Under the Sun (60 page)

I must stop now. We have to go to London, and have a date with Leigh Bruce,
⁷⁹⁶
who is collecting the keys of my flat for Clem and Jessie [Wood] to stay in over Christmas. Talked to H[oward H[odgkin] for the first time in ages last night, and may see him this afternoon. Things turn full circle.

Will write again from Grasse with address.

much love Bruce

E. sends hers, too, to you and E[dith]

Nice to hear news of your Knellingtons, and also of the Tizzerets. I was intending to call on the Tizzer [George Ortiz] but for reasons described above failed to do so. Now I shall go down to the library where your scroll will join its brothers.

Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 15 December 1986

 

Dearest Pam,

This is an interim p/c to thank you for your letter and to
confirm
that I am much, much better. Quite a turn, though. I was flown from Switzerland in a state of collapse; was not expected to last the night – and got a definite glimpse of the Pearly Gates. My best to your Ma. Much love, Bruce XXX

 

Chateau Seillans | Seillans | France | 19 January 1987

 

Dearest Nin,

We're hiding out in the South of France to escape one of the really awful winters on record. We read of fearsome cold in England and France. We see a bank of grey cloud over the sea. But here we bask – so far! – in a snug little microclimate that gives us temperatures in the 80's on our terrace. I feel and look much better, but there are, it seems, one or two complications, so we may have to pack up and return to Oxford. I pray not! Last week, we went to Italy to see a succession of old friends in Tuscany;
⁷⁹⁷
in Florence my legs, which are still liable to go lilac and blue in the cold, completely froze up on me. All the same, we had a lovely time.

I've been completely out of touch, having had no mail for a month. The only excitement has been Werner Herzog's production of a film of
The Viceroy of Ouidah
which he proposes to call
Cobra Verde
. We've just signed the purchase, not the option, contract – and at the moment some 600 Africans are recreating the King of Dahomey's palace in modern Ghana. Anyway, it kept me
very
amused during these rather trying months – and it would be nice to think that at the end of it I'd touch some paper money: more at least than I'm ever likely to earn writing books – and all without my having to lift a finger. Werner is doing a production of
Lohengrin
at Bayreuth on July 28th – and that is our one date for the summer.

The Australian book
The Songlines
is in proof though Cape's have not seen fit, yet, to send me a copy. I only hope it's all right. There are masses of details I'd like to have checked, but
physically
could not.

In the meantime, I've begun something new: a very fanciful tale set in the Prague of my distant memory, about a compulsive collector of Meissen porcelain – with tangents into Jewish mysticism, the Golem, the fantastical Emperor Rudolf, alchemy etc. This, again, is also keeping me amused: I feel instantly better (though tired) when writing, and depressed when not . . .

With lots of love from Elizabeth and myself Bruce

Chateau de Seillans | Seillans | France | [January 1987]

 

We've had a succession of brilliant days over Christmas, but now it's balmy and grey. Whoever was ‘the mastermind ' at Le Thoronet
⁷⁹⁸
has, in my view, to have seen the Seljuk madrassas in Anatolia on the way to the 2nd Crusade. We take little trips about twice a week. Much love B

Chateau de Seillans | Seillans | France | 8 February 1987

 

Dear Richard,

Enclosed are two sets of analysis from the laboratory in Grasse. When talking to the doctor
⁸⁰⁰
over the phone I got slightly the wrong end of the stick. What he meant to say was that, the second time round, the haemoglobin was the same but that the total picture was marginally improved.

We're going back to Italy, for a week, as from Friday. I'll call you from there.

Many thanks, all well here. As always, Bruce

Chatwin's entry to Robert Calasso's visitor's book | Milan | Italy | 20 February 1987

 

Une Histoire de la Bourgeoisie Française

In a restaurant
⁸⁰¹
we sat next to two hatchet-faced women who argued mercilessly as to whether an ‘
Alaska
' was the same as ‘
une île flotante
' or ‘
une omelette norvégienne
'. One of the husbands was fat, piglike, and wore six gold rings: the other was a reincarnation of Monsieur Homais.
⁸⁰²
He was, it turned out, also a pharmacist. He averred that there was one dish he could never tire of: ‘
un gigot d'agneau, pommes dauphinoises
.' Over coffee he said the following:

‘
Je vais vous raconter l'histoire d'un homme qui est parti pour son voyage de noces avec sa nouvelle femme, et, pendant le voyage, elle était tuée, meutriée par quelqu'un. Et lui, pour oublier ses tristes souvenirs est parti pour
. . .' and at this point one expected the words ‘Tahiti' or ‘
la Nouvelle Calédonie
' . . . but no! . . .‘
il est parti pour la Belgique où il est devenu président d'une société de fabrication du chocolat . . . de la laiterie . . . et même les produits chimiques
'

Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 15 March 1987

 

Dearest E,

. . . Could you send copies of
The Songlines
to the following.

Bill Katz 2 copies: one marked for Jasper Johns
⁸⁰³

Clarence Brown

Josef Brodsky
⁸⁰⁴

Joseph Campbell
⁸⁰⁵

James Ivory

Mrs Aristotle Onassis (I always do!)

Diane Johnson
⁸⁰⁶

John Duff
⁸⁰⁷

+ an Australian friend Pamela Bell

 

Much love, B

 

See you Labour Day.

Accra | Ghana | 23 March 1987

 

Have been swanning around in Ghana for 10 days where Werner Herzog is making my book
The Viceroy of Ouidah
into a movie. In the evenings we would go to the Ayatollah Drinks Bar – no credit given! See you soon, Bruce.

Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [April 1987]

 

My dear Bill,

Wow! I suspect – sadly for us but not for you – that we run the risk of losing the world's best magazine editor into the ranks of the world's best writers! Seriously, I found it first rate.
⁸⁰⁸
Soccer violence is something I've followed, from afar, with a certain grim fascination – but obviously I don't know anything about it at close quarters.

One thought strikes me. About 3 years ago I went to the Rugby final, Wales v France at Cardiff, on a filthy foggy day in winter. Then the mood of the crowd was almost liturgical; everyone singing the Welsh national Anthem etc. Why, therefore, should soccer violence be so different – unless, as you say, it is organised for the purpose of seeking out and damaging an enemy of the imagination? I couldn't agree with you more: that violence is not necessarily the product of adverse social conditions. It strikes me that the dominant mood of this country is a desperate need to find a substitute for the enemies it has lost cf The Falklands – and that this mood, in various manifestations, is to be found in all levels of society. There's a point at which your skinheads and members of White's Club see exactly eye to eye.

Can I take a strong personal interest in the manuscript? As I've said to you, now is not really the moment to offer advice. Just go straight ahead – it'll be fine. One minor point: there's something absolutely chilling about your first version: the Welsh station. I wonder if you shouldn't give a very detailed and graphic description – it can be half-fictionalised – where the station was, the kind of people on the platform, the look of the station-master – and then, suddenly, their announcement. I may be wrong, but I found that episode so compelling that I feel it should start the book. If you begin with a plane ride to Turin, you already know there's violence ahead. On an obscure Welsh railway station, you don't, and therefore set up a tension which'll carry you straight through the book. Another very minor comment: as it's so very tough as a concept, I think there are ways of slightly toughening up the syntax and vocabulary. I could show you what I mean when we meet: I'm going to ground in France for the next two weeks and will be back by May 1 at Homer: or if not Elizabeth will know how I'm to be reached.

With all my congratulations. Best, Bruce

PS In haste on the way to the airport.

At all costs stay dead pan.

 

Hotel Ritz | 15 Place Vendôme | Paris | France | [April 6 1987]

 

Dearest Derek,

Home again!

The comforts here are not exactly those of Athos, but . . .

Incidentally, are we going to Athos again? In the autumn?

Bruce

Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | 9 April 1987

Dearest Nin,

 

A quick note before leaving for London airport – and Nice! Elizabeth's gone to India to do one of her Himalayan treks: perhaps the last, because the man who owns the company is seriously ill in London.
⁸⁰⁹
Anyhow, it'll be good for her to get a few whiffs of mountain air – after nursing me for 9 months! It's much, much better: the only after-effect is a permanent pins-and-needles in my feet, but since it was once above the knee, that, too, seems to be going.

How lovely to think you'll be here again soon. My plans are to go to France till around May 1st, come back for 10 days, or so, and then skip away again. I've been lent, for a year or more, that little chateau in the village once lived in by Max Ernst. It's super comfortable; and though over-built up for my taste the country to the back is magnificent and unspoiled. One thing is certain, I
must
be out of England when the book comes out in June. I hate all the publishing hoo-haa and, as I've discovered to my cost, you can't give one interview without opening the floodgates. I can't wait to get back to the south.

The book, for all the apparent obscurity of its subject, does seem to be making a bit of a stir. Bob H[ughes], to whom I talked last night, is very keen: but I suspect I'll have trodden on one or two corns.

All of which adds up to the fact that we probably won't be in England from mid June to mid July: but will be at Seillans. So somehow we'll manage to meet. There are lots of rooms in the chateau and it's 40 minutes from Nice airport. Otherwise we could come to Italy where we have masses of friends.

In haste, much love Bruce

PS We've been having the most horrendous gale, trees knocked side ways. Really, this is a very uncomfortable country.

as from Homer End | Ipsden | Oxford | [May 1987]

 

Dear Murray,

In fact, I'm writing this from the South of France, where, when I was ill in the winter, I was lent, very chivalrously, a chateau: not a very large chateau, but a chateau nonetheless. The weather is hideously hot. We came here from Paris, utterly drained: not least by the Musée d'Orsay, which in its lapidary stupidity, must be one of the nastiest museums in the world. I suggest that the only time to go there is winter, in a wheelchair, with a wide-brimmed panama to shield one's attention from the fantastical architectural hoo-haa up above. I also – for what reason I'm hard to explain – bought myself a first edition of
Madame Bovary
: a talisman? a livre de chevet? God knows! From here, we intend to go, of all things, to the Bayreuth Festival where my pal, Werner Herzog, is doing a production of Lohengrin: his work on cutting my film ie
The Viceroy of Ouidah
(retitled Cobra Verde) will begin in August. From Bayreuth we are going to Prague: I need to do a spot of research. Then, in September, I'm supposed to be going to America, but thinking hard how I can get out of it. Then . . . ? Madrid? Perhaps! Whenever I've been in Madrid I've been penniless and the series of doss-houses I've occupied, usually in the vicinity of the station, would not do for Maisie Drysdale. There is always the Ritz, right next to the Prado, which as value for money, is said to be the best hotel in Europe. But what kind of money? yes. Thank you for the tip that [Thomas] Bernhard's
Gathering Evidence
is out at Knopf. You should just see the savaging he gets at the hand of English reviewers, blind and completely barmey. The review of
Concrete
by some arse was enough to bring one to the passport-burning stage. But then England, unlike Ireland, Scotland or Wales, is an utterly barbarian country. I thought that Bernhard's
Wittgenstein's Nephew
was marvellous, especially his account of getting the Grillparzer Prize and his insight – very close to home! – that one's dear, dear friends are appalled when, instead of dying, one re-emerges relatively fit.