Imaginary Toys

by Julian Mitchell

  *

  I have been asked to join the staff of a new left-wing weekly, to be called The Democrat, they think. It would be marvellous. A very small staff, room to do what I should like. The offer is very tempting. But I have of course refused it. My life has been a consistent preparation for such a job. But it would be absurd, at this stage, to start unprepared. I have only a year or two to go.

  *

  Ideas towards a new system of aesthetics, or an attempt to decide why art is interesting or even important.

  People say: ‘I do not understand Picasso, or Jackson Pollock.’ What do they mean when they say this? They mean, I’m afraid, that they can find no ‘message’ in the pictures of Picasso and Pollock. The pictures do not seem to be saying anything. Therefore the people feel cheated. They have to assume that there is a ‘message’ in a work of art before they can start to look at it, to react.

  And how do they react? Many people still think that art is Art, that it somehow puts one in touch with an Emersonian over-soul. It is assumed to have some mystical quality, whose proper appreciation makes one know, temporarily, what it is to be a god. This is the most obvious rubbish.

  What then does one feel in front of a picture of a poem that ‘moves’ one? If it is not a sensation that makes one feel part of the whole way-of-being of the cosmos, what is it? suggest that one’s feeling is one, first, of surprise. Not necessarily of delight—though it may often be so. One is surprised and excited by a new idea or pattern or series of sounds or whatever. It is definitely not a feeling of recognition. One imagines that one has learnt some truth about the world which had not previously occurred to one. This does not mean, however, that one’s feeling is a mystical one, that one has touched on some great mystical force. On the contrary, one has learnt something about oneself, not about the world at all. One feels surprised: ‘I did not know that, I did not think that, and it is [or may be] true.’ Only so is art educative and socially valuable (or even of interest to the individual).

  Culture, as practised and preached on both sides of the Atlantic, is vicious. It is like Ludo. Art objects are counters in a game you play with your neighbour. The Prado is worth a throw of six, the Frick only one. Museums in fact make true appreciation more difficult. (A poet may write a series of sonnets, but only the musician ever has the chance to have his works performed singly, as he wrote them. The poet loses his poems in a collection, the painter is swamped in a gallery. I suppose even the sculptor becomes castrated once he is taken out of the open air.) Culture, too, is creating a world of criticism. The critic is interested in how a work of art succeeds. He says: ‘I like this because x, y and z.’ If he stopped there one would not mind so much. But he goes further. He says: ‘Because x, y and z, this work of art is good, and everyone should like it.’ He makes a very simple logical error. He says ‘I like this’ implies ‘it is to be liked’. He denies this hotly, of course. But there is no reason why he likes a particular work that is also a reason why that work of art is ‘to be liked’. At least, there is no satisfactory aesthetic bridge as yet. He confuses the how with the what of art, because he can only explain the how satisfactorily. But it is the what that makes art important and worth bothering with, not the how. Uncovering the art which the artist has been at great pains to conceal does not demonstrate the ‘goodness’ of the work.

  One should judge a critic, therefore, not by his writings, but by his life. If he seems to have been an intelligent, lively, interested man, his works may possibly be worth glancing through. But as a general rule, study an artist’s work, but not his life, and a critic’s life, not his work.

  The only possible justification of art is that it extends the listener’s (etc.) imagination. This service is unique and irreplaceable. So long as one considers that imaginations should be extended, as I hope most intelligent people do, then art is valuable. I can’t see any other reason for bothering with it.

  The question remains: what does a work of art ‘mean’? The question shows a failure of understanding on the part of the questioner. What does a symphony ‘mean’? And it does extend the imagination, does it not? Why, then, expect a picture to ‘mean’ something? Literal-mindedness is almost always a mistake, in dealing with art as in dealing with life. This is not to say that there are not pictures that do have a meaning, but that ‘meaning’ is not a necessary ingredient of a work of art.

  Writers have an advantage, of a sort. They usually have something to say. Words are their medium, words have meanings. Perhaps it is because England is so good at the written word that it is so bad at understanding or rather appreciating non-verbal arts. Any day of the week a painting is more likely to call out The Times’s faithful letter-writers than a poem.

  It is essential to abolish the idea of the mystical union with God or at least angels. Mystic rubbish about art must go. Regular readings of Shelley should be avoided by maiden aunts.

  Not a system of aesthetics at all, of course. Aesthetics basically very suspect, whatever the philosophers may say. Possibly to be studied as an ancillary discipline of animal psychology.

  *

  Two gems from Mary Moody Emerson:

  ‘How insipid is fiction to a mind touched with immortal views!’

  ‘I respect in a rich man the order of Providence.’

  I wonder what she would have made of the National Health Service. I think the idea of Providence may have to be abolished along with her nephew’s over-soul.

  *

  ‘When I got my First, the earth seemed to go suddenly flat and unroll itself like a red carpet.’ Charles said this this morning. He is examining his past with that ruefulness of which only the English are capable. It is perfectly true that there is a grave danger that academic and similar awards can mean too much. A First from Oxford or Cambridge is almost certainly over-valued on the market. I know several deeply stupid people who got Firsts, many highly intelligent ones who took Seconds. The trouble with Charles is that he is just rich enough not to have to worry about what he does now, but not quite rich enough not to have to worry about the future. Family firm appals him. Not I’m afraid on moral grounds—it is something to do with the armaments industry. I think he believes that to take a job in a family firm is to renounce one’s individuality, to fail to show one’s own worth. Not being in that position, I don’t know. But he doesn’t want to be a scholar or a teacher. He really should travel, perhaps. He is intelligent and engaging, good at making friends. He would make a good old-fashioned diplomat. Perhaps he should join the British Information Service. It would depress him after a time.

  His trouble is the trouble of our generation. There doesn’t seem to be anything worth doing very much. Except from a purely material point of view. Basically this is a failure on the part of our political system. Since we envisage no goal, there is nothing to work for except oneself. But one has been taught that this is selfish, one has a residue of guilt about doing things for purely selfish reasons. It isn’t that one wants a great big cause to go and join—that is simply escapism. Besides, there are plenty of causes. Nuclear Disarmament. A sane colonial policy. Reform in the laws against homosexuals. Prison reform. We do not lack causes—The Times has columns of them every day. What we lack is a sense of purpose, a philosophy. This is recognized in a way by those who complain that there is no hopeful forward-looking philosophy these days. They complain of the decay of the Churches. But it is not an immortal future that we miss. It is a feeling we have that there is absolutely no point in doing anything for tomorrow, when tomorrow may very well not appear on schedule. I don’t feel any lack of Progressivism, I’m delighted that Progressivism has gone the way of Christianity. But unfortunately, like Christianity, it lingers on in the schools. We are taught to expect something purposeful to fill our lives. And there is neither purpose nor Purpose. Things will not get better and better every day automatically.

  No, if we want things to get better, we must work for them. ‘Make it new’ is a good philosophy, but not mine. Mine is ‘M
ake it better’. Things will get worse and worse if we don’t fight like mad. This is a form of realism that many people find sapping. It is disappointing after hopes of a gradual progress towards heaven on earth. But I don’t think it’s spiritually sapping. I think it’s realistic, that’s all. It sees and proclaims difficulties, it does not try to avoid them, or, like the Christian Scientist, pretend they don’t exist. It deals with the here and now, not with the future perfect. If we would only concentrate on the next few years, instead of the next millennium, we might achieve something. All the time one is fighting things that have been officially dead for years. But their ghosts haunt our schools and our imaginations.

  All one needs to do, in a way, is show that by getting together each and every separate individual can be even more satisfactorily selfish than before. The image of the frontiersman as the full man has got to go. (Less Westerns, a pity.) Communities are a pooling of selfishnesses, so that everyone can do what he wants. When I say this sort of thing I am accused of being a Communist. But a Communist has some misty goal—and in the over-developed Western civilizations there is no need for such a thing. There are various concrete goals that could be reached within my lifetime, none of which involve any idea of an ideal community. Charles is unbearably right. I shall eventually go into politics, simply to get a few things done. One might start with a wholesome reform of the entire educational system….

  *

  The silence from Phi is becoming ominous. He has either abandoned me altogether, or is sitting somewhere alone thinking whether or not to abandon me. Actually he is almost certainly doing neither. But I like to think that I still have some significance for him. As he has for me. I seem to have undergone a very strange alteration in the last ten days. When I last saw Phi it was with the thought that I should see him again shortly, and that it would be a pleasure to see him. I thought our drifting apart was only temporary. Now I feel as though I shall never … of course I shall see him, I hope. But he no longer appears to me as my lover. As a very special friend, but not as a lover. How has this happened, I wonder? Is it a symptom of my constant feeling of unreality? Or the cause of that feeling? I’m sure it can’t have anything to do with Delta. Delta is almost certainly a symptom, not a cause. Or is he? I really have no idea at all. I think I could fall in love with either of them, if the other did something to make me react against him. But that is a very negative state of mind. I have no idea of what will happen. Delta came to call on me this afternoon—he said he was going to spend the week-end in bed as he was tired of feeling he ought to feel tired. He asked me why I hadn’t been to see him. I blushed.

  Me: I thought you probably wouldn’t want any visitors.

  Him: You wouldn’t have been a visitor, Nicky.

  Me: silence.

  Him: Don’t neglect me, Nicholas, one needs one’s friends at a time like this. Particularly one’s particular friends.

  Me: long silent searching look, as in detective stories.

  Him (laughing): Don’t look at me like that, Nicky, I’m terribly human, you know, not an animal in the zoo.

  Me (rallying): We are all animals and subject to speculation.

  Him: I should have thought I was quite obvious, Nicky.

  The maddening thing is that I don’t know if he means what he says quite literally, or whether his remarks are as loaded as mine. And I simply daren’t ask. He seems so innocent. I don’t think I could bear to fall in love with an innocent again. It simply is not fair to people like me, the innocent’s seductive and unobtainable smile. Our scruples are used against us by the ones we love. But then I don’t know whether he is innocent or not. Charles was quite blunt. He said that while everyone else was going through emotional agonies it was only fair that I should have my share. But who did I think I was fooling, Delta or myself? And I couldn’t answer.

  Charles knows much too much. I told him about Phi, with discretion, some months ago, and ever since he has had a smile of pitying condescension on his face. He thinks I am incapable of faithfulness. I think he thought Phi was simply something of a week, a one-night stand, perhaps. Since breaking with Margaret he is taking a quite unnecessary interest in other people. Particularly in Elaine and Jack. He broods about them. I told him to leave them alone, or Jack would knife him. He said that he thought Jack was insufferable, because he, Charles, had a car, and he, Jack, didn’t. ‘He thinks my exhaust-pipe is a forked tail,’ he said. Then he looked rather worried and said: ‘I’m not that bad, am I?

  *

  Delta did not spend all of today in bed. At noon he came to my lodgings and found me still getting up. Thus he got his own back for last week. I had read till four in the morning. I get through the interminable bell-ringing of Sunday mornings by not getting up till lunch. We walked for an hour or two and then he said he had to go and revise. The only way he can remember the philology is by rote, and though he finds this easy enough, he forgets it at once, or within twenty-four hours. So tomorrow being philology, he had to go and learn. We parted outside my college, where I was going to read the Sunday papers.

  Delta: Thank you for coming.

  Me: What do you mean, ‘thank you’? Do you think I would have walked if I hadn’t wanted to?

  He: (mumbled, so I may have misheard): I only wish I knew.

  Me: shuffling of feet.

  He: also shuffling of feet.

  Me: Delta——

  He: Goodbye.

  Me: What is all this about?

  He (brightening): See you tomorrow about five.

  Me: O.K.

  He: I hope you got those Provençal things right.

  And then he went away, whistling. I can’t cope, I have no idea of what is, or is not, going on. I think I shall go home soon. The summer is always too heady at Oxford. People forget themselves and regret it later. Perhaps.

  *

  Appalling dream last night. Phi making love to Margaret, Jack in Charles’s car runs down Delta in his hurry to stop them. If Freud could work that one out, then I dare say I could, too, but I don’t want to. But where were Elaine and I? And Charles? Perhaps Charles and Elaine were making love somewhere off-stage, and it was them that Jack was going to stop. But that was not how it appeared. I suppose I was present, observing. It was a horrible awakening. For a minute I thought Delta really was dead. Everything was in Technicolor, and I had sweated enough to make me think I might have wet the bed. But I hadn’t. Four-thirty in the morning. Sleep impossible. There should be some law against nightmares. I took several doses of Vance Packard. Sociological rubbish always cheers me up. But I still could not sleep. Jack drove over Delta without even noticing he’d done so. There was just his corpse in the road, and I couldn’t reach him, though I ran and ran. Perhaps I am embroidering in recollection. Horrible in either case.

  *

  Charles is cheering up a bit. Today he said about Margaret: ‘She knows very well where her treasure is, but she has never been able to find her heart.’ I have given up any attempt at work until everyone has gone down. Until then my life, like everyone else’s, will alternate between emotional agonies and wild laughter at parties. Today I found myself sitting on the lowered hood of Charles’s car (there was nowhere else to sit as the car already held six people) as it travelled at sixty miles an hour to Henley. We had lunch there and then came back. A quite pointless expedition. Apparently the influence of the Beat Generation is felt even here. Charles drove fast, but not dangerously. He spoke only to say: ‘Go, man, go.’ One man had a guitar, to which a girl sang rather badly. I knew none of the other people, and I don’t think Charles knew more than one or two of them. It was that sort of an expedition. I have given up any attempt to lead a sensible and organized life. It is always the same at this time of year, something to do with the odour of river-water. One needs festivals, releases. Charles accuses me of being censorious about frivolity. But I am not, not about genuine frivolity. It is something which should be taken with great seriousness. It—the seriousness—should not, however, be s
elf-conscious. We have forgotten the art of enjoying ourselves with our whole selves. Ascot is so stupid, pointless and snobbish, merely. But a point-to-point may have genuine frivolity. Mardi Gras in New Orleans three years ago had it. The native inhabitants were very shocked and stayed at home. But everyone else had a great time. That is what is so sad about Western civilization. We can only enjoy ourselves abroad. Today the only thing which could be said against us was that we were noisy. We were not drunken, but the singing was offensively maudlin.

  The point about frivolity is that it is not a full-time occupation. It should be spontaneous. A year of frivolity would drive me mad. Phi’s sort of life did bore me after a time. Not that he was ever boring himself. But his life was. Why do I speak of it in a past tense? I know perfectly well, but dare not admit it.

  Delta and I were not frivolous at all. We had a circumspect tea together while I told him of what we had done. He seemed tired, but laughed. When he laughs it is a complete surrender of his face. Usually he looks rather sober. When he smiles it is gently and seriously. But when he laughs he opens his mouth like a horse, and neighs. After tea we walked through the parks, then parted. Nothing said. Amiable day.

  10

  Charles Frederick Hammond

  When one gets dropped like that, or at least when I got dropped like that, one, or rather I, became very sluggish and silly: lying in bed till all hours of the morning simply because there was nothing to get up for; driving round the country with people who were only vaguely my friends because it was better than sitting alone; spending hours in totally pointless conversations about nothing at all or in particular; being generally subhuman, in fact. Of course from time to time I got the most colossal ache in the pit of my stomach, which seemed to have something to do with Margaret, and wasn’t indigestion, and which wouldn’t go away with alcohol or any other drug, but after a few days I came to regard this ache as more or less a normal state of affairs, like having a finger missing, something you can’t do anything about, but which you go on feeling after it’s gone. Not that I ever forgot the ache properly—I’d be in the middle of telling someone a joke when I’d remember telling it to Margaret, and somehow it just wasn’t funny any longer, so I didn’t bother to finish it. Or I’d be setting off with a whole lot of people to go to some pub somewhere in the country, and I’d go in the opposite direction when I thought of buying a drink there for Margaret. I suppose this sort of behaviour is quite normal, under such circumstances, and it’s not really very interesting or anything, so I won’t go on about it. But what is quite interesting, I think, is the sudden feeling of vacuum one gets—I got—when it seemed as though a suction-pipe had been attached to my mind and my body, and there was nothing left inside at all; I was only an outer skin, which would deflate at once if anyone pricked it with a pin, or even, perhaps, if I cut it shaving. I felt that I had no blood any more—the heart had been whooshed off with everything else into the bag of the vacuum-cleaner. And my head was completely empty. If someone said something of the utmost banality, and, as you may imagine, he frequently did, I would think it was a tremendously new and important discovery about the nature of the world or the essence of humanity, and I would think to myself, how remarkable, two blacks don’t make a white, do they, how profound, what an intelligent man to conceive such an idea. If someone did say something intelligent, of course, I simply didn’t understand him. I was like a line out of a poem, I had no context. I existed without any relation to anything, through only basic bodily functions, eating, drinking, going to the lavatory, sleeping. Only those basic physiological needs gave me any sense of being alive. I was numb, as though I’d fallen off a wall and was still suffering too much from the shock to be able to assess the damage I’d done to myself.