Read Online Christopher Isherwood: A Personal memoir by John Lehmann - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John Lehmann
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discovered, what I didn’t realize before, or what I wasn’t till now, that I am a pacifist. And now I have to find out what that means, and what duties it implies. That’s one reason why I am going out to Hollywood, to talk to Gerald Heard and Huxley. Maybe I’ll flatly disagree with them, but I have to hear their case, stated as expertly as possible. And I have to get ready to cope with the war situation, if or when it comes.
How are you feeling? What are your plans? You sound so very unperturbed, amidst all the screaming we hear from the distant European shores.
He ended with some cheerless news about his books in America: ‘Goodbye to Berlin is now the most utter flop, final and irrevocable. Most people I meet don’t even know it has been published; even when they know my name and other writing quite well. This is good for the soul, no doubt, but bad for the pocket. My national debt is increasingly alarming.’
I found this a curious and illuminating failure of American taste. Goodbye to Berlin had to wait for John van Druten to turn part of it into the play I am a Camera before it sailed into everyone’s consciousness. And this was not till 1951, when Dodie and Alec Beesley (by design) dared him one afternoon to tackle it.
When Christopher and ‘Vernon’ reached Hollywood, they settled in at first at 7136 Sycamore Trail, and had very soon made contact with Gerald Heard, Christopher Wood, and the Huxleys; and had made the acquaintance of Berthold Viertel’s wife, Salka, script-writer to Greta Garbo and a power in the film world. He wrote to me in July:
Here I am living very quietly, seeing hardly anyone, and hoping vaguely that when Berthold arrives he will get me a movie job. Life with ‘Vernon’ reminds me very much of life with Heinz - except that he is even more serious, hates going out in the evenings, reads Suetonius, Wells and Freud, and goes to Art School. If I were happier inside myself I would be very happy. But I never cease worrying about Europe. My ‘change of heart’ about War, and the use of force generally, has only strengthened and been confirmed. I am sure this is how I will feel for the rest of my life. I’m afraid this will mean I shall lose a lot of friends but, I hope, none of the real ones. I am often very homesick for London, and the Hogarth Press office, Stephen’s jokes about his psycho-analysis, walks with Morgan [E.M. Forster.] near Abinger Hammer, Peggy’s imitations, rows with my Mother. When I think of my friends, I remember them all laughing. The Past appears entirely in terms of jokes. The driving forces, which separate people, are so dull, really. Just their needs and greeds: sex and money and ambition. Oh dear, why do we have to have bodies? By the time they’ve been satisfied, there is only half an hour a day left over for Talk.
And talk is all that finally matters.
He described the mood he was in more fully in this letter, and rather alarmed me.
Right now, I am like the ground under this part of California. I am settling down, and there is a ‘fault’ inside me which may produce earthquakes. So it is better to keep off me altogether. I am only too liable, literally, to let you down. For the last six weeks or more, I have been working on something for the autumn number of New Writing. First it was a piece about New York; then it was a study of Toller. 2 Today I realized that neither of them will do. New York needs endless polishing. The Toller piece just sounds stupid and patronising and rather offensive. It has a certain smart-alecky value, but I was fond of Toller, and can’t publish it as it stands. I doubt if you’d want to print it, either. So once again, I am the criminal, the oath-breaker. And, once again, I can only say I’m sorry.
John, I am so utterly sick of being a person -Christopher Isherwood, or Isherwood, or even Chris. Aren’t you too? Don’t you
How are you feeling? What are your plans? You sound so very unperturbed, amidst all the screaming we hear from the distant European shores.
He ended with some cheerless news about his books in America: ‘Goodbye to Berlin is now the most utter flop, final and irrevocable. Most people I meet don’t even know it has been published; even when they know my name and other writing quite well. This is good for the soul, no doubt, but bad for the pocket. My national debt is increasingly alarming.’
I found this a curious and illuminating failure of American taste. Goodbye to Berlin had to wait for John van Druten to turn part of it into the play I am a Camera before it sailed into everyone’s consciousness. And this was not till 1951, when Dodie and Alec Beesley (by design) dared him one afternoon to tackle it.
When Christopher and ‘Vernon’ reached Hollywood, they settled in at first at 7136 Sycamore Trail, and had very soon made contact with Gerald Heard, Christopher Wood, and the Huxleys; and had made the acquaintance of Berthold Viertel’s wife, Salka, script-writer to Greta Garbo and a power in the film world. He wrote to me in July:
Here I am living very quietly, seeing hardly anyone, and hoping vaguely that when Berthold arrives he will get me a movie job. Life with ‘Vernon’ reminds me very much of life with Heinz - except that he is even more serious, hates going out in the evenings, reads Suetonius, Wells and Freud, and goes to Art School. If I were happier inside myself I would be very happy. But I never cease worrying about Europe. My ‘change of heart’ about War, and the use of force generally, has only strengthened and been confirmed. I am sure this is how I will feel for the rest of my life. I’m afraid this will mean I shall lose a lot of friends but, I hope, none of the real ones. I am often very homesick for London, and the Hogarth Press office, Stephen’s jokes about his psycho-analysis, walks with Morgan [E.M. Forster.] near Abinger Hammer, Peggy’s imitations, rows with my Mother. When I think of my friends, I remember them all laughing. The Past appears entirely in terms of jokes. The driving forces, which separate people, are so dull, really. Just their needs and greeds: sex and money and ambition. Oh dear, why do we have to have bodies? By the time they’ve been satisfied, there is only half an hour a day left over for Talk.
And talk is all that finally matters.
He described the mood he was in more fully in this letter, and rather alarmed me.
Right now, I am like the ground under this part of California. I am settling down, and there is a ‘fault’ inside me which may produce earthquakes. So it is better to keep off me altogether. I am only too liable, literally, to let you down. For the last six weeks or more, I have been working on something for the autumn number of New Writing. First it was a piece about New York; then it was a study of Toller. 2 Today I realized that neither of them will do. New York needs endless polishing. The Toller piece just sounds stupid and patronising and rather offensive. It has a certain smart-alecky value, but I was fond of Toller, and can’t publish it as it stands. I doubt if you’d want to print it, either. So once again, I am the criminal, the oath-breaker. And, once again, I can only say I’m sorry.
John, I am so utterly sick of being a person -Christopher Isherwood, or Isherwood, or even Chris. Aren’t you too? Don’t you
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