The Digested Twenty-first Century (23 page)

How happy I am to be your wife, Bertie, though I do find the political situation worrying.
Taxation
is very high and Daddy
says
he might have to sell a painting or two. Gosh, the Labour party are awful
SNOBS
.

It is most trying being away from baby Lillibet for several months at a time, but Bertie and I are absolutely loving our tour of Africa. Bertie shot a
lion
yesterday and this morning I bagged a
rhinoceros
. What very odd creatures they are. I do so miss Cowes week, but the benediction of the Archbishop
of
Canterbury does help with the loss.

Thank you
so
much for sending me your latest poem, Mr Sitwell. It has been a great comfort while the Trade Unions have been behaving so
badly
.

A Certain Person
, whom I cannot bring myself to name, has
been
very difficult. I do hope David comes to his senses.

How strange, though not unagreeable, it is to find
myself
Queen. Bertie has just
awarded
me the Order of the Garter. I want you to know, David, that I
continue
to uphold you at all times and I have absolutely no idea how
my
reply to your previous letter went unposted. I shall have to fire the servants.

Your book fills me with hope, Mr Sitwell. How fitting it should arrive on the day Mr Chamberlain should return from Munich and we can all rest safe once more. Bertie has just
told
me we are to tour Canada. Why Canada again? How I long to go somewhere else.

So we are at war with the idiotic
Germans
again. Buckingham Palace has been bombed.
Ghastly!
But some good news at least as Mrs Greville has left me her
jewels
. Mr Churchill has committed a grave faux-pas by congratulating the Indian troops. They are Bertie’s troops to congratulate. How I
miss
Mr Chamberlain.

Thank you for the copy of your new book, Mr Sitwell. I know it will help me recover from the loss of my husband.

Life is awfully difficult without
an
equerry, Elizabeth, but thank you for my annual 48-hour stay in Balmoral. The
fishing
was magnificent. Charles is a most amusing young man, and gave me the most
super
towel for my birthday.

Thank you for your poem, Sir John. I couldn’t agree more about Slough. One of my horses pulled up lame in a hurdle race at Lingfield. At least the
racing
does keep one so busy that I find I have nothing to say about the family divorces or the death of Diana.

If I may say so, Elizabeth, I do think we should reward the nice Mr
SHAWCROSS
with a knighthood. (
This important letter has only just come to light
.)

Digested read, digested:
Queen Zelig, the Queen Mother.

Dear Mrs Woolf,

Thank you for sending me your new short story. I read it with great interest, but feel it is, perhaps, too frivolous for inclusion in
The Monthly Criterion
. Have you thought about sending it to
Grazia?
Yours, etc.

Dear Messrs Methuen,

I note with alarm that the paper for the new setting of
The Sacred Wood
is below the standard I expect. Please correct soonest. Yours, etc.

Dear Master,

I trust that nothing will interfere with my stay at New College on the 9th proxima and that I will be accorded the same suite of rooms as previously. Does five guineas sound reasonable for my expenses? Yours, etc.

My dearest Ottoline,

I’m so grateful that Valerie managed to find room for a few of my maddest letters. La – la – la. Otherwise no one would have any idea how much of a saint Tom was to put up with me for so long before having me committed to an asylum. Such a wonderful Christian man! Anyone else might have been tempted to have an affair by my madness. The cat stood on the mat. Much love, Vivienne.

My darling Emily,

(Regrettably, all the correspondence between TS Eliot and Emily Hale has been embargoed until 2020, so readers will just have to take the chaste nature of their relationship on trust – Eds. PS. I’ve always hated that bitch – Valerie)

Dear Cummings,

Thank you for sending me your new ditty. Unfortunately it is not quite suitable for
The Monthly Criterion
. Have you thought about taking remedial lessons in grammar and punctuation? Yours, etc.

Dear Leonard,

It was a rare honour to meet someone, such as yourself, with more money than sense. As you know,
The Monthly Criterion
is struggling financially and with your help we could re-establish the magazine on a quarterly footing. Thank you also for your offer to publish an edition of my poems in Latin. Once I have fulfilled my contractual obligations to Faber, of which I am now a director, I shall be happy to accept. In the meantime, I submit my invoice for 300 guineas. Yours, etc.

Dear Faber,

I note that 12 paper-clips are missing from the office inventory and that my papers had not been placed perpendicular
to the inkwell on my desk. This state of affairs cannot be allowed to continue. Yours, etc.

Dear Aldington,

Thank you for sending me your latest verses. If they can be called that. I confess that I found them disappointing in the extreme – an opinion that I must make clear has nothing to do with your outspoken assertions that Vivienne is not really that mad. Have you tried The People’s Friend? Yours, etc.

Dear Prince de Rohan,

Thank you for your appreciation of the German translation of my essay on Machiavelli. So often, one feels one is putting pearls before swine. Vivienne is doing as well as can be expected and I get enormous comfort from my faith. Yours, etc.

Dear Auden,

I am sorry I kept you waiting in the Faber ante-chamber for several hours. I had a very important meeting with my secretary. Do call the office to arrange another appointment some time next year. Yours, etc.

Dear Faber,

The paper-clips are still missing. Yours, etc.

Dear Spender,

Thank you for your invitation to speak at the Oxford Poetry Society. Regrettably, I must decline as I am exhausted. Having read a few lines of your latest work, dare I suggest that poetry is not your forte? I submit my invoice for 15 guineas for the expenses that would have accrued, had I accepted. Yours, etc.

Digested read, digested:
A publisher’s thank you for being kept afloat by
Cats
.

Dear Freddie, Twenty-five years or so ago, I proposed to my friend John Gross who was then editing the
TLS
that he might care to engage in a self-regarding, grumpy-old-man correspondence with America’s greatest essayist. To my surprise he turned me down, but having just watched yet another repeat of The Glittering Prizes on PBS, I wondered if you might be a man of sufficient neglect and vanity to say yes instead. Best, Joe

Dear Joe, I confess I had no idea who you were when your letter first arrived, but having looked you up, I discover that though you are a lesser Jew than me –
la chose juive c’est aussi importante que la chose génitale
(as Charcot would say – there might be some $$$$ in my extravagantly parenthesised
bons mots
reaching a wider audience).
Tout à toi
, Freddie

Dear Freddie, I am delighted you have entered so fully into the spirit of my
grand projet
. I agree that Jewishness is the sine qua non of human existence, and I regret deeply that my Jewishness is not as realised as your own. Yet still I find I am a remarkable Jew. Talking of which, do you loathe Gore Vidal and Susan Sontag as much as me? Best, Joe

Dear Joe, I will only return to the subject of Jewishness and the evil of antisemitism in every other epistle. How much we have in
common! I cannot stand GV. A homosexualist – homosexu-A-list – of limited talent. As for La Sontag. She had the pleasure of meeting me once. The pleasure was all hers.
Tout à toi
, Freddie

Dear Freddie,
The New York Review of Books
has offered me only $20,000 for 3,000 of my best words on the Essays of Montaigne, and Columbia University is refusing to fly me business class to deliver a lecture on hubris. I fear for the recognition of my genius. Best, Joe

Dear Joe, It was always thus, thus it always was. When I worked in Hollywood with fools such as Kubrick, I found it best just to take what was on offer while retaining
un détachement supercilieux
. Have you seen the pitiful new poem has Harold Pinter for the LRB?
Tout Londres rit!
As for the new offerings from Ian McEwan and Julian Barnes, these are books you don’t want in your wood-panelled library. I once felt the same about the pathetic criticism of Clive James, but then he was nice about my daughter.
Amitiés
, Freddie

Dear Freddie, Did you ever meet Vladimir Nabokov? A more overrated pedlar of leaden phrases it is hard to conceive. It is all very well to have one’s daughter praised by an Australian, but thank God she did not miscegenate with him. I have another 300 of my 500-word essay on the impact of the Astronomica of Marcus Manilius on Roger Federer still to write. I should be finished by next week, though it’s hardly worth the $15,000 I am being paid. Best, Joe

Dear Joe, I have just read your piece for the journal with a circulation of two. Quite the best-written and most incisive
obiter dicta
I have read since I went through the page proofs
of my latest novel. Not that it will sell, because these days there is only room for the middle-brow ennui of Hollinghurst and Byatt. Alan Bennett has a talent but it is a very limited one.
Tout à toi
, Freddie

Dear Freddie, We come to the end of our little experiment. I have enjoyed it beyond words and believe we have left a lasting monument to those writers who would dare to trace our footsteps. Best, Joe

Dear Joe, While I miss
la gloire, comme on dit
, of not having been tested in physical combat, I take pleasure that those of our persuasion – if indeed we are persuaded! – will look sympathetically (simper-thetically) on our efforts. If only Michael Frayn would Re-Frayn.
!E basta¡
What is our legacy?
Un palimpseste de bons mots?
Or the ramblings of two solipsists who have trashed what little remained of their reputations?
Figure-toi
. Either way,
c’était une joie complète
.

Digested read, digested:
La Vieillesse Dorée.

Dear Paul, I have been thinking about how so many novelists have been cashing in by writing letters to one another which are then later published in book form. I wondered whether you might agree to be my correspondent for such a venture. We could start by discussing the nature of friendship as I note that Aristotle had something to say on the subject.

Dear John, I can’t say I have hitherto given the semiotics of friendship much thought, though for the purposes of publication I am prepared to do so now. My feeling is this: a friendship should always be of a non-sexual nature.

Dear Paul, A response to your last letter. I couldn’t agree more that our friendship should remain non-sexual. Much looking forward to seeing you in Estoril.

Dear Paul, I haven’t heard from you for a while. Did you receive my last letter?

Dear John, Many apologies for my failure to reply. As you know, I refuse to engage with modern technology and Siri inadvertantly unplugged the fax machine for several weeks so I have only just received it. I feel we have exhausted the subject of friendship. Perhaps we could turn our attention instead to the banking crisis which seems to have consumed the attention of everyone in New York.

Dear Paul, It seems to me that if only financiers could grasp a few simple Platonic and Borgesian truths then there would be no panic. The truth is that nothing has changed but the numbers. So why don’t they merely susbstitute some more pleasing numbers for the ones that have caused such alarm? My publishers are insisting I go to Tuscany. Perhaps we can meet in the same palazzo as last time?

Dear John, Your prescription for the economy seems eminently sensible to me. Let me tell you a story. I once met Charlton Heston on three separate occasions in as many weeks.
What does that say of the signifier and the signified? My Italian publisher is insisting I, too, fly business class to Tuscany so Siri and I are much looking forward to seeing you again. In the meantime, I am watching baseball on the television.

Dear Paul, As it happens I have been watching a great deal of cricket on the television. Perhaps our intercourse should extend to why two such brilliant minds should be so fascinated by sport. It is my contention that sport satisfies a very primitive need for heroes.

Dear John, I truly believe you may be on to something with your insight about sporting heroism. Did I ever tell you about the time I once nearly met Willie Mays? I’m also finding the situation in Israel immensely complex, but we can talk about that when we meet in Canada where I am to read from my new novel.

Dear Paul, Congratulations on your new novel. It is, as ever, a masterpiece. I am looking forward to seeing you in Canada. For my session, I have insisted that members of the public should not be allowed to ask questions as they rarely have anything worthwhile to add. In the meantime, I have been asked to write something on Beckett.

Dear John, I too have been asked to write about Beckett. The reviews of my novel have been generally favourable, though I am increasingly irritated by those who insist on linking my own identity to that of my characters. How can they so fail to appreciate the imagination of the artist?

Dear Paul, The paucity of the critic in the modern age is lamentable. I am also tired of my work being subjected to that
conflationary scrutiny. It is not as if either you or I have ever written books in which the characters have been named after ourselves or are in any way autobiographical. Ah well, such is the lot of genius, I suppose. I’m also having tremendous difficulty sleeping. On a lighter note, has your new typewriter arrived?