The Pursuit of Laughter

by Diana Mitford (Mosley)

  His ambition was boundless; he knew he was a genius. His miserable, thwarted adolescence made him into a bitter, angry man.

  The Latin lessons bore fruit: his first play, Catiline. Rejected by the Christiania theatre, it was published and admired, enabling him to escape from the pharmacy.

  Ibsen was well-treated by his native Norway, he was the recipient for the rest of his life of a small income from the state. He had friends to back him up, young poets and journalists, and in his twenties was made director of the Bergen theatre, which sent him abroad to learn stagecraft in Copenhagen and Dresden.

  For Ibsen this was a miniature Grand Tour. In Dresden’s picture gallery he became aware of European art: Italian, Spanish, French and German masterpieces opened his eyes to Europe’s culture. In Norway he had to pretend to a Norwegian nationalism he never felt. Despite early plays about Vikings, he knew he belonged to the world and to what he called the great Germanic tribe.

  In 1858, at the age of 30, he married a perfect wife, Suzannah Thoresen, who had but one ambition, to see Ibsen’s genius recognised and rewarded. Ibsen went to Rome, where Suzannah and their son joined him, and where they lived for four years.

  He wrote Brand and Peer Gynt in Rome, a paradise in those days, ruled by the pope, before it became the capital of united Italy. Robert Ferguson considers these Ibsen’s greatest plays… there were to be no more poetic dramas.

  Ibsen’s breakthrough came when his plays were translated into German and acted to enthusiastic audiences. The Ibsens lived in Dresden and Munich for many years where he wrote dramas and tragedies which had enormous success in Germany and England. They have never dated; the themes were love, jealousy, hypocrisy, incest, corruption, murder and suicide.

  Ibsen furiously denied being a socialist, or a feminist. He was simply an artist, reflecting the world in a pessimistic way.

  All the great actresses of the time wanted to play his heroines, Eleanora Duse, Mrs Patrick Campbell, Janet Achurch. Shaw said Duse ‘knew Nora [A Doll’s House] more intimately than Nora herself did.’

  A solitary figure, fuelled by anger and mistrust, Ibsen sought honours and decorations. He loved to pin stars and ribbons and medals on the formal black coat he always wore. He liked kings and princes because they could bestow baubles, the outward and visible sign of success.

  Apart from his wife and son he never saw members of his family, or even answered their letters, and he only went back to Norway at the end of his life, to be fêted as its greatest son. With his bushy whiskers, formal attire and regular walks each day, he became a tourist attraction. If a fan was bold enough to accost him a furious snub was the reward.

  Like Hilda in The Master Builder, the younger generation came knocking at his door. He wrote love letters to several young women, who were flattered by the attentions of such a famous man. Suzannah loved Norway and stayed there while he flirted during holidays in Tyrol. His last mysterious play, When We Dead Awaken, was a tribute to her.

  Hedda Gabler, Rosmersholm, The Wild Duck, Ghosts, enthral audiences as they did Shaw a century ago. This excellent biography perhaps fails to emphasise what wonderful ‘theatre’ they all are. Robert Ferguson, fluent in Norwegian, compares Peer Gynt with Faust II; language is the barrier to appreciating poetry.

  Henrik Ibsen, Ferguson, R. Evening Standard (1996)

  Filthy!!!

  Dr Wertham, an American psychiatrist who specialises in the treatment of children, became aware during the course of his work that horror comics have a bad influence on his patients’ minds and behaviour. In his efforts to get these comics suppressed he collided with an enormous vested interest. Crime does not pay, perhaps, but horror comics do. Sales are astronomical; the Association of Comics Magazine Publishers estimates them at 80 millions a month, and ‘… the names of the firms publishing crime comic books are almost as elusive as the titles. They change, and quite a number of concerns function under different names for different comic books’—a difficult adversary to pin down, obviously.

  Dr Wertham gives endless examples of the torture, sex and brutality which fill the comic pages, and a number of disgusting pictures of people having their eyes gouged or their tongues cut out, being shot, bashed, hanged or bound, balloons coming out of their mouths with ‘Lousy!!! Filthy!!! I’ll tear ya…’ all chosen from these so-called comic magazines. They certainly make his case for him. After reading his book I asked a boy who was formerly an avid comic reader what effect they had had on him, and he replied, ‘Well, I think they make you feel inclined to sock somebody’.

  But Dr Wertham exaggerates; he cannot be taken seriously when he objects to Superman flying through the air, stopping aeroplanes, lifting houses, on the grounds that children will get a wrong idea of basic physical laws. Even Peter Pan could fly. And when Super Duck terrorises a family of rabbits and we are invited to be scandalised, the shade of Mr MacGregor rises before us.

  It is not only children who read comics, as the figure of 80 millions a month shows, and as anyone who has ever seen an American soldier knows. But lately ‘The Pacific Fleet Command has banned the sale of most war comic books in ships’ stores on the grounds that they are too gory for the American sailor’. Military authorities consider that they go ‘beyond the line of decency’. So a beginning has been made; though, as Dr Wertham points out, it is odd to forbid soldiers and sailors what is permitted to children of six and seven.

  Seduction of the Innocent, Wertham, F. (1954)

  The Last Tsar

  When Harold Nicolson wrote his biography of George V he was disappointed by the King’s diary, concerned entirely with weather. Nicholas II, first cousin and double of George V, kept a diary hardly more interesting, at last available, one of the sources used in this rather tiresomely-written translation.

  The well-known cast takes the stage once more: Nicky and Alix, the Grand Duchesses and Baby, Anya, ‘Our Friend’, all except Anya to meet violent death. The murderers were themselves murdered late on by Stalin; only Lenin died in his bed.

  The tragedy that the heir, Alexei, was haemophiliac led to other tragedies. Rasputin became ‘Our Friend’, and powerful, because of some magic healing power for the suffering boy; he was indispensable to the Tsaritsa. Yet with his orgies and disgraceful behaviour he was loathed and his power resented; he was murdered by aristocrats in 1916.

  The war gave a respite from politics for a while, uniting the country behind the Tsar. But with the defeat at Tannenberg and the millions of casualties discontent grew, and the demand for a Constitution and an end to autocracy was louder than ever.

  When Alexei was well enough the Tsar took him to Headquarters, and the Tsaritsa showered letters of advice. Baby must not be allowed to throw bread rolls in the Mess, she wrote, and urged the Tsar to make himself feared by his critics, to show his iron fist and will of steel. Though unsuccessful, since it was not in his nature, she nevertheless made everything harder for him with her unwise advice. He always gave in to commonsense too late, though ever since 1905 the country had seethed with discontent. Disregarding compromise, in 1917 he was forced to abdicate, and kept prisoner with his family, first at the palace, then Tobolsk, and finally Ekaterinburg in the Urals, ferociously red.

  The Grand Duchesses remained at Tobolsk for a time, and their mother wrote they must be sure to bring the medicines with them. The ‘medicines,’ diamonds and other gems they sewed into their bodices. They still hoped for England, where their cousin reigned, or rescue. But no thousands of swords leapt from their scabbards. Nobody lifted a finger.

  Civil war raged, and as the fight approached Ekaterinburg in July 1918 it was decided to kill the family without delay. Their circumstances were miserable, the house overcrowded, the windows painted over. At dead of night they were wakened and ordered downstairs. Baby, now nearly 14, had bruised himself and was too ill to walk. The Tsar carried him in his arms. Seven in the Royal Family, Dr Botkine and three other faithful retainers were herded into the cellar room, and shot by Bolsheviks with p
istols and rifles. After ghastly minutes the Grand Duchesses died of bayonet wounds, the bullets repelled by the jewels concealed in their underclothes. The bleeding bodies were loaded into a lorry and driven to a partly flooded mine. The men had petrol and sulphuric acid, but to get rid of eleven bodies is difficult. The remains were thrown in the mine, and found by the white army, soon to be overcome by the reds. Only nine skeletons were found, mysteries remain. Radzinsky interviewed many old people, still half afraid to speak, and the story is told over and over again. Perhaps the strange thing is we already know it so well.

  The Last Tsar: The Life and Death of Nicholas II, Radzinsky, E. Evening Standard (1992)

  Magical Ties

  The conquest of Mexico is the most extraordinary adventure story imaginable. That four hundred men should have conquered, by force of arms, a large, rich, highly civilised country, inhabited by a race of fearless fighters, seems too fantastic to be believed; yet it happened. That it did so can be attributed in almost equal measure to two things: the incredible hardihood, courage and intelligence of the Spaniards, and the fact that Montezuma and the Mexicans knew, through their magic, that they were coming, and that they would be victorious.

  It had long been magically known to the priests that in 1519 a god would come to their shores from the East, and that he was destined to rule Mexico. It was even known that he would have a white face, a black beard and a high hat. When he heard that Cortes had landed, therefore, Montezuma at first offered him no resistance, but sent him presents of gold and hoped he might go away again. It was by no means certain that the other gods would welcome his arrival, and war between the gods was a contingency dreaded by Montezuma. Cortes sent the golden treasures back to Spain to the Emperor Charles V; they were seen, and admired, by Albrecht Dürer.

  Mexico was a theocracy, and Montezuma, the ruler, was also high priest. The gods required unending human sacrifices; and when the Mexicans fought neighbouring tribes they were careful not to kill their enemies; prisoners were valuable, they were fattened up, lain on the stone of sacrifice, and the priest (sometimes Montezuma himself) cut the heart from the living body and offered it to the god. Afterwards the arms and legs of the victims were ritually eaten. Many of the Spaniards were to die in this way.

  The curious thing is that the magic worked; all religions indulge in a certain amount of prophecy, but seldom with such accuracy as that of the faithful worshippers of Smoking Mirror, Humming Bird, and the other cruel divinities of the Mexicans.

  After burning his boats to make retreat impossible, Cortes led his men across the arid, snowy mountain range towards Mexico City. They carried not only their armour, ammunition and arquebusses, but also a supply of crosses and images of the Virgin, and were accompanied by priests. Their aim was first and foremost to enrich themselves with the legendary gold of El Dorado, and secondly to convert the population to Christianity. When they reached the summit, after bloody battles and unspeakable hardships, they beheld, spread out before them, the rich plains and the distant lake upon which was built fabulous Mexico City, fated to be conquered and destroyed by them.

  The character of Cortes typifies the striving, thrusting European of the age of the Conquistadores: brave, religious yet practical, greedy for gold, chivalrous and courteous, ruthless and cruel, subtle and intelligent; Montezuma, on the other hand, was rigid, defeatist, rich and doomed.

  A short review can give no idea of the fascination of Mr Maurice Collis’s book.

  Cortes and Montezuma, Collis, M. (1954)

  The Fate of the Elephant

  Douglas Chadwick worries about the fate of the elephant in its wild state. Africa and Asia are experiencing population explosions, jungle and bush are shrinking rapidly as man invades them with agriculture, forests are being destroyed and suitable habitat for elephants will soon be non-existent, except in wild-life parks. In the last few decades thousands of elephants have been killed with revolting cruelty by poachers who sold their tusks for enormous sums. This threat is dwindling since trade in ivory is banned, and the elephant listed as an endangered species; but it still goes on, poachers using powerful weapons and working in gangs.

  On the positive side, ranchers in East Africa realize they can make much more money from wild animals than from farming. Sportsmen will pay thousands of dollars to be allowed to shoot an elephant or a lion, the creatures feed on each other and are less trouble than cattle. The elephant, a terrible enemy of farming which will eat and trample crops by the square mile, has turned into a money spinner. This fact is a gleam of light in a fascinating but gloomy book by a knowledgeable elephant-fanatic. He will endure any amount of danger and discomfort in order to have the joy of watching them. His time in the Congo jungle forest matches Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, which most people would do anything to avoid. Eaten alive by swarms of pestilential insects, threatened by snakes, annoyed by sub-human bureaucrats, the odd glimpse of forest elephants compensates. Even charged by a bull elephant and within an ace of death, his love did not grow less. He says elephants talk to each other and can communicate from a distance, and gives convincing proof. But what do they say? Probably soon their ‘words’ will be picked up by some instrument and we shall know. They do very well in wild-life parks and become so numerous that they have to be ‘culled’ (murdered) for the sake of their well-being. They probably talk a lot about this, and may have difficulty distinguishing between cullers, sportsmen and poachers.

  Elephants have been tamed for thousands of years, used in battle, for heavy work and for carrying kings, priests and children. They perform in circuses and are miserably imprisoned in zoos. They are unpredictable, and sometimes kill their keepers.

  We are told elephants are smart, and so they are when dressed for a procession in India. But in American smart means clever. Men are even smarter, but they must make an effort and be smart enough to curtail their breeding. Over-population is by far the worst plague in our planet, beside which other plagues are relatively easily contained. Chadwick’s clever book makes this all too plain.

  The Fate of the Elephant, Chadwick, D.H. Evening Standard (1993)

  Portraits

  EVELYN WAUGH, VIOLET HAMMERSLEY, LYTTON STRACHEY

  (NEW IN THIS EDITION) LORD BERNERS, SIR OSWALD MOSLEY

  Evelyn Waugh

  Evelyn Waugh has been called the greatest English novelist of his day; high praise. He has also been attacked as a man, and is said to have been disagreeable, rude, drunken and snobbish. To take the last accusation first; in my experience of Evelyn, it is nonsense. His friends came from different walks of life and were never chosen on account of their rank, or worldly position. Such a criterion would never have occurred to him, although he was obviously aware, as any observant person must be, of its curious importance in England. He liked people, as I suppose most of us do, because they amused him, or he was fond of them, or he found them stimulating; sometimes he sought their company because of some oddity which delighted the novelist in him. He disliked those who bored or irritated him, and needless to say they, too, were all sorts of men and women and, as bores are perhaps in a majority, he confined his true friendship to a fairly narrow circle.

  To give but one example, a very great friend of his at the time of which I write, 1929-30, was Tom Driberg, who had been at school and at Oxford with him. A journalist who wrote a gossip column in the Daily Express, he was a wonderfully funny man, though one might not have guessed it from his lugubrious aspect, nor from his journalism; his column contained few jokes. He was also a madly rash homosexual, at a time when the activities he indulged in could easily lead to prison. His employer, Lord Beaverbrook, got him out of several scrapes, and the old Fleet Street rule ‘dog don’t eat dog’ worked, so that other gossip writers never gave him away.

  Evelyn and he laughed together. In their political views they were at opposite poles—Driberg a Communist and Evelyn excessively right-wing—but they shared a deep interest in religion. Driberg was certainly not the sort of man a snob would c
hoose as his boon companion. He subsequently rose to a high position in the Labour Party and was made a life peer, but he would have been shunned by any self-respecting snob. Perhaps this could be said of the majority of life peers, but it is nonetheless true. It was with Driberg that Evelyn went to midnight mass (high Anglican) on Christmas Eve 1929, and Driberg was the only friend whom Evelyn invited when he was received into the Catholic Church.

  The last time I myself saw Driberg was in about 1972. He said he had got lost in the Paris Métro and had been helped by a Frenchman, with whom he fell into conversation. As this man got out of the train, and just before it rushed on, he turned to Driberg and said: ‘And I so much admire your Mr ’Eat.’ The idea of Mr Heath being his quite upset Driberg; almost as much as, one imagines, it might have annoyed Mr Heath to have to own him as an adherent. When Driberg told me this my thoughts flew to Evelyn, who would have enjoyed it very much.

  The more I think about Evelyn the less snobbish does he seem. Not that snobbishness is a grave fault, and it may not be without significance that three great twentieth-century novelists, Henry James, Proust and Evelyn Waugh, have all been accused of it. Proust was fascinated by Paris society as an outsider looking in, but his portrait of Jupien is as grotesque as that of M de Charlus, and Françoise is as memorable as the Duchesse de Guermantes. In between is the whole range of middle-class characters: the narrator’s grandmother, Mme Verdurin, Odette, Bloch and the rest. He appeared snobbish to the Guermantes because of the effort he made to get into what was in those days a closed circle, but he had to do it in order to understand the whole human comedy, the subject of his novel. For Evelyn, who came upon the scene after the First World War, there was never any question of trying to get to know grandees. The boot was on the other foot.