Under the Sun (47 page)

So there we are. I'd love to see you soon . . .

as always, Bruce

Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | [August 1983]

 

Can you, please, somehow, by the 28th Sept get me a copy of the Vargas Llosa
War at the End of the World
– in Spanish or whatever. This is about the war of Canudos about which I can wax eloquent – having been there. Etc. B.C.

Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 3 August 1983

 

Dear Murray,

Alas! I'm not coming. These past three months have been little short of a nightmare. I feel I've been got at in all directions, to do things I didn't want to do etc. So in the end my only recourse was to cancel everything, and try and get down to some work. The only thing I have done is to accept an invitation to come to the Adelaide Festival in March: and that makes me feel somewhat less bad. Then, hopefully, I shall have quite a lot on paper, which will make sense of my return trip.

The weather in England has been tropical; my flat unbearable: so I've been holing up in a mediaeval tower in Wales.

Incidentally, is the pulped book on songlines, to which you referred, Mountford's
Nomads of the Desert
(or whatever the title)?
⁶¹³
If so, I know it – but if not I'd be glad to have the reference. Oddly enough, it was the Germans who first cottoned onto the idea of the songlines: one of my favourite anthropologists is a Father Worms.

I've sent for
Correction
from New York. All of Bernhard
⁶¹⁴
– or nearly all – is translated into French: though of course not into English. According to an article in the T.L.S. by George Steiner, fifty copies of the American edition of C. sold. So till March then, or maybe a bit before, and a thousand regrets it can't be sooner, unless of course you care to take a foray in this direction.

Love to Margaret, as always Bruce

Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 24 August 1983

 

My dear Kathie,

We seem to have missed each other by several continents. I am, however, coming back to Adelaide, having been invited to come by the Festival in March. I want, too, to spend some more time in the Centre when it gets colder in April and May. I am writing away like a loonie. I have absorbed vast quantities of literature on Aboriginals; and my admiration for T.S. grows and grows. Sometimes, when reading
Songs of Central Australia
, I feel I'm reading Heidegger or Wittgenstein.

The real scandal, frankly, is that
Aranda Traditions
is out of print. It is a 20th century lynch-pin: you only have to look at the work of Levi-Strauss to realise this. I'm sure that something must be possible.

Incidentally, there's a man here, at Durham University, called Bob Layton
⁶¹⁶
, who was something to do with the Ayer's Rock case. I don't know what his role was, or really what his line is, but his enthusiasm for T.S. matches my own.

Let's keep in touch,

as always,

Bruce

 

I came back to a legal can of worms!

Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 30 August 1983

 

Send a PC with your phone no. It's
conceivable
that I may come and spend Christmas with my wife's family in Geneseo NY (not 30 miles from you). If so, I would need some LOCAL moral support. As always Bruce.

Chora | Patmos | Greece | 28 September 1983

 

Dearest E,

Most successful time in Patmos – in that, at last! I've found the right formula for the book: It's to be called, simply, OF THE NOMADS –
A discourse
. And it takes the form of about six excursions into the outback with a semi-imaginary character called Sergei during which the narrator and He have long conversations. Sergei is incredibly well-informed, sympathetic but extremely wary of generalisations – and is always ready to put the spoke into an argument. The narrator is a relentless talker/arguer. I've done two chapters and it really seems to work in that it gives me the necessary flexibility. Needless to say the models for such an enterprise are Plato's
Symposium
and the
Apology
. But so what? I've never seen anything like it in modern literature, a complete hybrid between fiction and philosophy: so here goes.

Patmos beautiful as ever but we now have Clarissa Avon
⁶¹⁷
who, to my mind, casts rather a pall over the atmosphere: so I'm off for a couple of days to the dreaded Beatrice [von Rezzori] where Kässl [Kasmin] is celebrating his birthday:
⁶¹⁸
then back to the horrors of London, to Stockholm, back to London for the Borges, and then to the Tower. The cottage
⁶¹⁹
went for £17,000: so I chickened out. It was quite wonderful in its way: but the responsibility and hassle of leaving it empty were just too much: and I would, definitely, prefer a bolt-hole in the Mediterranean, wouldn't you. I got so carried away by the book that the search, this time, was impossible: but I think one day next year, we should go on a tour of the islands and pick which one; then rent a place to make sure, and while renting, if possible, buy.

I should with luck be able to come to America around Christmas. I'm certainly not taking on anything, though, that's going to disrupt the flow. If only I can get this one off my mind, it will be an enormous relief and I might start living a relatively normal life thereafter.

I must say I'm itching to be back in Nepal.

I'll have to go down to Homer if only to get my loden coat: apparently it's freezing in Stockholm.
On the B.H.
has apparently come out in Germany to one or two rave reviews.

Much love to Lisa [van Gruisen]. I hope all your charges behaved themselves.
⁶²⁰

xxxxB

Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 9 October 1983

 

Dear Kathie

As I think I've told you, I shall – God willing! – be holding forth at the Adelaide Festival in March. Can we postpone the discussion of the foreword or whatever till then?
⁶²¹

I am absolutely delighted to think that you would have me as a fellow of the Strehlow Foundation – and, of course, accept.

Forgive this scribbled note. I've just been in Sweden and Finland for a fortnight and am trying to catch up with a mountain of mail. I'll write when I have more news.

As always Bruce

The Tower | Scethrog | Brecon | Powys | 20 October 1983

 

My dear Murray,

All well here, but I've been sauntering here and there on entertaining, but fairly fruitless jaunts. First to Greece, where I actually made a proper start on the new work. Then to Sweden and Finland, where my books came out. The Finnish title of
On the Black Hill
, by the time it had been changed and translated, was
Erottamattomat
– which of course was the title I'd been looking for all the time! Then to cap everything, I went on a TV chat show in London with Borges and Mario Vargas Llosa. Llosa and I share some of the same ground, in that we have both written about a Brazilian village called Uaua:
⁶²²
we were even there in the same month. I thought it'd be rather a good thing to chat about the dreariness of Uaua: but he thought otherwise, and the moment the cameras were turned on him, he turned from being lively and entertaining into the WRITER-AS-PUBLIC-FIGURE! Of course, we both dutifully held our tongues when the Magus of B.A. appeared, and any attempt to have a chat thereafter was drowned in a flow of beautiful 17th Century English and beautiful Castilian verse.
⁶²³

Blast the Madison Avenue Bookshop! I still haven't had
Correction
yet, despite a reminder. Not a hope of getting it in this country. I suppose I better read it in the Edition Gallimard. George S[teiner] is inclined to exaggerate, you know – though don't for God's sake say I said so. I stayed with him the other day in Cambridge, on my way down from Scotland. He thought I had been with Updike et al. at the Edinburgh festival, but I said (revealing my fantastic error before I actually said it): ‘No I've been doing something much more atavistic. Shooting stags!' – which, I'm afraid, was true.
⁶²⁴
It had the most terrible effect; and I'm sure that no matter what I say and do, he'll look on me, in his heart of hearts, as a murderer. Be that as it may, I've shot stags since I was a boy. And though I say it, I'm a good clean shot – when it comes to stags, and nothing else.

I secretly dread the Adelaide Festival. They wrote to me the other day, and said that ‘since I fit into no known category' they are going to programme ‘An Hour with Bruce Chatwin.' Lord save us! What shall I say?

I'm writing this in the half dark, in the mediaeval tower I've borrowed in the middle of the River Usk. Henry Vaughan
⁶²⁵
used to live in the ruined cottage in the field a hundred yards away. The typewriter is atrocious: so I can't go over any of the mistakes. My progress, if such it can be called, is equally atrocious. Dismal. The novel, if such it be, consists of the narrator (myself) and a Russian immigrant to Melbourne (based loosely on someone I met) having a long drawn-out conversation in the shade of a mulga tree. I think perhaps I should come and sit under a mulga tree in the hope that progress might speed up. Or would it? Australia, I find, even on the most superficial level, is extremely difficult to describe. More soon. Love to Margaret. Should be there by mid Feb.

The Tower | Scethrog | Brecon | Powys | 20 October 1983

 

Dear E.,

So here I am alone in the Tower, which is, I have to say, a lovely place to work, the only distraction being a view of a white farmhouse through a slit window. The new book at least exists as an entity and that, I suppose, is the main thing. The Swedish and Finnish (!) journey went off very well. I was definitely upstaged by the Golding Nobel Prize
⁶²⁶
which was announced at the same time: but I was so pleased to be there that nothing got me down. The title of
On the Black Hill
in Finnish is
Erottamattomat
, which I think should be the title all round. It's published there in a wildly distinguished list called the yellow Library – Faulkner, Hemingway, Joyce, Bellow – that kind of list: so I felt immensely flattered.

On the strength of this, and of the movie-rights being sold (not for much admittedly!) I bought myself in Stockholm an
incredibly
beautiful c. 1760 Swedish crystal chandelier
⁶²⁷
which comes out of a manor in Southern Sweden for which it was made. God knows what to do with it, because I'm not sure it'll look quite right in the flat: but my fantasies about Sweden are somehow connected with a lit chandelier and a crayfish party on a half-dark summer night. I propose to do something to pay for half of it. It's not over big either.

Otherwise, nothing, except that I am inundated to write forewords for this and that. One could easily develop into an exclusive forewordmerchant : for a photograph book on Machu Picchu; for Clemente's
⁶²⁸
paintings of S. India; for the Sierra Club Calendar; and latest for Jackie O[nassis]'s book on Indian costume. By the last, I have to say, I was tempted in that it involved a trip to India in January. (Apparently the idea was not only hers but Mapu
⁶²⁹
somebody's who runs the Ahmedabad Museum). However, since Cary W[elch] was in on the act (it being in connection with the Met. Costume Institute etc.), I told Jackie I'd phone him for saying yes or no. C.W. was relentlessly hostile to the idea: you could literally feel him squirming on the other end of the line. So I chucked, and anyway the timing of it was horrendous, and might have put this book back six months. I must say she was extremely nice about it when I called. Your car is not ready yet, another three weeks or so; because it needs a new part. I'm not going to London if I can help it, and so don't need a car. I intend to go slogging on till December 15th and then I'll take a break. My working year was so mucked up, I think it's the only thing to do.

John B[etjeman] had a heart attack and very nearly died
⁶³⁰
. It was national news for a week, and now he's better.

XXXX B

The Tower | Scethrog | Brecon | Powys | 3 November 1983

 

So glad it wasn't too embarrassing. I had no idea what I was doing in the programme at all. xxx B

Postcard of ‘Mexikanische Miniatur-Maske aus der olmekischen Zeit' from the Schatzkammer der Residenz, München. as from Flat 7 | 77 Eaton Place | London | 6 December 1983

 

How's this for a really hideous-and-marvellous object! The hands are gold, green enamelled. The ‘work' goes laboriously on – and is
very
strange but now manageable. I can begin to see the end: but not before I've gone to S. Africa
AND
back to Australia Feb/March. I miss you. I almost came to N.Y. the other day, but funked it.