Liberation (162 page)

 

¹
Oct. 16, 1976.

 

²
Aug. 7, 1977.

 

³
Thomas Mann, Foreword to
The Magic Mountain
(1924), trans. H.T. Lowe-Porter (1927).

 

⁴
Aug. 14, 1973.

 

⁵
Feb. 14, 1960 in
Diaries, Volume One 1939–1960
(
D.1
).

 

⁶
Jan. 11, 1971.

 

⁷
Feb. 10, 1971.

 

⁸
Apr. 24, 1971.

 

⁹
June 3, 1971.

 

¹⁰
Aug. 24, 1971. Isherwood typed “Polidor” as in drafts of the screenplay, but eventually they settled on “Polidori.”

 

¹¹
Conversation with me, Oct. 2006.

 

¹²
The color portraits filled 25" × 20" sheets; the smaller black and white drawings were actually on larger paper, 29" × 23".

 

¹³
Dec. 8, 1973.

 

¹⁴
Conversation, Oct. 2006.

 

¹⁵
Dec. 3, 1972.

 

¹⁶
May 13, 1971.

 

¹⁷
Aug. 26, 1972.

 

¹⁸
Dec. 25, 1973.

 

¹⁹
Conversation, 2007.

 

²⁰
Oct. 5, 1975.

 

²¹
Feb. 7, 1978. See also July 12, 1972.

 

²²
Jan. 7, 1965 in Christopher Isherwood,
The Sixties, Diaries, Volume Two, 1960–1969
(
D.2
).

 

²³
Conversation, Oct. 2006.

 

²⁴
Conversation, Oct. 2006.

 

²⁵
Dec. 8, 1972.

 

²⁶
Apr. 7, 1975.

 

²⁷
Sept. 30, 1973.

 

²⁸
Chptr. 5.

 

²⁹
Apr. 8, 1975.

 

³⁰
Oct. 29, 1973.

 

³¹
Jul. 30, 1970.

 

³²
Sept. 8, 1970.

 

³³
Feb. 27, 1975.

 

³⁴
See Ramakrishna in Glossary.

 

³⁵
Dec. 1963, no day, p. 301,
D.2
.

 

³⁶
My Guru and His Disciple
, p. 260.

 

³⁷
Dec. 23, 1976.

 

³⁸
Dec. 23, 1976.

 

³⁹
Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood
, p. xiv.

 

⁴⁰
Last Drawings of Christopher Isherwood
, p. xviii.

 

⁴¹
Nov. 6, 1973.

 

⁴²
See Humphrey Carpenter,
W.H. Auden: A Biography
(1982), p. 242.

 

⁴³
Auden travelled to Spain in 1936 and China in 1938 especially to observe the wars there, and he implied he might have returned to England for the same reason had he not fallen in love with and committed himself to Chester Kallman: “Trouble is attractive when one is not tied.” See his questions and answers enclosed in a letter to his friend E.R. Dodds,
circa
March 11, 1940, in
W.H. Auden: “The Map of All My Youth
”, edited by Katherine Bucknell and Nicholas Jenkins, p. 113.

 

⁴⁴
Jun. 27, 1981.

 

⁴⁵
Sept. 14, 1973.

 

⁴⁶
Sept. 25, 1973.

 

⁴⁷
May 15, 1961,
D.2.

 

⁴⁸
The Diaries of Kenneth Tynan
, ed. John Lahr, April 14, 1977, pp. 369–370.

 

⁴⁹
Lions and Shadows
, chptr. 5.

 

⁵⁰
Oct. 23, 1977.

 

⁵¹
Nov. 26, 1970.

 

⁵²
Mar. 27, 1978.

 

⁵³
For example, “. . . all the accounts agree that the Vision of Eros cannot long survive if the parties enter into an actual sexual relation.” Introduction to Anne Fremantle,
The Protestant Mystics
(1964), rpt. in
Forewords and Afterwords
(1974), p. 64.

 

⁵⁴
Nov. 8, 1977.

 

⁵⁵
May 27, 1979.

 

⁵⁶
“Notes on ‘Camp,'”
Partisan Review
, vol. 31, no. 4, 1964, pp. 515–530; rpt.
Against Interpretation
(1966), p. 275.

 

⁵⁷
Prt. 1, chptr. 3.

 

⁵⁸
Aug. 8, 1976.

 

⁵⁹
Sept. 15, 1980 and Sept. 25, 1980.

 

⁶⁰
Jan. 1, 1983.

 

⁶¹
Apr. 19, 1981.

 

⁶²
Oct. 16, 1981.

 

⁶³
Apr. 11, 1982.

 

⁶⁴
Oct. 23, 1982.

 

⁶⁵
Jul. 4, 1983.

 

¹
The Babymaker
; see Glossary under Bridges.

 

²
(B. 1939), a regular on American and Canadian soap operas from the mid-1960s, including “As the World Turns” and “Another World.”

 

³
Often known by her maiden name, Collin Wilcox; see Glossary under Wilcox.

 

⁴
(B. 1948), a T.V. regular in the mid-1960s and later a movie star in
The Right Stuff
(1983),
Hannah and Her Sisters
(1986), and
The Portrait of a Lady
(1996).

 

⁵
Scott Glenn (b. 1941) later had roles in
Nashville
(1975),
Apocalpyse Now
(1979),
The Right Stuff
(1983),
Silverado
(1985),
The Silence of the Lambs
(1991), and others.

 

⁶
Garson Kanin (1912–1999), American actor, writer, and director, described the friendship in
Remembering Mr. Maugham
(1966).

 

⁷
Isherwood's adaptation of Bernard Shaw's 1932 story, “The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God,” was staged at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, March 20–May 4. For more on this and the proposed musical of
The Dog Beneath the Skin
, see Glossary and Christopher Isherwood,
The Sixties: Diaries Volume Two (1960–1969)
(
D.2.
).

 

⁸
David Hockney,
72 Drawings: Chosen by the Artist
(1971); Isherwood's introduction was not used.

 

⁹
Isherwood and Bachardy travelled in the South Pacific and Australia, partly for the filming of
Ned Kelly
, July 20–August 13. See
D.2.

 

¹⁰
Isherwood and Bachardy in their private, mythological identities; see Glossary.

 

¹¹
For a proposed London production of Isherwood and Bachardy's stage adaptation of
A Meeting by the River
.

 

¹²
Each had been deserted for a younger woman; see Glossary.

 

¹³
See Glossary for Hindu terms.

¹
Isherwood handwrote this diary on the rectos of a bound notebook with additions, usually marked with asterisks, on facing versos. The additions are printed here as a separate run of footnotes, above my numbered notes. On the first verso, facing the start of the diary, he wrote:

From an article by Arthur Hopcraft on the Working Class in Britain (
Observer
supplement, February 22, 1970) which is headed “The Middle Class Get Psychotherapy and the Working Class Get Pills”:

A woman social worker who takes part in Salford's psychiatric social service says: “You can't deal with marital problems because there's a housing problem; you can't deal with that because there's a wages problem; you can't deal with that because there's a health problem.”

 

²
Written with David Sherwin (1969).

 

³
An Impersonation of Angels
(1968).

 

^*
No, says Norman Prouting, 102 years. This house was built in 1868. This whole area was built by some famous Australian cricketers. There is a pub round the corner called The Australian. Formerly, this land was marsh. [Isherwood was lodging with Prouting in Chelsea; see Glossary.]

 

⁴
A biography by Parker Tyler (1969).

 

^*
One of the boys at the Ramakrishna-Vedanta center, the English one, was told to take a photograph of Swami and me. He somehow got the camera jammed, being nervous. Buddha reproved him, addressing him as “brother,” and one saw the grim bright-eyed smiling martinet. Buddha, speaking of his “lapse,” said, “It's been a long way back.” I think I pleased him by telling of the “lapses” of Franklin [Knight] and of [another monk he knew].

 

⁵
In fact many jnanis do perform pujas; see Glossary under Bhavyananda.

 

^*
How we found this out was that I said to Robert, “I think maybe you'd better switch that thing off for a minute; I want to say something very personal.” (It was about Wystan [Auden]'s jealousy of Rupert [Doone]!)

 

⁶
Eamon de Valera (1882–1975), Manhattan-born Irish revolutionary, then in his late eighties and still President of Ireland.

 

^*
The San Remo?

 

⁷
Nigel Playfair directed the 1927 production, in which Peggy Ashcroft also appeared with Godfrey Tearle, Scott Russell, and Dorothy Green; Michael Langham directed the later one, starring Geraldine McEwan.

 

⁸
Author of
Inclination to Murder
(1965) and other thrillers, from Cape Town; she used the pseudonym Nicola Thorne.

 

⁹
Stanton, a young American artist admired for his beauty; Geldzahler also admired his work. Stanton died of AIDS.

 

¹⁰
By Peter Luke; directed by Peter Dews, who won a Tony for an earlier New York production.

 

¹¹
Scott Gilbert's producing partner.

 

^*
The Bradleys' T.V. set has something wrong with it, the picture is distorted vertically into a rectangle. This makes the dobbins particularly adorable, with their very short legs and immensely long bodies.

 

^*
Richard is obviously drinking a little, offstage, during my visit, but very little. I have smelt beer on his breath a couple of times; but he even refused a glass of sherry to drink to Dan's birthday. Ordinarily, he drinks mostly at Wyberslegh, during the afternoons.

Dan is worried because he feels that Thomas [Isherwood] is using his influence on the lawyer to save up money to pay death duties; which means Richard won't be so likely to build a house for himself and the Bradleys near Wyberslegh, when Dan retires.

 

¹²
Kathleen's history, added to over many years, of Marple, Wyberslegh, and the Bradshaw and Isherwood families, including family trees, floor plans, newspapers clippings, and her own watercolors and pencil and ink illustrations; Isherwood describes it in
Kathleen and Frank
, chptr. 13.

 

^*
Richard says no, she's fifty-eight.

 

¹³
I.e., once victory over Japan in W.W.II had already been declared.

 

^*
P. = Peter Schlesinger, D. = David Hockney.

 

¹⁴
An interview with correspondent Piers Anderton about sexuality, filmed by NBC at Anderton's house on November 19, 1969. Others involved from NBC were Lew Rothbart and Mike Gavin.

 

¹⁵
Clodd, Irish librarian, bookdealer, publisher (1918–2002), began collecting Isherwood's work in the 1950s and built a modern literature collection of 20,000 volumes. He also founded the Enitharmon Press in 1967. The bibliography was never completed.

 

^*
Bob Coh[a]n.

 

^*
Edward's third volume of the trilogy seems to be a flashback which starts from childhood and brings him up to the point at which volume one begins. He says he is having just as great difficulty with this volume as with the others, but of course there
is
a difference; the block has been at least partially removed, he now knows he can actually get a book finished and published. To me he seems to have fears of rejection by publishers on political grounds and fears of prosecution on grounds of libel which verge on paranoia. Perhaps this is the result of the kind of life he has led—always feeling himself to be an illegal underground worker. But, without the life, Edward wouldn't now have his own personal myth; and, lacking that, he'd write quite differently or not at all.