Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

Speed—temporarily released from the surveillance of Paul Millard (who has gone to Ohio)—was in his most excitable niggery state. He kept urging us to come with him to the Ebb Tide, promising vague but tremendous thrills. Don knows Speed well enough by this time to be able to discount such talk—and yet it upsets him. He feels that it’s hard, somehow wrong, to spend a Saturday evening at home. I can’t blame him, either. My stay-at-home urges are mostly due to laziness and middle age. However, we did stay home, and Don started urging that we should at least go ahead with redecorating this place—as of course we should. The living room is still half in darkness for want of lamps, and our dining alcove could be altogether transformed by cozier lighting. And then there are the really big projects—the windows to be put in, the walls to be painted, etc. etc. I only try to put the brake on these schemes because I want to try to save some money for a trip to New York next Christmas and the eventual trip to Tahiti next year. Don got a little bit impatient with me, saying I was throwing cold water. But he quickly recovered his temper. He really is making tremendous efforts to be more self-controlled. It’s a long time since we had a bad explosion.

  I write this, as I have so often written in this book about Don, making it sound as though the problem were all his. But, of course, it’s mine—much more mine—entirely mine, as far as I’m concerned. Japam. Japam. The only possible answer to every question. And I ought to be stressing it more and more—instead of neglecting it altogether, as I have lately—because I’m sadly aware of becoming increasingly resentful. The list of people who have “rejected” and “wronged” me grows and grows. I must make a fresh start. I must shake my back hard and let all this shit of resentment slide off it. It’s nothing but a meaningless burden.

  September 20. Johnnie has taken to calling me, right after breakfast, for a daily gossip. The day before yesterday he was bursting with the information that he didn’t enjoy reading Madame Bovary—she wasn’t a real character; yesterday, he called to tell me that there was a piece in The Los Angeles Times by Edwin Schallert, headlined, “Isherwood Will Script Jean-Christopher.” And in fact the deal is now settled. I went to Fox yesterday and talked to Jerry Wald—mostly about Scott Fitzgerald. He seems to be very pleasant, though a great name dropper and time waster. All right—I’m to be paid $2,000 down and $4,000 on delivery of the treatment; and now it merely remains to deliver the treatment! So far, I haven’t the least clue as to how I’m going to handle this gush of French wah-wah. I’ve promised to finish reading the book by next Monday the 24th. That means 1,300 pages in four days!

  Having seen Wald yesterday, I returned home, went on the beach and into the ocean and lost the gold ring I bought in New Orleans on November 19, 1954. I’m always a bit superstitious about the 19th—particularly January and September—and I have the feeling that the sea, which has taken nearly all my rings, took this one in payment for the job. A big price for not so very much, because this was the prettiest ring I have ever owned. The last one, given me by Caskey, was lost in the dark on the beach at Fire Island in 1947. The one before that, given me by Chris Wood, I lost while swimming in 1945—I think it was on VJ Day, and that did seem a price worth paying.

  The evening before last, I got Max Scheler together again with Jim Charlton and the others. Max’s friend, Marcel Fischer, wasn’t present because he’s having an affair with a colored policewoman!

  Saw Swami yesterday. He looked very well and happy. He has been up in the Sierras, at one of the Mammoth lakes. He spent most of the time there in meditation. He said that he felt the presence of Thakur, Swamiji and Maharaj very strongly. “I felt there was only a very thin screen between me and them. Very thin. I felt that nearly all of the time.”

  Don and I had supper with Marguerite Lamkin last night. Horrific tales of her adventures with the Raintree County company. Clift’s drinking and the love life of Elizabeth Taylor. Marguerite adores all of this and recounts it with niggery glee. She really longs to be involved with [anything melodramatic and exciting]. Now she’s “mothering” Monty Clift. She wants to bring him to supper on Saturday night—promising that he will probably smash everything and have to stay the night. The prospect doesn’t charm me. I am wondering whether to call it off.

  A precipice of work ahead: keep the novel going—I missed yesterday. Keep working on the Ramakrishna project—I missed yesterday. Do the Brecht translation for Lincoln Kirstein.61 Read Jean-Christophe. Anything else?!

  September 24. Clift behaved neither worse nor better than I’d expected. He arrived drunk, crumpled somewhat during supper but didn’t spill anything and left soon after. I was really shocked by the change in his appearance since I saw him last. Nearly all of his good looks have gone. He has a ghastly, shattered expression.

  Both Don and I felt we could have handled Monty better without Marguerite. It is obvious that she arouses his sadism. She fusses at him the whole time, subconsciously provoking violence. Monty is touching, and very anxious to be friendly—but, oh dear, how sorry he is for himself!

  Yesterday, Marguerite met Johnnie at the Bracketts’ lunch and invited him to come out on the MGM set today and talk to Monty! Johnnie is kind of thrilled at the prospect of a voyage au bout de la nuit.62

  Also on Saturday we bought two new table lamps and a hanging lamp for the dining alcove, and talked with Bill Reid about various possible reconstructions and improvements on the house. This way we can easily spend $2,500.

  Today I did my first full day’s work at Fox. I have what seems to be a dream secretary, Eleanor Breese. But more of all this later.

  September 28. Very warm again today. Smoggy in town. But I didn’t have to go to the studio because I finished a rough first treatment yesterday and it has to be typed up and read by Jerry Wald.

  So far, the honeymoon atmosphere prevails, as far as I am concerned. (But, admittedly, I haven’t seen Jerry since I began.) I work in an absurd haunted house type structure called the Old Writers’ Building. It has a clock tower arch and a clock, beneath which is written: “A play ought to be an image of human nature for the delight and instruction of mankind.” Also there are holes for pigeons—but the pigeons themselves were removed long ago, because they distracted the writers by their cooing.

  My secretary, Eleanor Breese, has written a novel about being married to a test pilot (it was her second husband) and another novel called The Valley of Power. Her writing name is Eleanor Buckles.

  Got my contract signed this morning, and received my first check. So far, I’ve only earned $5,626.44 this year.

  Johnnie came to lunch with me at the studio three days ago. He says he asks himself what he shall write about next—it must be something he knows really well. He decided it must be half-Jews, and Jews who “pass.” He, himself, is half Jewish. I never realized this—always thought it was only a quarter, at most. He is far less Jewish than Stephen or John Lehmann, not to mention the Reinhardts. Has he anything Jewish about him? Yes—a certain gemütlichkeit and a certain furtiveness.

  Today he’s having lunch with Swami, who’s trying to persuade him to write a popular book about Vedanta. He says he won’t, because it’s opposed to what Joel Goldsmith believes.

  Marguerite tells us that when Clift is very drunk on the set the crew have passwords—bad is “Georgia,” very bad is “Florida,” worst of all is “Zanzibar.”

  Have done almost nothing on my novel. Must keep it going.

  September 30. Well, I did work on the novel, both Friday and yesterday; and I must try to again today. But it’s not enough just to keep doing a page a day. I want to hurry up and finish this draft. I should be able to find time at Fox, easily.

  On Friday night, the Bracketts came in and we showed them our Europe film. Don had previously cut out a piece of footage which seemed to linger unduly on the weird fishy-shaped cocks of the statues in the fountain in Florence.

  This steamy smoggy heatwave continues. Today, Julie and Manning are due to arrive in town.

  Yesterday we went with Marguerite La
mkin to a party given for the cast of Raintree County at Nigel Patrick’s63 Malibu beach house. Nigel Balchin64 was there. He is now working at Fox on Lucy Crown.65 He has written a script of Melville’s Typee for John Huston. He says Tahiti is marvellous, and that they’re going to film the picture there from next June on. This seemed like a sign. Decided that we’ll make arrangements to go there then—the worst that can happen is that we’ll have to cancel them.

  October 1. Went to the studio this morning but Jerry Wald didn’t get around to seeing me, and I left in the afternoon. Geller says, however, that he talked to Jerry and that Jerry is very pleased with my outline. I felt so tired that I slept all afternoon. Am hoping to get more hormone shots soon.

  Talked to Julie Harris this morning. They arrived last night, to open for two weeks in The Lark.

  Speed came to lunch at the studio, very manic. He talks about people who “have the rock inside of them”—i.e. an obsessive drive to write. He wants me to do a play. He says of World in the Evening, “It’s your Tender Is the Night”—whatever that means. He believes he has “saved” Jim Charlton from the “sick people.” He advises me to borrow scenes from Balzac for Jean-Christophe. I told him I see Jean-Christophe essentially as a farce. Speed said I mustn’t tell Jerry that. He wouldn’t understand what I meant.

  October 2. So tired again. It’s quite alarming. I certainly hope I don’t have a relapse, after all this time.

  Saw Jerry Wald this morning, I fear he’ll be a nuisance, giving advice. Already this afternoon, he sent me notes. Lunch with Ellis St. Joseph, who is working on Townsend Harris and assures me that Frenke and David Brown had no right to offer the screenplay to anyone else—it was nothing but brain picking. Ellis suspects, as I do, that Harris must really have been queer.

  This afternoon we started the Jean-Christophe treatment. I think it’s quite promising.

  John van Druten to supper last night. He is thinking of writing a play about a character like Laurette Taylor.66 He is really quite sweet and cozy and pleasant to have around—but, in the last analysis, he just doesn’t speak my language. I don’t feel he’s a companion of my own age; and that’s what I need here.

  I find myself relying more and more entirely on Don. He is my whole family. I hate to think how utterly lost I’d be without him. That isn’t good.

  No work on novel today. That isn’t good, either.

  Later. I’ve just been in to see Gerald. He’ll be sixty-seven next Saturday (the 6th); it seems incredible, for he doesn’t look more than forty-seven—even though he is obviously tired from working at the big book he’s doing.67 And how alive he is! How truly forward-looking. We were talking about this book of Colin Wilson’s, The Outsider. All the literary preoccupations of this young man seem so elderly in comparison with Gerald’s youthful enthusiasm for unidentified aerial objects, mescaline and lysergic acid, the new psychology, the new discoveries which may lead to control of extrasensory perception, the new sources of sugar and vitamins which may solve the food problem! And yet, at the same time, Gerald—who, you’d think, would want to live another hundred years just to satisfy his scientific curiosity—still maintains that he’d gladly die any time if he could do it painlessly! He talked about suicide—San Diego has the highest rate in the U.S. About the success of Evelyn Hooker’s paper at Chicago. About Margaret Mead’s book on the Stone Age tribe (in New Guinea?) which has become “civilized” within twenty-five years and has already rejected Catholicism.68 About a new kind of therapy based on getting the different kinds of lunatics to talk to each other—since each, being opposite numbers, can see exactly what makes the other crazy.

  October 8. This evening, for some inscrutable reason, I felt a desire to read Corvo—not so much for his sake as to get a whiff of Venice. Dipped into The Quest for Corvo, then read all of the fragment Amico di Sandro,69 then looked at The Desire and Pursuit of the Whole.70 Well, and—? I don’t know. The feeling was somewhat muddled.

  John van Druten called to say that he is pleased with the way his hearing went—his case against Hecht-Lancaster before the Screen Writers’ Guild. He is now asking for all of the money. They’re trying to prove that he didn’t take trouble. He thinks he’ll win.

  Yesterday Julie Harris came, and Manning and Peter. They had lunch at our place and we all went on the beach, and then we drove them home again. Manning said this was the only really relaxing day Julie had had in weeks. I hope it was, because it made me as tense as a fiddle string. When your friends get children it’s exactly as if they’d taken to drink—you can’t talk to them any more. They can’t concentrate.

  On the 3rd we went to see The Lark. Julie seemed better this time, the play even less good. She certainly does everything that can possibly be done with it.

  Tomorrow, or at latest on Wednesday, I hope to finish my treatment on Jean-Christophe. Very awkward moments lie ahead because Curtis Harrington is still Jerry Wald’s personal assistant, and we shall have to meet and get along somehow.

  Then I must get on with my novel. This is really serious.

  October 10. Have just returned from seeing Marguerite Lamkin to the airport. She’s leaving for New York tonight. Johnnie is also leaving by air tonight for Chicago. Last night he took me to dinner at Chasen’s and thanked me for my “kindness to” him and for “the time” I had given him during his stay in Hollywood. I was quite embarrassed and touched. Johnnie has won his case against Hecht-Lancaster before the Screen Writers’ tribunal. The only question now is will they pay up or refuse and force him to sue them?

  This morning, before noon, I finished my treatment on Jean-Christophe. Now we’ll see if Jerry Wald likes it.

  This afternoon I had some free time, so could work on my novel as well as clip the ivy, sweep up, and water the front garden. I wrote two pages. This must now be my daily minimum, if I’m to finish the rough draft by Thanksgiving, as I would like. Unless it’s to have a stunted last part, I have still seventy pages to write. Thanksgiving will fall on November 22 this year.

  Don’s life has been greatly affected by the release of old movie films to TV. Last night he saw Mr.———, how interesting! My resentment against the damned thing has made me “forget” its name!71 Tonight, he sees The Letter. They are only shown at 11 p.m. and run till 1 a.m., and he has to go to a friend of Ted’s to see them. So he’s exhausted and will get in very late, and miss school tomorrow—and disturb me by coming in in the middle of the night. (Last night he slept at his mother’s.) And yet, how dismal of me to disapprove! Why shouldn’t he have this fun?

  October 12. The Outsider by Colin Wilson. I looked into it a short while ago. It didn’t interest me much as a book. But as a theme it is of prime significance. I believe the English like it so much because they think of themselves collectively as The Outsider. And, as far as I’m concerned, I not only take it for granted that I’m an Outsider but I really am only interested in modern books if they are written from an Outsider’s point of view. An Outsider but not a No Sider. I’m not interested in tales of fey folk who live in trees. The Outsider stands outside the modern conformist world, looking in—but with passion, with sincere involvement, with heartfelt hostility.

  Last night Jo and Ben and Don and I had supper with Julie and Manning at a beautiful Japanese restaurant, the Imperial Gardens, near their hotel. Julie looked wonderfully elegant, as she sometimes can look, in black with earrings. She told us of a (fictitious) theme song plugging the movie of War and Peace: “Oh, War and Peace, I love you!”

  This morning, I saw Jerry Wald about my treatment on Jean-Christophe. He had prepared a whole typed criticism of it, written in the vaguest language, but he didn’t say one word about liking any of it. My resentment grew and grew—I know damn well that I’ve done a good job—and, good or bad, no kind of a job deserves to be treated in that way. So I called Geller, and Geller called Wald and asked him did he really dislike the treatment, because if so, we’d call it quits. Wald professed amazement. So now I hope that he’ll be suitably
apologetic on Monday morning. If I handle this right, I can turn the whole thing to the benefit of our future relations.

  The novel is going again, but I must keep at it.

  October 16. Reached page 200 of the novel tonight.

  Lunch with Jerry Wald and Yul Brynner at Romanoff’s. Jerry thinks he’s right for Christophe. I’m sure he isn’t. He is suave and tomcat voiced, purry masculine, with flirty brown eyes like Bill Harris. He kissed his wife’s hand when they parted.

  Listening to my neighbors talking—their loud masculine banter, like boys talking to each other while exploring a dark cave—talking very loud, just for reassurance. Are they consciously scared? No. But they are plenty scared.72

  Over the weekend, a flare-up of infection above my capped tooth—all the symptoms of an abscess—then it dies away and I can bite on the tooth again: three days ago, it was agony. Very strange. Maybe due to rejection feelings regarding Wald’s behavior. Teeth are said to be psychological indicators. But now, after our talk yesterday, all is sweetness again.

  Curtis Harrington lurks in the background. We still haven’t spoken to each other, though I’m quite prepared to.

  Have spent this evening at home, working. Don is away at evening class, followed by a Bette Davis movie on TV. I miss him so much when he’s away evenings, and yet I like being alone, too.

  October 20. The day before yesterday, Thursday, was quite eventful. I saw Jessie Marmorston again after this long, long time. She told me how her heart attacks had changed her completely—not that it had made her more afraid of death—she still felt prepared for that—but it had shaken her confidence. She no longer feels now that she can cope with any emergency and remain serene. She told me that she would like to talk to Swami. I felt very warmly toward her—there’s something about her that’s wonderful.

  Started my new series of hormone shots, hoping they’ll pep me up. I’ve been feeling low; and today I have that wretched sickish sensation in the stomach which has come from time to time through the last ten years—ever since the operation.