens the face in the newsreel shots.” She was really very nice, though, and extremely professional and brave. Frank said she had broken down violently the night before.
I said some “words of appreciation” and read three bits out of The Tempest (“rounded with a sleep,” “I’ll drown my book,”fn415 and the last half of the Epilogue). The acoustics were excellent, and I know I was good. At my very best, Don said; and Elsa was genuinely delighted. So I feel I didn’t let Charles down.
Do I miss him, Don asked me. Yes, I do indeed—or rather, I will, now that all this evil fuss is over. Funerals are deadly for flattering your vanity. I am actually still preening myself over my theatrical success, and a little disappointed that I haven’t been called by anyone and complimented!
An argument with Don yesterday because of his mania for making up his mind at the very last moment: he wouldn’t say whether or not he wanted to go to the funeral, and of course it was I who had to do the arranging about this. So Don said—more to punish me than anything, I think—that he still might decide at the last moment to go to Mexico with Gavin on Sunday. Well, if he does, he does. I shall make out all right.… And, despite this, I must say that the last three weeks or so have been quite unusually harmonious. I think we are gradually discovering a new way of living together which might work almost indefinitely.
Ted is showing signs of going mad again. He is full of hysterical enthusiasm, even about the weather, which is still wretched; and will not go to bed at nights. Don says he looks terrible.
December 26. My encounter with the Bill Bopp situation, and the subsequent quarrel with Don on the way to the party next evening, the 22nd, are not things I want to dwell on yet. Maybe all will work out for the best—but I don’t know that, and I don’t even want to think it. When I suffer, I suffer as stupidly as an animal. It altogether stops me working. I am ashamed of such weakness.… Well, that’s enough of that. The only thing worth recording is the (not at the time, though) farce of our losing our way, simply because I was so rattled, on the new freeway over Sepulveda and having to go right back to Sunset and do it all over again.
Christmas (which I se
em to hate more every year) was placid and almost joyous by comparison. The last two days have been cold but very beautiful. Don and I lay on the beach and talked affectionately. I think he would really love it if he could discuss everything with me. But, alas, I am neither the Buddha nor completely senile. I have my limits. I cannot help minding. When I finally stop minding I also stop caring. I don’t give a shit.
Don forgot his mantram. But today we went to Swami’s birthday party and Swami wrote it down for him. Don hates to destroy the paper it was written on, but Swami told him to.
A Dr. Jim Lester called me. “Mr. Isherwood, I heard The Ascent of F6 on the radio. It interested me very much—perhaps not quite for the usual reasons. You see, I am a psychologist who is going along on the Everest expedition to observe the effect of hardship and tension on the climbers at high altitudes”!!fn416
I am slowly getting started up again. Both on the novel and Ramakrishna.
Swami looked absolutely radiant. He told us that his best birthday present had been “a visit from Maharaj.” He had woken at five this morning, gone to the bathroom, gone back to bed and had an (apparently) long visitation dream of Maharaj, between then and seven o’clock. He couldn’t say where the encounter had taken place, here or in India. He had been dressing Maharaj. The wearing cloth was crumpled. He was impressed by the beauty of Maharaj’s skin; it was golden and shining.
I never knew before today that Swami suffers from feelings of sickness quite often after initiating people. “But,” he told us, referring [to] the last initiation (Don’s) on the 18th, “I didn’t feel anything bad that day; they must have been all good people.”
On the 21st, Don’s car was stolen. He had left it outside a restaurant in Hollywood with the key in it. The police say there’s an eighty-five percent chance of getting it back. But no news yet.
The Sixties Page 35
