Bruce Chatwin (40 page)
Authors: Nicholas Shakespeare
Tags: #Biography & Autobiography, #Literary, #Literary Collections, #Letters, #Literary Criticism, #General, #Diaries & Journals, #Personal Memoirs
“Following their passion for human urine, reindeer were attracted to human settlements.” When Bruce’s two fellow curators read his text, their worst fears were realised.
Entitled “The Nomadic Alternative”, it was shot through with arcane folklore and anthropological speculation that would not fit benignly into the scholarly catalogue they had envisaged. Of particular concern was Bruce’s emphasis on the role of the shaman in nomadic art: “Feared, sexually ambivalent, set aside from the ‘normal’ life of the tribe, he remains the hub of its creative activity, its cultural hero.”
Ann Farkas, a Thracian scholar, says, “His essay had nothing to do with the exhibition or what we were trying to do. It was just about nomads. We read it and said to each other: ‘This is horrible’.”
Bruce’s unconventional approach worried Emma Bunker. “We came from different angles. I came from a strictly academic background and I had not really travelled the world as he had. I expected him to have more footnotes. He was bored with academic nonsense. ‘Those frilly-shirted fools,’ he said.”
As Farkas recalls, “things got pretty hot and heavy”. With Bunker, she convened an urgent meeting with the Asia House director, Gordon Washburn, who shared their dismay. Appeals were made, and, as Bruce wrote to Welch, “other forms of torture are being greased and oiled for the intrepid English amateur who has dared plant his unwary feet on the hallowed ground of American scholarship.” But he refused to alter what he had written. “He was unmoveable,” says Farkas. “He just smiled and was charming.” Washburn alluded to their unease in his foreword when the catalogue was published in 1970: “Mr Chatwin, an anthropologist at heart, is inclined to find shamanism the most likely inspiration for the Animal Style . . . Mrs Bunker and Dr Farkas are less interested in unprovable hypothesis and more concerned with . . . exacting research.”
Alone in their approval were Emma Bunker’s children, ever after hopeful that “if only they could ‘pee’ in the snow, a reindeer would appear.”
The exhibition was another year away, in another country. More immediately, Bruce wondered if there was not an English market for his essay, described by him years later as “pretty pretentious, but not bad”. On 20 January 1969, he wrote to Gertrude: “I am going up to town tomorrow in search of a publisher for a book based on the Asia House Introduction.”
Lucie-Smith had directed him towards his own literary agent, Deborah Rogers. He says, “Bruce came to me and said he wanted to write, what could he do? I knew he would appeal enormously to Deborah.” The meeting was effected by Kasmin, a mutual friend.
Over a Greek lunch in Charlotte Street, Bruce talked to Rogers about Mr Brady, a travelling typewriter salesman who kept a trunk in a hotel in Kingsway. “He seemed to belong to that nearly extinct species – the happy man.” Periodically, Mr Brady would return from his travels round Africa to this room, pull out the black tin deed box and sift through his belongings, the assorted bric-a-brac of English middle-class life. “But each time he brought from Africa one new thing, and he threw out one old thing that had lost its meaning. ‘I know it sounds silly,’ he said, ‘but they are my roots’.” Rogers says, “I was hooked.”
Bruce reported the result of their discussion to Welch. “At present I am focussing my attention and blandishments on Mr Maschler, who was the publishing genius behind Desmond Morris’s
The Naked Ape
. . .”
The Naked Ape
. . .”
On 23 January, Rogers sent Bruce’s eight-page catalogue introduction to Tom Maschler, the chairman and publisher of Jonathan Cape. “Can he come and see you tomorrow? I am sure he is worth your spending half an hour with. I have a good feeling about him.”
Maschler had published Joseph Heller’s
Catch-22
and John Fowles’s
The Collector.
He acted on infrequent but powerful hunches: “I’ve had this feeling a few times when I’ve
known.
” Maschler had a similar reaction to Bruce, although he found the author more exceptional than his essay. “It was all right. It had a confidence, somewhere between research and experience, and was extremely professional and polished. But I do remember being pretty taken with this young man: he had an extraordinary assurance and an integrity. I was sure I was dealing with someone very special.”
Catch-22
and John Fowles’s
The Collector.
He acted on infrequent but powerful hunches: “I’ve had this feeling a few times when I’ve
known.
” Maschler had a similar reaction to Bruce, although he found the author more exceptional than his essay. “It was all right. It had a confidence, somewhere between research and experience, and was extremely professional and polished. But I do remember being pretty taken with this young man: he had an extraordinary assurance and an integrity. I was sure I was dealing with someone very special.”
Maschler had commissioned few books (“20 in 40 years”), most recently
The Naked Ape.
As with Desmond Morris, he asked Bruce for a proposal. “I said to him – a trick I always play because it frees people – ‘I don’t want a ten-page outline: do it in the form of a letter’.”
The Naked Ape.
As with Desmond Morris, he asked Bruce for a proposal. “I said to him – a trick I always play because it frees people – ‘I don’t want a ten-page outline: do it in the form of a letter’.”
On 24 February, Bruce delivered his open letter to Rogers. The book was to be general rather than specialist in tone and the question it would try to answer was: ‘Why do men wander rather than sit still? He proposed to tackle the nomadic urge under nine headings. Chapter VII was to be called “The Compensations of Faith”. Chapter IX, “The Nomadic Alternative”, called into question “the whole basis for Civilisation and is concerned with the present and future as much as the past.” The opening chapter was to address the question “Why Wander?” chiefly in terms of Bruce’s own nomadic urge. “I have a compulsion to wander and a compulsion to return – a homing instinct like a migrating bird.” Rogers forwarded the “letter” to Maschler: “The idea is emerging with greater clarity as he progresses, despite the intentional looseness and preambly-ness of the enclosed.”
Maschler read the synopsis in his cottage above Llantony and was excited by its mammoth scope. He looked forward to the first chapters. “I do just want to put into writing that I am convinced it will be an important book,” he replied to Bruce. “Important in the way
The Naked Ape
was important.”
The Naked Ape
was important.”
Maschler also sent Bruce’s synopsis to Desmond Morris, who saw the problem immediately. “What exactly is a nomad? It gets a little confusing at times as I read his chapter summaries.” It seemed to Morris that there was a fundamental psychological difference between wandering away and then back to a fixed base, on the one hand, and wandering from place to place without a fixed base, on the other. “As I said in
The Naked Ape
, the moment man became a hunter, he had to have somewhere
to come back to
after the hunt was over. So a fixed base became natural for the species and we lost our old ape-like nomadism.”
The Naked Ape
, the moment man became a hunter, he had to have somewhere
to come back to
after the hunt was over. So a fixed base became natural for the species and we lost our old ape-like nomadism.”
Morris made the following suggestion. “Maybe the answer is to get rid of the word nomad altogether and think in initially vaguer terms of ‘HUMAN WANDERLUST’.”
Bruce professed himself to Maschler delighted by Morris’s comments. “I’m sorry I didn’t answer before, but my wife thought it was a bill and kept it from me . . . I too have come to the same conclusion. The word NOMAD must go.” He had been reading “heavily” in the literature of animal behaviour and the next week hoped to go to Le Mans. “I have a new friend, a self-employed motor-bicycle ace, who follows a prescribed route from Grand Prix to Grand Prix, and shows all the characteristics of a true nomad.”
Three days later he updated his thesis. “The first will be a Wandering Beast chapter, preceded by an introduction. I estimate that the manuscript should be ready to hack together by this time next year, that is providing we don’t decide to enlarge it with a section on the Lone American, who is beginning to be a much more significant figure than I had imagined.”
At the end of May, in the same week as he formally withdrew from his degree course, Bruce signed a contract to write
The Nomadic Alternative
. He was paid an advance of £200 and Maschler conveyed his high hopes to Deborah Rogers: “As I said before, I have a hunch; as you said before, you have a hunch. Let’s hope this lives up to both our expectations.”
The Nomadic Alternative
. He was paid an advance of £200 and Maschler conveyed his high hopes to Deborah Rogers: “As I said before, I have a hunch; as you said before, you have a hunch. Let’s hope this lives up to both our expectations.”
Bruce struggled to write his nomad book for three years. A pattern emerged which would define his writing life: boundless enthusiasm dwindling into depression and inertia. To begin with, Elizabeth says, “he identified himself to the extent that he no longer dug in the vegetable garden. He didn’t mind
me
gardening. That was all right because nomads had slaves who cultivated the oasis for them.” His research took him back and forth from Holwell Farm to short visits among nomad tribes in Afghanistan, West Africa, Mauritania, Persia. But the deeper he researched, the more cumbersome grew the material and the harder he found to contain it.
me
gardening. That was all right because nomads had slaves who cultivated the oasis for them.” His research took him back and forth from Holwell Farm to short visits among nomad tribes in Afghanistan, West Africa, Mauritania, Persia. But the deeper he researched, the more cumbersome grew the material and the harder he found to contain it.
He wanted to write a seminal work that restored the position of nomads to an important place in history and was a serious attempt to explain the origin of humanity. The pyramids we know, he said. Moses we don’t. But the fact that Moses left few traces opened a limitless horizon to fill with every category of mirage. Anything that moved became worthy of his argument, from a hermaphrodite pharaoh to the musings of a tramp in St James’s Square.
It took 14 years for him to be able to clarify his thesis: “The argument, roughly, was as follows: that in becoming human, man had acquired, together with his straight legs and striding walk, a migratory ‘drive’ or instinct to walk long distances through the seasons; that this ‘drive’ was inseparable from his central nervous system; and that, when warped in conditions of settlement, it found outlets in violence, greed, status-seeking or a mania for the new.” The book had grown and grown. “And as it grew it became less intelligible to its author. It even contained a diatribe against the act of writing itself.”
He would find himself stranded in “a nebulous no-man’s land between scientific theory and autobiography”. The resulting tome would cause him heartbreak. It would contain most of what he knew, but it was not
The Naked Ape
.
The Naked Ape
.
“It was so much a young man’s book,” he said, “with a tendency to air one’s knowledge to the fullest extent and cram everything in. I finally consigned it to the dustbin because it was absolutely unreadable.”
One reason his book took so long was his ability to be distracted. Maschler did not know that
The Nomadic Alternative
was only one of several projects Bruce plotted at this time, all loosely linked to nomads. In February, for instance, he planned an anthology of shaman poetry with his neighbour at Holwell, the poet Charles Tomlinson. And on 21 March, Elizabeth wrote to her mother that Bruce’s nomad project was temporarily on hold: “He’s been distracted by another thing at the moment. He has got to know the whole cast of the English production of
Hair
and one night last week was at a party there talking to a theatrical agent who said they were looking for ideas for a really different, way-out musical so Bruce sits himself down at the typewriter last week and writes a scenario for a musical on Akhenaten, involving the Mitannians . . . who were semi-nomadic people from Iraq, the Hittites and of course the Egyptians. So he showed it to the agent who liked it . . . and so tomorrow they are drawing up a copyright. Goodness knows if it will ever come off, but Bruce is thrilled of course.”
The Nomadic Alternative
was only one of several projects Bruce plotted at this time, all loosely linked to nomads. In February, for instance, he planned an anthology of shaman poetry with his neighbour at Holwell, the poet Charles Tomlinson. And on 21 March, Elizabeth wrote to her mother that Bruce’s nomad project was temporarily on hold: “He’s been distracted by another thing at the moment. He has got to know the whole cast of the English production of
Hair
and one night last week was at a party there talking to a theatrical agent who said they were looking for ideas for a really different, way-out musical so Bruce sits himself down at the typewriter last week and writes a scenario for a musical on Akhenaten, involving the Mitannians . . . who were semi-nomadic people from Iraq, the Hittites and of course the Egyptians. So he showed it to the agent who liked it . . . and so tomorrow they are drawing up a copyright. Goodness knows if it will ever come off, but Bruce is thrilled of course.”
The inspiration for Bruce’s musical was a 19-year-old Jamaican-born actor from
Hair.
Peter Straker had just split up with his long-term girlfriend and lived in Palmer’s Green with his Jamaican Methodist parents. In the musical he played the part of Hud, the lead black boy. “I was carried in upside down on a pole dressed in the US flag, with no clothes on underneath. I’d slide off and sing: ‘I’m a coloured spade.’ Bruce thought I had the most marvellous voice.”
Hair.
Peter Straker had just split up with his long-term girlfriend and lived in Palmer’s Green with his Jamaican Methodist parents. In the musical he played the part of Hud, the lead black boy. “I was carried in upside down on a pole dressed in the US flag, with no clothes on underneath. I’d slide off and sing: ‘I’m a coloured spade.’ Bruce thought I had the most marvellous voice.”
Their paths crossed one afternoon as Straker was heading to the Shaftesbury Theatre. The
Evening Standard’s
Londoner’s Diary, describing Bruce as “a bit of a scholar who knows a thing or two about Egypt”, reported their encounter. “ ‘My God,’ yelled out Mr Chatwyn [
sic
], ‘You’re the image of Akhenaten.’ And without so much as a by-your-leave he dragged young Peter off round half the museums in London until he found a picture to support his theory. And sure enough the resemblance was uncanny.”
*1
Evening Standard’s
Londoner’s Diary, describing Bruce as “a bit of a scholar who knows a thing or two about Egypt”, reported their encounter. “ ‘My God,’ yelled out Mr Chatwyn [
sic
], ‘You’re the image of Akhenaten.’ And without so much as a by-your-leave he dragged young Peter off round half the museums in London until he found a picture to support his theory. And sure enough the resemblance was uncanny.”
*1
That night Bruce watched Straker’s performance and the idea for a musical started to take shape. A complete lack of training was no obstacle. “In a moment of enthusiasm, or – rather – infatuated by a member of the cast, I wrote a scenario for a musical one bright spring day,” he wrote to James Ivory. “I’m a sucker for theatrical camp.”
The outline is lost, but Straker remembers its drift. “Akhenaten was considered a visionary, a Christ figure. He was a hermaphrodite as well, which we liked the idea of.” In Bruce’s musical, the sun-worshipping Pharaoh would uproot his court from Thebes to the desert, getting away from old conventions. “Bruce had the idea of converting the theatre into a pyramid and having sand on the way in so you would get the feeling of desert and heat.”
Bruce met with Gait McDermott, who had written the music for
Hair,
and for the lyrics Straker approached John Tebelak, the author of
Godspell
. Bruce gave Straker his white jellaba, a gift from Gloria which he wore on stage, and during Straker’s free day they would lunch at Le Casserole in the King’s Road or Inigo Jones in Covent Garden. Straker found the relationship puzzling. “I don’t know if we
had
an affair. My day-to-day life had nothing to do with Bruce.”
Hair,
and for the lyrics Straker approached John Tebelak, the author of
Godspell
. Bruce gave Straker his white jellaba, a gift from Gloria which he wore on stage, and during Straker’s free day they would lunch at Le Casserole in the King’s Road or Inigo Jones in Covent Garden. Straker found the relationship puzzling. “I don’t know if we
had
an affair. My day-to-day life had nothing to do with Bruce.”
The project soon petered out and with it the relationship. “His energy used to frighten me,” says Straker. “I found him overpowering, not bullying, but larger than life. There came a point when I knew I was important to him and didn’t want it. I used to laugh at him when he said he loved me.”
One weekend Bruce invited Straker to Holwell to meet Elizabeth. “I was quite shocked at their relationship,” says Straker. “I asked him about Elizabeth: ‘How can you go on like this?’ He said she liked the country and didn’t like the city and she knew about that side of him.”
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