Liberation: Diaries:1970-1983

by Christopher Isherwood

  “To be mad, Rosa!—it’s life itself. Rosa, I am mad—crazy. I am clean crazy,” he cried. “Aren’t you afraid of a mad man? Hi, Rosa, what do you think!” and continued in a worse strain.

  After an impudent peroration he went on gaily: “I am your lover, Rosa—as mad as a bee—my delight! my fairy! my shepherdess! my princess!”86

  March 12. Cassius Clay’s defeat last Monday was sort of sadden-ing—the more he bragged, the more one wanted him to be un-beaten. Now, even if he wins the title back, it won’t be the same.87

  On the 9th I finally went to see Dr. Allen, determined to talk him out of giving me another barium enema X-ray examination. So he agreed to something else which is really a whole lot more trouble; I have to lay off eating meat for six days and, after the first three days (that’s tomorrow), I have to collect three daily specimens of my shit. If there is no blood in it, then I won’t have to be x-rayed. Dr. Allen says that all meat contains blood and that even the tiniest trace of blood can be detected in the shit; two statements which I find hard to believe.

  Swami seemed tired, the day before yesterday; perhaps he will go away to the desert for a few days. We hear from India that Len, Mark and Paul have become Swamis Bhadrananda, Tadatmananda and Amohananda respectively. They have been kept inside the grounds of the Math, except for a boat trip to Dakshineswar, because of the outbreaks of violence in Calcutta. But now that Mrs. Gandhi has won the election things may get better, Swami thinks.88 (I forgot to mention Buddha; he’s Swami Yogeshananda now.)

  The experts have decided that the Sylmar earthquake was much bigger than was supposed. Although it was only 6.5 at the epicenter, it set up a sort of diagonal thrust under the hills which hit Sylmar with a force of nearly 8. It must be some consolation, when your house has been wrecked, to know at least that you have been in a major earthquake. Also, it makes the major earthquake we are promised seem slightly less alarming, since we evidently had a worse shaking than we thought we were having!

  The British postal strike is over at last, but no mail from England yet and so I hesitate to send the illustrations and other material for my book to Methuen.

  March 19. The day before yesterday, I think it was, someone rang me up in the morning and said he had a friend who wanted to illustrate a porno poem by Auden89 and he understood that Auden (he pronounced it Ow-den) and I were intimate friends. I took it for granted that this was Gore (whom we’d met on the 15th at the [Paul] Newmans’) and that he was giving one of his imitations, so I started playing the Dirty Old Man and asked this guy to meet me at the men’s room of the Catholic Church on 7th Street, etc. etc. It was only right at the end of the conversation that I came back out of my playacting and (assuming still that it was Gore) asked him to have supper with us tonight. He accepted. Then I had doubts and called the hotel and got hold of Gore, who assured me it hadn’t been him on the phone. (I’m still not sure he wasn’t lying.) Anyhow, we are having dinner with Gore tonight and we may also expect this guy to show up!

  I delivered the hemoccult slides (this process is called an “occult blood test”) to Dr. Allen, dully daubed with shit. The instructions tell you to “dispose of the applicator” after use—as though you’d be apt to treasure it in your hope chest! Yesterday Dr. Allen told me that the test was okay. So I’ll leave my gut to produce some further symptoms before I bother with it again.

  On the 17th, I started a sort of notebook on Kitty and Dobbin—I’ll try to write it rather like a study in natural history; their behavior, methods of communication, feeding habits, etc. I had a very strong feeling that I ought not to record all this, that it was an invasion of privacy. But where else have I ever found anything of value? The privacy of the unconscious is the only treasure house. And as a matter of fact, Don is always urging me to write about us. I have no idea, yet, what I shall “do” with this material after I’ve collected it. I’ll just keep jotting things down, day by day, and see what comes of it.

  March 25. We saw Gore, he took us out to supper at Chasen’s. If the non-Gore guy showed up, expecting a meal, it must have been after we had left the house. But there was no note from him when we returned and there has been no call since.

  Gore has lost a lot of weight and isn’t drinking at all; he was full of energy and ideas. He repeated one marvellous line which he says has been attributed to him (he couldn’t bring himself to state quite definitely that it wasn’t his): “In this country we now have socialism for the rich and private enterprise for the poor.” As usual, he kept repeating that the novel is dead; and as usual one got the impression that what he really meant was that one couldn’t nowadays become a nationally known personality just by writing novels! Gore, like Mailer, has gotten around this difficulty by becoming a journalist and a T.V. interviewee.

  All this while Hunt has remained in Texas. We have come along slowly but steadily with the treatment and are now practically at the end of it. I do hope he stays away another five or six days.

  David Hockney arrived yesterday and is coming to supper tonight. He has come here to renew his California driver’s license, because it is much easier to do this than to get a British one!

  Am keeping up my Kitty and Dobbin notebook.

  My gut is about the same.

  Am reading Ray Bradbury’s I Sing the Body Electric!, Graham Green[e]’s Travels with My Aunt, Aaron Latham’s Crazy Sundays: F. Scott Fitzgerald in Hollywood, Chekhov’s The Witch [and Other Stories], and Dostoevsky’s A Gentle Creature [and Other Stories].

  Last Monday there was a review of the San Pedro Art Gallery show by William Wilson in the Los Angeles Times. He praised Don highly, making it obvious that it was Don’s work that he really liked—although he had to drag out that tired old comparison to Ingres! Also Don’s drawing (of Peter Alexander) was the only drawing reproduced in the paper.

  Dr. Kafka says that the growth on Don’s foot is returning—but now he thinks it may be only a corn. He doesn’t seem unduly alarmed, told him to come back in a month.

  I now have five of Don’s paintings in my workroom, plus two drawings, one of them a really magnificent nude. Paul Wonner has seen them and seemed truly impressed. He told Don he ought to show them to Blum and try to have an exhibition.

  April 5. We did show the paintings to Blum—that’s to say, he came to supper with David Hockney and Ron Kitaj and went into my workroom during the evening with David and Ron, so he certainly saw them. But he made no comment, and neither did David. Ron at least had the politeness to tell Don he liked them. This was a severe setback though not too surprising, since David almost never praises (he did, however, tell Don he liked his drawing of Andy Warhol, which has been lent to Jack [Larson] and Jim [Bridges]) and since Blum would hardly praise anything in David’s presence unless David praised it first. Don is very upset again, as well he may be, and I am upset because there is absolutely nothing I can do about it.

  Otherwise, David was as endearing as ever. We did think we detected a slightly increased sense of importance, but in a likeable Yorkshire way. He told us a funny story about de Gaulle and Madame, at the time of de Gaulle’s retirement. A journalist asked Madame, “What do you look forward to, now that you are out of public life?” Madame replied, “A penis.” Everyone was surprised and de Gaulle hastily corrected her, “No, my dear, it is pronounced ’appenis. . . .”

  David left last night. He is planning to go to Japan with Peter in the fall.

  Hunt Stromberg likes our treatment very much, he says. There are various small additions and changes to be made to it this week, then it will be sent in to the front office at Universal.

  Swami really does seem very weak and tired. This time, I don’t see any policy in his tiredness and am therefore getting anxious about it. Yesterday I had to appear for him at the temple and read one of his old lectures. Afterwards, a girl who belongs to what we now describe as The Venice Group—one of Peter and Jim’s friends—put her baby into my arms and asked me to take it into Swami’s room and have him bless it. So I did.
The baby (which has been named Rakhal) was very plump and heavy and absolutely quiet. I felt sure it would begin to cry when I carried it away from its mother, but it didn’t. (“We’re going to Heaven,” I told it, “but we’re coming right back, don’t worry.”) Swami blessed it and I brought it out of his room to find all the Venetians waiting, and Peter led the applause. (He and his friends would be quite capable of taking over the Vedanta Society and running it, in case of an emergency!) And later, when the baby was safe back with its parents, I did hear it crying.

  My gut is just the same, or worse. I keep saying to myself I must do something about it and keep putting it off.

  Graham’s Travels with My Aunt is quite entertaining but only that. It doesn’t mean anything except its own high spirits and they aren’t high enough. I don’t think an elderly writer can ever get away with this kind of sportiveness; the bones in his skeleton can be heard clicking, now and then. I don’t know what to say about the Dostoevsky. It is wonderful now and then, I feel the greatness which created Karamazov, but his meandering gets on my nerves, in short stories it seems tedious, in a huge novel it doesn’t. When I’d finished, I felt I’d merely read it out of compulsiveness.

  April 6. Igor [Stravinsky] died early this morning in New York, of a heart attack. Don thinks we ought to go to his funeral, and of course he is quite right. And of course I don’t want to. So I’ve been gloomy. And Don says I am behaving as though he had done it all to me. Which I probably am.

  We are hurrying to get the “Frankenstein” treatment fixed up. This adds to my feeling of having the screws put on me.

  That’s all. Just wanted to write this down.

  April 8. Dobbin’s sulks were all for nothing, as so often. Because yesterday, when we talked to Lilian Li[b]man,90 she assured us that it was quite unnecessary for us to come and that, if we did come, we wouldn’t be able to see Vera; the doctor has forbidden her to have any visitors until she returns from Venice, where Igor is to be buried next week. (Maybe Vera is remaining in seclusion partly because she doesn’t want to be involved in any ugly scenes with Igor’s children.) So we have decided to go to New York later, at the end of this month, and see Vera then.

  Michael Barrie called yesterday to tell us that Gerald had another stroke, his twenty-first, a couple of hours before Igor died. Gerald is now more or less in continuous coma. When Chris Wood last came to see him, Gerald didn’t know him.

  Swami, on the other hand, seems much better. But Asaktananda is trying to hurry up the arrival of Chetanananda, the new swami. Peter Schneider is staying at the Hollywood monastery for his Easter vacation from college. He is playing it very cool, coolly observant, but at the same time he makes himself thoroughly popular by doing lots of manual work. We had quite a long chat, yesterday, but I still don’t know if he intends to try being a monk, or not. I think he has a solid layer of his father’s skepticism, deep down.

  The hateful building continues at the end of the street. As soon as you go out of doors as far as Don’s studio, or up the ramp from the carport, you can hear the clatter of the cranes. The latest news is that the towers will be twenty-six stories.

  My weight is going up again. Can’t get it below 149.

  I feel I “ought” to write something about Igor, but I won’t till I feel something. The truth is, he had been dying—that’s to say, separating himself from us—for such a long time. The cuddly adorable affectionate bitchy brilliant heavy-drinking Igor I used to know died at least five years ago, though there were glimpses of him after that. (I never felt Morgan was dead before he actually died.) No doubt when we see Vera and Bob [Craft] again, in these new circumstances, a lot of the real Igor will come back.

  April 13. Doug Walsh came around this morning to try to clear out the drain outside the front door with a snake or maybe it’s called a rooter. He brought a man named Matthewson with him to help, someone he had known a long time who was out of work, a hard drinker, just over fifty. I went out and said hello to him, and he seemed quite sober, polite, small, quiet. About half an hour later, Doug called me because Matthewson had collapsed. I phoned the fire department for an ambulance. He’d had a heart attack. Doug was efficient, worked to keep his lungs going by massage, put a wooden spoon in his mouth to prevent him from choking and a cushion under his neck to make his head hang back. He isn’t dead yet, but when I called the emergency ward at Santa Monica Hospital they said his condition was very serious.

  The day before yesterday we finished a revised treatment of our Dr. Frankenstein story and now it’s being typed ready to be shown to the Universal bosses. Neither of us really quite believes that it will be accepted and that we shall have to do the teleplay. It’s not that the story is bad—though it can be greatly improved—but that the Universal people will surely realize that Frankenstein is now hopelessly old hat.

  On the 8th, Don finally had his long beautiful mane of hair cut shorter; it is now a more usual collar-length “shag cut.” He still has a close-trimmed black beard. I never liked the mane, it seemed to me distastefully feminine. The shag cut and beard I can live with, but I do find that they somehow come between Don and me; it’s like being with an actor who’s always in makeup for a role.

  April 14. When I called the hospital later in the day, they told me that Mr. Matthewson had been dead on arrival, so I suppose they hadn’t decided to “release” his death when I called earlier.

  Hunt Stromberg seems slightly insane on the subject of “Frankenstein”; casting turns him on like dope. Latest suggestions—Chamberlain for Frankenstein, Finney for the Monster, Burton for Polidor,91 Liz Taylor for Agatha and Prima! I suggested Lieutenant Calley for the Monster, saying that I felt sure Nixon would release him to play it, under armed guard.92

  To come back to Mr. Matthewson, my feelings about his death puzzle me. I feel a sort of exhilaration. It was “exciting.” That’s on the surface. Beneath this is perhaps a sense of reassurance; how easy it was! Doug Walsh’s behavior showed such genuine goodness; he was so big and clumsy, kneeling over the little man (who already looked flattened, deflated by death, except for his potbelly) massaging the heart, slapping the bluish cheeks, muttering, “Come on! Come on, Matt!” When Doug asked for a wooden spoon, I brought him the salad spoon. Afterwards I boiled it. My first reaction was to throw it away—I can’t imagine why, for I am simply not squeamish like that. As I boiled it, I said to myself “the death spoon!” and “dead man’s spoon!” Doug knew “Matt” fairly well and was quite upset; he drank two snorts of bourbon afterwards. The men from the fire department were admirable too—their absolutely matter-of-fact efficiency in giving the oxygen made you feel the unsentimental beauty of a helpful act.

  April 19. This morning, Jim Gates has been initiated. Swami (or Ananda, I suppose) suddenly decided that there would be two or three initiations this week, each one on a separate day. I feel slightly proud in a paternal way, since I was at least partly responsible for bringing the boys to Vedanta Place. (I’m astonished to find that Peter doesn’t even have his name on the list, yet, but no doubt he’ll manage to push his way into the queue before long.) I called Jim yesterday to ask if he would house-sit for us in the event that we go to New York to see Vera. He says he will.

  Still waiting to hear what Universal thinks of our Dr. Frankenstein.

  I gave a reading to the Society of David the day before yesterday at the house where I met them before, Hank Barley’s. But there was no Gay Lib opposition present, this time, and the reading was a huge success, I think. Read them bits from Kathleen and Frank—also various snippets from my commonplace book.

  Am going through some conscience searchings about taking part in the Christopher Street West Parade which is scheduled for June 27.93 Ought I to take part in it? If it were being held in some other city where I happened to be visiting, I don’t think I should hesitate at all. But here, in my home town, I can’t help thinking that my participation might embarrass Swami—for some busybody would surely find out and report it to him; inde
ed, my name and photograph would probably be in the papers. Then, again, my wish to take part in the parade is largely vanity; I’d enjoy posing as one of the Grand Old Men of the movement. By the same token, my refusal to do so will hurt my “image” and hence my vanity.

  A board has been put up on the construction site at the end of the street with a picture of the proposed twin towers. It says they are to be sixteen stories!

  April 24. The day before yesterday, we went to Universal and were told about all the alterations Hunt wants in the Frankenstein treatment. They don’t really amount to much. Taking out the whorehouse, because you can’t have that on T.V., and some of the gore, for the same reason. And the Creature mustn’t smell bad! Charlie Engel,94 who is assistant to someone and a special friend of Hunt, sat in on the talk. He is supposed to be “bright” [. . .]. He has a weak messy moustache—how profoundly this era of face hair repels me, physically and psychologically, and I probably shan’t even have the satisfaction of outliving it! Engel uses all the latest slang, of course; my unfavorite expression is “right on!”

  I felt very proud of Don, who spoke up, very clearly and to the point, every so often. Engel was offensive about this, too, suggesting that he was astonished to hear that Don had any opinion of his own. No doubt Don is being soundly bitched already as a boyfriend who is being brought along for the ride. Hunt realized that Engel was being rude and tried to make things better by saying that, when he used to work with Dorothy Parker and Alan Campbell, it was always Alan who had the bright ideas, “I never heard Dorothy say anything clever.” However we just sat and smiled and took it.

  We called New York a few days ago and were told by Lilian that Vera won’t be back until the middle of next week, so those plans are still up in the air.