Bruce Chatwin - Anatomy of Restlessness - Selected Writings 1969-1989 (1996)

 

A N A T O M Y 

OF

RESTLESSNESS

 

by the same author IN PATAGONIA THE VICEROY OF O UI DA H ON THE BLACK HI HILL LL THE SONGLINES UTZ

WHA T AM I DOI NG HE HERE RE PHOTOGRAPHS AND NOTEBOOKS

 

A N A T O M Y  O F RESTLESSNESS Selec Sel ectt ed W ri riti tings ngs 196 9-198 9

B R U C E  C H A T W I N Edited by Jan Borm and M att atthew hew Graves

f Vi

king

 

VIKING

Published by the Pen guin

G rou p

P e n g u i n B o o k s U S A I n c . , 3 7 5 H u d s o n S t r ee ee t , N e w Y o r k , N e w Y o r k 1 0 0 1 4 , U . S . A . Penguin Boo ks Ltd, 27 W rights Lane, Lo nd on W 8 5T Z , E ngland P e n g u i n B o o k s A u s t r a li l i a L t d , R i n g w o o d , V i c t o r i a , A u s t r a llii a Penguin B ooks C anada L td, 10 A lcorn Avenue, Toronto, On tario, Cana da M 4V 3B 2 P e n g u i n B o o k s ( N . Z . ) L t dd,, 1 8 2 - 1 9 0 W a i r a u R o a d , A u c k l a n d 10 10 , N e w

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DA AT TA

Ch atwin , Bruce, 1940 -198 9. A n a t o m y o f r es e s tl t l eess s ne ne s s : s e l e c t e d w r i t i n g s , 1 9 6 9 - 1 9 8 9 / B r u c e C h a t w i n / p . 

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Inclu des bibliog raphic al references. ISBN

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1996 96-3003

T h i s b o o k i s p r i n t e d o n a c i d - f re re e p a p e r .

8

P r i n t e d in i n t h e U n i t e d S t a te te s o f A m e r i c a Set in Be m bo W i t h o u t l i m i t i n g t h e rrii g h t s u n d e r c o p y r i g h t r e s e r v e d a b o v e , n o p a r t o f t h is is p u b l i  cation m ay be rep rod uc ed , stored in or int ro du ce d in to a retrieval system , or trans  mitte d, in any form or by any me ans (electronic, me cha nical, p ho toc op yin g, record ing or othe rwise ), w ith ou t the prior w ritte n permiss ion of bo th the cop y right owner and the above publisher of this book.

 

CONTENTS Editors'   Foreword 

vii

I ' H O R R E U R D U DOMICILE ' I  A l w a ys y s  Want Wa nt ed to G o to Patagonia

3

A   Place Place to Han g Y o u r Hat

15

A   To we r in Tuscany

22 27

Gon e to Tim bu ct oo

II STORIES Milk 

35

T h e Attractions o f France France

46

T h e  Estate  o f  Maximili an T o d

54

Bedouins

70

III ' T H E N O M A D I C  A L T E R N A T I V E ' Letter to T o m Maschler Maschle r Th e Noma di c Alternative It's a nomad  nomad  wo rl d

75 85 100 100

I V  R E V I E W S

A b e l   the No ma d

109 10 9

The Anarchists  o f  Patagonia

11 5

T h e R o a d to the Is Isle less

129

Variations Vari ations on an Idee Fix e

140

 

V   A R T A N D T H E  I M A G E - B R E A K E R Amo ng th the e Ruins

15

The Morality  o f  Thi ngs

170

1

Notes 

187

Bibliography  

193

Acknowledgements  

205

 

E D I T O R S '  F O R E W O R D

It is commonly supposed  that  Bruce Chatwin was an ingenuous latecomer latec omer to the profession profession o f letters, letters, a misapprehension gi ve n credence by that  now -f am ou s pass passage age in his lyrical autoportrait 'I

A l w a y s   Wanted to Go to Patagonia' where we are told  that  this indefatigable traveller's traveller' s literary career bega be gan n in midstride, almost on a whim, with a telegram announcing his  departure  for the farthest flung corner  o f  the globe: 'Have Gone to Patagonia'. Such  a  view  overlooks the fact  that,  from the late 1960s Such  onwards , C ha tw i n was already fashioning the tools o f his his future future

trade  in the columns  o f periodicals as diverse as the  Sunday  Times magazine,  Vogue,  History  Today,  and  The New  York  Review  of

Books,   and that he continued to do so through every twist and turn art expert expe rt to archaeologis archaeo logist, t, to journ alis t and o f   his career, from art

author,  right up until his death in 1989. The se previously negle cted or unpublished Ch at wi n pieces  — short stories, travel sketches, essays, articles and criticism — drawn from the pages of rev iews , catalogues, liter literary ary journals

and

magazines, and gathered together here for the first time, cover iod d and aspect o f the writ writer' er'ss career, and reflect the every  per io abid ing themes theme s o f his wo r k : roots and rootlessness, rootlessness, exil e and the possession and renunciati renunc iation. on. exotic,  possession The present volume is a selection  o f  the best from a wealth of such 'incidental writing' and is designed to provide a reader's

vii

 

Editors'   Foreword

companion to Bruce Cha twi n, a 'sour cebook '  o f material offering of fering invaluable insight into the author's  life  and work. W i t h  this objective in mind,  rather than  obey the dictates of chronology,  the editors have relied on the inner  logic  of these texts to guide them in the order   o f their presentation. Indeed, Inde ed, it is

intriguing to see a common  thread  emerge from such diverse material: a recurring  pattern  of thou ght and theme

dra wing win g

together texts published some twenty years  apart.  Alongside his more familiar narrative  gifts,  they show Chatwin to have been a passionate and outspoken reviewer, discerning critic, and auda cious essayist, possessed  o f a restle restless, ss, inquiri inqu iri ng mind. mind . T h e  selected texts have accordingly been grouped by theme

and presented in  five  over o ver lapping lapp ing sections. T h e firs first, t, entitled 'Horreur du  Domicile', opens an autobiographical perspective on to some of the ' writer's chambers', chamb ers', reflecting at onc e Chat Ch at wi n' s keen  sense  o f place  and his passion for things remote and exotic. T h e  second section, 'Stories', offers the reader a fresh glimpse of Chatwin  as a compulsive storyteller, forever treading a thin  line between  fact and fiction. The  third  section, 'The Nomadic Alternative',  returns  to a ke y theme o f Cha twi n' s w o r k via a synopsis  o f his fi firs rst, t, 'unpublis hable' b oo k on nomads, in w h i c h the

author expounds expou nds his distinctive distinctive vision of History as an ongo on go in g cultural dialectic between civilisation and its natural  'alternatives': nomad and settler, city and wilderness, society and tribe. The fourth section,  'Reviews',  invites the reader to rediscover Bruce Chatwin  in the unfamiliar guise  o f a literary critic, in his role as a

forthright, polemical reviewer, and in the fifth and final section, 'Art  and the Image-Brea Image- Brea ker ', the aut hor -to-be -to -be

anticip anticipate atess a

recurrent theme o f the novels w h e n he explores the paradoxical

nature  of o f artisti artistic c creati cr eation; on; its its capacity capacit y to liberate and emancipa eman cipate te vying  with an antagonistic and insidious tendency to obsess and

enslave.

In

the

same

autobiographical viu

essay

which

described

the

 

Editors' Foreword Patagonian cradling o f his literary vocation, C ha tw in revealed revealed that his original, extravagant, but ultimately  frustrated  ambition had been to write 'a kind of "Anatomy of Resdessness"  that  would enlarge on Pascal's dictum about the man sitting quiedy in a ro om '. W h e n it came to de cidi ng on a tide for for the the present volu me,

this  memorable  phrase  seemed a fitting choice for a selection of texts  that  so admirably expresses Bruce Chatwin's enduring fascination with restlessness.

Jan Borm   and  Matthew

Graves

Paris,   June

ix

igg6

 

I

' H O R R E U R  D U DOM ICILE'

 

I A L WA W A Y S W A N T E D  T O G O   T O P A T A G O N IIA A T h e   Making  o f  a  Writer

Bruce is a dog dog's 's name in Engl England and (not so in Australia) and was als also o

the  surname  o f our Scotti Scottish sh cou cousin sins. s. Th e et ymolo gy of ' Ch at wi n' is obscure, but m y bassoon-playing Unc le R Ro o b i n main maintained tained  that 'chette-wynde' meant 'winding path'  in  A n g l o --S S a x o n .  Our side

o f  the famil family y tra traces ces its its descent from a Birmi Bi rmi ngh am but buttonton- mak maker, er, yet  there  is a dynasty of Mormon Chatwins in a remote  part  o f

Utah, and recently I heard of a Mr and Mrs Chatwin, trapeze artists.

B y   the time my mother married into them, the Chatwins were 'Birmingham

worthies',  that  is to say, professional people,

architects and lawyers, who did not go in for  trade.  There were, however,  scattered amo a mong ng my forebea forebears rs and relatives a nu numbe mberr o f

legendary figures whose histories inflamed my imagination: 1 A nebulous French ancestor, M. de la Tournelle, supposed to have been mixed up in the affair  o f the Queen's  N e c k l a c e .

2   Great-great-grandfather

Mathi eso eson, n, wh o , at the age o f

sev ent enty-o y-one, ne, w wo o n the tossi tossing ng of the caber at the Hig Highla hland nd Games  and died promptly  o f  a stroke.

3 Great-grandfather Milward  —  a man obsessed by money, Germany and music. He was a friend of Gounod and

3

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

Adelina  Patti. He also handled the affairs  o f  the th e  ninth  Duke

o f   Marlborough and came to New  Y o r k  to negotiate the marriage agreement between Consuelo Vanderbilt and the Duke,  w h o later later sacked hi m fo forr 'gros 'grosss in co mpe te nce.' nc e.' O n e afternoon, while rummaging through an old tin  trunk,  I

found fou nd his cou rt suit suit and marcasite-handl marcasite- handled ed swo rd rd.. Dress ed as a courtier, sword in hand, I dashed into the drawing room shouting, shout ing, ' Lo o k wh at I'v e found found ' - and was told to 'take those things things off at onc e ' Po or Great-grandpapa

His na name me

was  taboo. Convicted for fraud in 1902, he was allowed out

o f   prison to die. 4 Co us in

Cha rle y Mi lw ard

the

Sailor, Sailor, who se

ship ship

wa wass

wrecked at the entrance to the Strait  o f  Magellan Magell an in 1898. I have written his story in  In  Patagonia.  While British Consul in Punta Arenas de Ch il e, he sent sent ho me to my grand mother a fragment  o f g  giant iant sloth's sloth's skin wh ic h he had found, perfectly preserved, in a cave. I called it 'the piece piec e ofbron tosau rus' and set it at the centre  o f  my childhood bestiary. 5 Un cl e Geoffrey. Arabist Arabist and desert desert traveller traveller w h o , lik e T . E. Lawrence,  was giv en a go ld en headdress headdress (since (since sold) sold) by the

Emir Feisal. Died poor in Cairo. 6 Un cl e Bick erto n. Pick miner and bigamis bigamist. t. 7 Un cl e Hump hre y. Sad end in  Africa. M y  earliest recollections date from 1942 and are  o f  the sea. I was

years old. W e wer e staying staying wi th t w o  years

my

grandmot her

in

furnished room ro omss on the seafront at Filey Fil ey in Yorkshire.  In the house next d oo r live d the Free French , and the me n o f the Scottish regime nt we re stationed in dugouts acro across ss the street street.. I wat ch ed the ships as as they th ey passed passed to and fro fro al ong on g the ho rizo ri zon. n. convoys  o f  grey ships t he sea, I was told, tol d, lay Germ Ge rman an y. M y father father was away awa y at at Beyond  the sea, fighting the Germans. I would wave at the ships as they vanished behind Flamborough Head, a long wall o f  cliffs  that,  i f a 4

 

I  Always  Wanted tto o Go to  Patagonia footnote footn ote in the Edit io ion n Pleiade is is correct, corre ct, was the starting poi nt for Rimbau d's prose prose po em 'Promonto ire'.

A t   dusk my grandmother would draw the blackout material across the window, brood over a brown Bakelite radio and listen to th the e B B C News.  O n e eveni ng, a bass vo ic e announc ed, ' W e have w o n a great great vic tor y.' T o celebrate the Battle Battle  o f Alamein  m y mother and grandmother danced the Highland fling  around  the ro om - and I danced wi th my grandmother's stockings. stockings . M y  grandmother was an Aberdonian, but her nose, her jaw,

her burnishe burn ished d skin and jang ja ngly ly gold go ld earrings earrings all all gave her the appearance o f a gypsy gyp sy fortune-tell fortun e-teller. er.

She was, I should sho uld add,

obsessed by gypsies. She was a fearless gambler who, for want of other income, made a tidy living on the horses. She used to say

that Catholics were heathens, and she had a sharp turn  turn   o f  phrase. O n e  rainy day in 1944 w e were sheltering in a pho ne b oo th w h e n an ugly old woman pressed her nose to the pane. 'That woman', sa said id my grandmoth grand mother, er, 'has the face face o f a bull's beh ind wi th no tail tail to hide it.' H e r  husband, Sa m Tur nel l, was a sad-e yed solita solitary ry wh os e onl y reall accompl ishme nt was an impeccable tap rea tap danc e. After the Bat de

o f   Britain he found employment as a salesman of memorial staine sta ined-g d-glas lassed sed wi nd ow s. I worsh ipped h im. T owa rds the end o f the war, when we had  rented,  temporarily, a disused shop in Derbyshire,  I acquired from him a love of long walks over the

moors. Because  we had  neither  home nor money, my mother and I

drifted up and down England staying with relations and friends. H o me , for me , was a serviceman serv iceman's 's canteen cant een or a station station platform piled  with kit bags. Once, we visited my father on his mine sweeper  in  Cardiff  Harbour.  He carried me up to the crow's nest

and let me  y e l l  down the intercom to the ward-room. Perhaps, during those heady  months  before the Normandy landings, I 5

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

caug ht a case case  o f what Baud elaire calls calls 'La Grande Mal adie: horreur du domicile.' Certainly, when we moved into the grim-gabled house  o f our o w n in Birmingh am, I gre w sick and thin and people wondered if  I  was go in g to be tubercula tubercular. r. On e morni ng, w he n I had measles, my mother rushed upstairs with the newspaper and said, jubilandy,  that Japan  had surrendered and my father father w o u l d be coming home. I glanced at the photo  o f  the mushroom cloud and knew something dreadful had happened. The curtains  o f  m y bedr oom wer e wov en with tongues tongues  o f  orange flame. That night, and for years to come, I dreamed  o f walking  over a charred black landscape with my hair on fire. I lost teddy bears without a whimper, yet clung tenaciously to preci ous possessions: possessions: a w o o d e n camel came l k n o w n as Laura, J three  precious brought by my father from the Cairo bazaar; a West Indian conch shell she ll called Mo na , in wh os e glorious pink m ou th I cou ld hear the wish-wash of the ocean; and a book. The book was  The

Fisherman's  Saint,  an account o f Sir Wilf red Grenfell's Grenfell 's mission work on the coast  o f  Labrador. I still have it. On the tide page is written: 'To Bruce on his 3rd Birthday from the postman at Filey. For wh e n he grows up. ' I imag ined ine d the b o o k must must contain some wonderful secret (which it did not), and it maddened me to have to wait all those years. The usual run of children's books left me cold,  and at the age  of six  I decided to write a book  o f  my own. I

managed the first line, 'I am a swallow.' Then I looked up and asked, 'How do you spell telephone wires?' staying in Stratfo rd-on -Avon wi th my greatM y   first j o b , whi le staying

 Janie and Gracie, Gra cie, in  1944, wa  wass to be the self-appointed guid e aunts Janie aunts to Shakespeare's Shakespeare's mo nu me nt and to mb in the church. T h e price

 's . N o t that I w a s   threepence a g o .  Most  o f my customers were G . I. 's. knew who Shakespeare was, except  that  he was somehow associated with the red brick theatre from whose balcony I would 6

 

/  Always  Wanted to Go to  Patagonia

chuck  old crus crusts ts to the swans. Y e t , lo ng before I cou ld read, read, A u nt Gracie  had taught me to recite the lines engraved on the tombslab:

Bleste be   ye man yt  spares thes stones A n d   curst be he yt moves my  bones. T h e  aunts  were spinsters. Janie,  the elder and wittier, was an

sketches artist. As a yo u ng wo ma n she'd liv ed on Capri and drawn sketches

o f   naked boys . She remembered seeing Ma xi m Go rk i, possibl possibly y even Len in; in ; and in Paris Paris she'd bee b ee n to a party in the studio  o f Kees V an   Dongen, the Dutch painter. During the Great War she

worked,  I believe, as a nurse. Perhaps the deaths of so many

beautiful youths moved her to paint the canvases of St Sebastian that  lay in racks around arou nd her st udio. udi o. She S he was a tireless tireless reader o f modern fiction. Later, she would tell me  that  American writers wrote better, cleaner English  than  the English themselves. One day she looked up from her book and said, 'What a wonderful word  "arse" "ars e" is ' - and for the firs firstt time I heard the name na me Ernest Ernes t Hemingway. Aunt  Gracie was very emotional and very deaf. Her great

friend (and (and my passio passion n ) was the Irish writer writ er Eleanor Elea nor Doo Do o r l y , through whom she met members of the Dublin  Circle.  Her approach to literature literature was entirely romantic. O n summer days days w e used to sit and read by the  A v o n .  Across the stream was a bank called  Wire Brake, which, so she swore, was Shakespeare's bank

whe re on the wi ld thyme bl ew - tho ugh I found only nettle nettless and brambles. bram bles. W e read read Whi tma n's 'S on g o f M y s e l f  from an anthology

o f   poetry called  The  Open  Road.  We read 'The Windhover' of Gerard Manley Hopkins, and we read from Eleanor  Doorly's boo k on Marie Curie. The story of Curie's self-inflicted radium  burns affected  me greatly. I al also so wo nd er if Au nt Graci G racie e was the last last Victorian  to  threaten  a child with the spectre of Bonaparte. 7

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

O n e  evening, when I'd misbehaved in the bath, she cried, 'Stop

that, or Bo ne y w i l l ge t you ' - and then dre w on a pie ce  o f paper a dreadful drea dful black blac k bi corn co rn hat on legs. So  Somet met ime later, later, in a nightmare, night mare, I met the hat outside Hall's Croft, the home of Shakespeare's daughter, and it opened open ed like li ke a furry furry clamshell and sw al lo we d me . I remember, too , the aunts aunts hav ing a lively discussi  discussion on as as to wh et he r

Measure   fo r  Measure  was suitable Measure suitable entertainment for a si six-y x-y ear -ol d. They  decided no harm could come  o f  it - and from  that  matinee

on I was hooked. The Stratford   theatre kept the back ro w  o f stalls unreserved until the day o f the performance, and I wo u l d  c y c l e through the dawn to make sure  o f ge  getti tting ng a seat seat.. I saw most  o f  the great product prod uction ionss o f the late 40s 40s and 50 50s - wi th the Olivier Oliv ier s, Gielgud,  Pe gg y Ashcroft, Ashcroft, and and Paul Rob es on as as Oth el lo - and and these constitute for me the Shakespeare   o f  all time. Ha vin g lived

the plays as a boy, I can now scarcely sit through one without a sensation  o f  loss.

B y   1949 the hard times we re over , and one e ve ni ng m y father father proudly drove home from work in a new car. Next day he took m y  brother brothe r and me for for a spin. O n the edge e dge  o f  an escarpment he

stopped, pointed to a range  o f grey hills in the west and then said, 'Let's  go on into Wa le s. ' W e slept the night nigh t in the car, in

Radnorshire, to the sound  o f a mounta mou nta in stream. stream. A t sunrise sunrise there was a hea vy de w, and the sheep we re all around aro und us. I suppose the result  o f this trip i  iss the nov n ov el I've I'v e recen dy published,  On the  Black

Hill. A t  b oard oarding ing s chool choo l I was an an addict  o f ada  adases ses and was always be in g ostracised for telling tall stories. Every boy had to be a 'kttle Conservative',  though I never understood  —  then as now  —  the

motivations  o f the English cl class system. system. N o r wh w h y , on G u y Fawk es D a y  o f  1949,  the masters encouraged us to burn on a bonfire an

8

 

I  Always  Wanted  to Go to  Patagonia effigy   o f  the Labour Prime Minister, Clement Attlee. I was sad for M r Atlee, and never, even in my capitalist phase, was I able to vote Conservative. The Chatwins, coming as they did from the  heart  of England, were we re

fanatic fanatical al

sailors sailors.. T h e

names

o f their

boats

we re

the

Aireymouse,  the  Dozmaree,  the  Greebe,  the th e  Nereid  and, finally, the Be rmu di dian an sl oop built buil t in the 30s 30s to sa sail il aroun d Sunquest,  an 18 -to n Bermu the wo rl d. W e o nl y sailed as far as Brittany, Brittan y, and a nd o nc e to Spain. Spai n. I hated the actual sailing, for I was always horrib hor ribly ly seasick seasick — a  and nd y et I persevered. After reading an account  o f  the effect  o f  the H- bo mb on Britain, Britai n, m y 'lif ' life-pl e-plan' an' was to sail sail away awa y to a South Sout h Sea island and never come back. The first grown-up book I read from cover to cover was Captain

Joshua  Slocum's  Sailing Alone  around  the  World.  This was followed b y  John  C. Voss's  The  Venturesome

Voyages  of  Captain  Voss,  b y

Melville's  Omoo  and  Typee,  then Rich ar d Henr y Dana and and Jack

London. Perhaps from these writers I got a taste fo  forr Ya n k e e plain style? I never liked Jules Ve rn e, belie vin g that  the real was always

more fantastic  than  the fantastical. O n e summer w h e n I was thirteen I we nt alone to Sw ed en to talk English to a boy of my age whose family lived in a lovely eighte enth-cen tury house by a lake. T h e bo y and and I had nothi ng in co mmo n. Bu t his his Un cl e Percival was a delightf delightful ul ol d gentleman, always  dressed in a white smock and sun hat, with whom I would walk  through the birch forest gathering mushrooms or row to an

island to see the nesting ospreys. He lived in a log cabin lit by crystal cryst al chandeliers. chande liers. H e had travelled in Czarist Russia. Russi a. He made me read Chekhov in Constance Garnett's translation, also  D u f f Coope r's biography biography  o f  Talleyrand.

9

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

T h e great English novelists novelists we re left left unread, but w er e heard, heard, v ery much heard -  Oliver  Twist,  Wuthering Heights,  Pride  and Prejudice  on gramophone records, in plummy English voices, as I lay in the Birmingham eye hospital with partial paralysis  o f the optic nerve — a psychosomatic condition probably brought on by Marlborough consi dered to be a di mwi t and dreamer. I C o l l e g e ,  wh er e I was considered tried to learn Latin and Greek and was bottom of every class. There was, however, an excellent school library, and I seem in retrospect to have come away quite  well read  read.. I lo ve d everythi ng French  — painting, furniture furniture,,

poetry , history, fo od  — and, o f

course, I was haunted by the career of Paul Gau gu in . For my seventeenth birthday the owner  o f the town bookshop gave me a copy  of Edith Sitwell's anthology,  Planet  and  Glow-worm, 

a

collection  o f texts for insomniacs, insomn iacs, to wh i c h I can trace trace a nu mber mb er o f literary fixtures  —  Baudelaire, Nerval and Rimbaud, Li Po and other

Chinese

'wanderers',

Blake

and

Mad

Kit

Smart,

the

encapsulated biographies  o f John  Aubre y and the sevent eenthcentury prose music  o f Jeremy Tay lo r and Sir Sir Tho mas Br ow ne . For a time I went along with the suggestion  that  I  follow  the family  tradition and  train  as an architect; but, because I was

innumerate, innumera te, my chances of passing passing the exams we re remo te. M y

parents gently squashed my ambition to go on the stage. Finally, in December 1958, since my talents were so obviously 'visual', I

started  work as a porter at Messrs Sotheby and Co., Fine Art Auctioneers,  o f Bond  Bond   Street, at wages  o f  £ 6  a we ek . I learned about Chinese ceramics and African sculpture. I aired my

scanty scanty

kno wl ed ge

o f the

Fre nch

Impres Impressioni sionists, sts,

and

I

prospered. Before long, I was an  instant  expert,  flying  here and

there  to pronounce, with unbelieveable arrogance, on the value or authenticity o f wo rk s o f art. art. I particularly particularly en joy ed telling people  that  their paintings wer e fake. fake. W e sold the col lecti lec tion on o f Somerset Maugham, who, at dinner at the Dorchester Hotel, told

10

 

I  Always  Always   Wanted to Go to  Patagonia a story abou t a temple bo y, himself and a baby elephant. O n Park Avenue,  a woman slammed the door in my  face,  shouting, 'I'm

not showing my Renoir to a sixteen-year-old kid.' The high points  o f  my fine  arts  career were: fruitt machines 1   A conversation wit h And re Bre ton about the frui in Reno. 2  Th e discovery discovery o f a wonder ful Tahiti Ga ugu in in a crumblin g

Scottish castle. 3 A n afternoon afternoon wi th Georg es Braque, wh o , in a whi te leather leather t we ed cap and a lilac lilac chiffon scar scarf, f, allo al lo wed we d me me jacket, a wh it e twe jacket, a to sit in his studio while he painted a  flying  bird. In the sum s ummer mer holida hol idays ys I travell trav elled ed east, east, as as fa farr as as Afghanis Afgha nistan tan,, and wo nd er ed i f I was capable capable o f writi wri ting ng an arti article cle on

Islam Islamic ic

architecture. But something was wrong. I began to feel  that things, h o we v e r beautiful, can al also so be malig malig n. T h e atmosphere o f the Art Wo rl d reminded me o f the morgu e. ' Al l those  lovely things passing through your hands,' they'd say — and I'd l oo k at my

hands  and  think  o f Lady  Macbeth. Or people would compliment me on my  'eye,'  and my  eyes,  in rebellion, gave out. After a halfblind. Th e strenuous bout  o f N  Ne e w  Y o r k ,  I wo k e one morn ing halfblind. eye ey e  specialist said  there  was nothing wrong organically. Perhaps

I'd be en l oo k i ng too clo sely at pictures? pictures? Perhaps Perhaps I should try some long horizons?  Africa,  perhaps? perhaps? T h e chairman o f Soth eby' s sai said, d, 'I'm  sure  there  is something wrong with Bruce's eyes but I can't

think  why he has to go to  Africa.' I we nt to the Sudan. O n camel and foot I trek ked thro t hro ugh the R e d Sea hills hills and found some unr ecor ded cave paintings. paintings. M y nom ad guide was a hadend oa, one o f Kipling's  'fuzzy-wuzzies'. He carried a sword, a purse  and a pot  o f  scented goat's grease for II

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

anointing his hair. He made me  feel  overburdened and inad equate; and by the time I returned to Engl and a m o o d o f fierce iconoclasm  had set in. N o t  that  I turned turn ed int o a picture pictu re slasher slasher.. B u t I did understand understan d w h y the Prophets banned the worshi p  o f images. I quit my jo b  and

enrolled enro lled as a firstfirst-ye year ar student

o f ar archa cha eol ogy at Edi nb ur gh

University.

success. I M y  studies in  that  gr im northern city we re not a success. enjoyed  a year o f Sanskrit. Sanskrit. By contrast contrast,, archaeol arch aeol ogy seemed a

dismal discipline disciplin e - a story o f technica tech nicall glories inter rupted rupte d b y catastrophe, whereas the great figures  o f histor  history y wer e invisible.  In the Ca ir o Mu s eu m y o u coul d find find sta statu tues es of pharaohs by the million.  But where was the face of Moses. One day, while excavating a Bronze-Age burial, I was about to brush the earth off a skeleton, and the old line came back to haunt me:

A n d   curst be he yt moves my  bones. Forr  the second time I quit. Fo Gradually  the idea for a book began to take shape. It was to be a

and intolerant intolerant w or k , a kin d o f 'A na to my of wildly  ambitious and Restlessness' that wo u l d enlarge on Pascal Pascal's 's dic tum abou t the man

sitting quietly in a room. 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 oudets in violence, greed, status-seeking or a mania for the new. This would explain greed, status-seeking w h y  mobile societies such as the gypsies were egalitarian, thing-

d resist resistant ant to change; chan ge; al also so w h y , to re-establish the harmo ha rmo ny free and free an

o f   the First State, State, all the great teachers teachers - Budd Bu dd ha , Lao- tse , St 12

 

I   Always Wanted to Go to  Patagonia Franc Fr ancis is - had set the perpetual perpe tual pilg rimage rima ge at at the  heart  of their message and told their disciples, literally, to  follow  The Way. The book grew and grew; and as it grew it became less and less intelligible to t o its author. It even contained a diatribe against the act

o f  writing itself. Finally, when the manuscript was typed, it was so obviously  unpublishable  that,  for the  third  time, I gave up.

Penniless, depressed, a total failur failure e at the age of thirty thi rty-thr -thr ee, I had ha d a ph on e call call from Francis Francis Wy n d h a m o f the  Sunday 

Times

magazine, magaz ine, a man o f outstanding litera literary ry jud gem en t, w h o m I hardly har dly k ne w. W o u l d I, he asked, like a small small j o b as an adviser adviser on the arts?  ' Y e s , '  I said. W e  soon forgot about the arts, and under Francis's guidance I

took on every kind of article. I wrote about Algerian migrant workers, the couturier Madeleine Vionnet and the Great Wall of China. I interviewed Andre Malraux on what General de Gaulle thought  o f Engla  England; nd; and in Mo sc o w I visite visited d Nadezhda Nadezhda Man de lstam. She lay on her bed, a cigarette stuck to her lower Hp, gritting a song of triumph be twe en her blackene d teeth. teeth. He r wo rk was done. She had published, abroad it was true, but her words wo ul d one day come home. She looked at the thrillers I'd been told to take her and sneered:  'Romans  policiers Next time, bring me some real  trash '  Bu t wh e n she saw the pots of orange marmalade, her mouth cracked into a smile: 'Marmalade, my dear, it is my childhood ' Each time I came back with a story, Francis Wyndham encouraged, criticised, edited and managed to convince me  that  I should, after all, try my hand at another book. His greatest gift was permission to continue. O n e afternoon aft ernoon in the early 70s, 70s, in Paris, Paris, I we nt to see the t he architect and designer desi gner Eil een Gray , w h o at the age  o f  ninety-three thought nothing  o f a fourte en-hour wo rk in g day. day. She She liv ed in the

13

 

'Horreur   du  Domicile' rue Bonaparte, and in her salon hung a map  o f Patagonia, which she had painted in gouache. 'I've  always want wa nted ed to t o go ther e,' I said. said. 'So have I,' I, ' she added. add ed. ' G o  there for me. ' I went . I cabled the  Sunday  Times:  'Have Gone to Patagonia'. In my rucksack I took Mandelstam's  Journey  to

Armenia   and and Hemi ngwa y's  In Our  Time.  Six months month s later I came back  with the bones of a book  that,  this time, did get published. While stringin  stringing g it itss sentences toge ther, ther , I though tho ugh t that te  tellin lling g stories stories was   the o nly conc eivab le occupatio occu pation n for a superfluou superfluouss person

such as myself. I am older and a bit stiffer, and I am thinking of settling down. Eileen Gray's map now hangs in my   apartment. B u t  the future is tentative.

1983

14

 

A  P  PL L A C E  T O HANG Y O U R  HAT

Sometime in  1944, my mother moth er and I we nt by train to see m y father aboard his ship, the  Cynthia,  a U S minesw eeper wh ic h had been lent to the British and had docked in  Cardiff  Harbour for a refit. He was the captain. I was four years old. O n ce  aboard, I stood in the crow's nest, yelled down the

intercom, inspected the engines, ate plum pie in the ward-room; butt the place I liked bu lik ed most mos t was wa s my father's cabi n — a calm, functional space painted a calm pale grey; the bunk bu nk was cover cov er ed in black  oilcloth and, on a shelf,  there was a photograph  o f  me. Afterwards,  when he went back to sea, I liked to picture my

father in the calm grey cabin, gazing at the waves from   under  the black-patent peak of his cap. And ever since, the rooms which have really appealed to my imagination have been ships' cabins, l og   cabins cabins,, monks '  cells, or - although althou gh I have never bee n to Japan tea-house.

—  the

N o t  long ago, after years  o f being  foot-loose, I decided it was

time, not to sink roots, but at least to establish a house. I weighed the pros and cons of a whitewashed box on a Greek island, a crofter's cottage, a  Left  Bank garconniere,  and other conventional alternatives. In the end, en d, I conc co nclu lude ded, d, the base base mig ht jus t as as well  be London.  Home, after all, is where your friends are. I  consulted an American  —  a veteran journalist, who, for  fifty years,  has treated the world as her back yard.

15

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

' D o  you really like London?' I asked.

'I don't,'  she said, said, in a gruffand gruff and cigaretty cigarett y voice, 'but London's as good  as as any place to hang yo u r hat.'

Th at settled it. I we n t flat-hu flat-huntin nting g - on m y  bicycle.  I had but single r oom) five  requirements: my ro o m (I was lo ok in g for a single must be sunny, quiet, anonymous, cheap and, most essentially, with in wal ki ng distan distance ce o f the Lon do n Library Library — wh ic h, in London, is the centre  o f  my  life.

A t   house agents, I talked to fresh-faced young men who might have had carnations in  their  buttonholes. They smiled politely when they  heard  my requirements, and they smiled contempt uously when they  heard  how much I had to spend. 'The bed

sitter',  they said, 'has vanished from  this area  o f  London.' Be gi nn in g my search Begi search to the west, west , I visited a succession  o f  studio conversions, each more lowering  than  the last, all outrageously priced.

I had

visions visions o f be in g grou nd

d o wn

by

mortgage mortga ge

payments, or by yakking children on the next floor landing. explaine d to a friend friend o f solid Socialist Socialist con victio vic tio ns my Finally,  I explained Finally,  reasons (which seemed to her perverse) for wanting an  attic  in Belgravia.

I wanted, I said, to live in one  o f those canyons  o f white stucco which  bel on g to the Du k e o f Westmins ter and have a fain faintt

flavour  o f the geriatric geriatric war d; wh er e English is n o w a lost language; wh er e, in the summer months , me n in lo ng wh it e robes walk  the pavements; and where the rooftops bristle with radio

antennas  to keep the residents in touch with developments in Kuwait  or Bahrain.

It was Sunday. M y friend friend gl anced do wn the proper ty column s besi de an entry, and o f   the  Sunday  Times;  her fingers came to  rest  beside she said, said, ironically ironi cally,, 'Th at is yo u r fl flat. at.'' T h e price was right; the address address was right; right; the advertise adver tisement ment said 'quiet' and 'sunny'; but when, on Monday, we went to  view it, we were shown a room  o f  irredeemable seediness.

16

 

A  Place  to Hang Your  Hat

Th er e was a bei ge fitted fitted carpet po ck ed wi th  coffee  stains. There

w a s   a bathroom  o f  black and bilious-green tiles; and  there was a contraption in a cupboard, which was the double bed. The house,

w e   were told, was one  o f t w o  in the  street that  di did d  not belong to the Duke  o f  Westminster.

' W e l l , '  my friend shrugged. 'It's the kind of flat a spy would have.'

It did, how ev er , fa face ce south. T h e  ceiling was high. hig h. It had a vi ew

o f   whit wh it e chimney s. Th er e was an Egypt ian sheikh on the gr oun d floor; flo or; and outside outs ide an old black blac k man in a djellabah was sun s unni ning ng himself. 'Perhaps he's a slave?' said my companion. 'Perhaps,' I said.  'Anyway,  things are looking up.'

T h e   o w n er agreed to my offer. offer. I we n t abroad and learned from from m y   lawyer that  the flat was mine. O n   mo vi ng in, I had to call call my predecessor over one or t wo minor  matters  — including the behaviour  o f  the phone.  odd. d. I used to think I was ' Y e s , ' he agreed. 'The phone  is rather od being  bugged. In fact, I think  the man before me was a spy.'

N o w ,  once yo u suspe suspect ct yo ur phon e o f bein g bug ged, y o u begin  to believe it. A nd onc e yo u believe it it,, you k n o w for for certain certain

that ever y blee p and buz z on the line is som eone eon e listening in. O n one occasion, I happened to say the words 'Falkland Islands'; on (I was planning a trip on the another, ' Mo s c o w' and 'Novo sib irs k' (I Trans-Siberian  Railway),  and, both times, the phone seemed to have an epileptic fit. Or was it my imagination?   Obviously it was. For when I changed the old black Bakelite model for something more m od er n the bleeps and buzzes buzze s stopped. stopped . I lived liv ed for some

months in seediness before  starting  to do the place up. Very  rarely  —  perhaps  never in England  — I've gon e int o a

modern ro om and thought, 'Th is is what I wo ul d have.' I  then went into a room designed by a young architect called   John Pawson,  and knew at once, 'This is what I definitely want.'

17

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

Pawson ha  hass lived liv ed and wo r k ed in Japan. H e is an enem y  o f Post-

Modernism

and

other

asinine

architecture.

He

knows

how

wasteful  Europeans are  o f space, and knows how to make simple,

harmonious rooms  that  are a real refuge from the hideousness of contemporary London. I told him I wanted a cross between a cell and a ship's cabin. I wanted my books to be hidden in a corridor, and plenty  o f cupboards. W e calculated calculated w e  could  just  mak e a tiny bedroom in place  o f  the green bath. The room, I said, should be painted painte d off-white wit h w oo d en Vene tian blinds blinds the the same same colour . Otherwise,  I left it to him. I came back from Africa a few months later to find an airy, w e l l -

proportioned room, rather like certain rooms in early Renaissance paintings, small in themselves but with vistas  that give an illusion

o f  limitless space. I bought a folding card table to write on, and a tubular chair, which, when not in use, could  live  out on the landing. T h e n I bought a sofa.

auct ioneer eers; s; and from from Long ago, I used to work for a firm  o f art auction time to time I still sneak into Sotheby's or Christie's  — if only, hypocritically,  to congratulate congratula te m ysel ys el f on m y escape escape from the

'mania  o f owning things'. One morning, however, on a trip to the London  Library, Libr ary, I l oo k ed in on a sale sale o f Fr enc h furniture furniture at Christie's  — an  and d  there was no escape. I  saw the kind  o f sofa you might see in a painting by David. It had rigorous  classical proporti  proportions ons and its its original origina l pale grey paint. It was  stamped by the firm  o f  Jacob-De Jacob -De smal ter and its its stretchers stretchers

were  covered

with

inventory

marks

from

the

Chateau

de

from wh i ch one on e could cou ld gather that it had be en made mad e for Versailles - from the  apartment  of the Empress Marie-Louise. Fortunately for me

that  morning, M. Mitterrand had been elected President of France, and the Paris dealers were not in a buying mood. Obviously  such an object should be upholstered in blue silk

damask with gold Napoleonic bees. But the sofa arrived from the 18

 

A  Place  to Hang Your  Hat

upholsterers covered in muslin; and since the chances, either of paying  for the damask or of getting it back downstairs, are so

remote, the muslin  w i l l  have to remain. furniture ure - although altho ugh the the r o o m nee ded none non e  —  I A s   for other furnit already alre ady had an ol d French Fren ch chair,  o f the R e g e n c e , in it itss original but bashed-up condition. And I had a birchwood table and stool  — o f the kind my mother used to call 'Swedish Modern'. I  used to see this furniture, someti som etimes mes,, in the flats flats  o f  Jewish refugees  in Hampstead or Highgate  —  people who had arrived in London  in the late thirties with nothing in their luggage, except

their clothes and perhaps a  Klee  or Kandinsky. It is, of course, designed by Alvar  Aalto, and was market ed in Lon do n before the  Alvar Aalto, warr by a firm wa firm called called Finmar. It was the cheapest moder mod er n furniture

one could buy: my mother remembers remembers pay ing five shillings for the stool  w h e n she furnished furnished her o w n on e- r oo m flat flat in 1936.

In my 'ar t-worl t-w orl d' days days I was a voraci ous collector, but onl y a few  pieces remain. Sold the Egyptian relief. Sold the Archaic

Greek  torso. tors o. Sol d the fifthfifth-cen centur tury y Atti At tic c head. head . Sold Sol d the  Giaco-

metti drawing. Sold the Maor i carving, wh ic h once formed part o  off Sarah Bernhardt's bed. They were sold to pay for books, or journeys,  or simply to eat, during the years  o f  pretending to be a

writer. I cannot regret them. Besides, in my late twenties, I was sick of

things; and after travelling some months in the desert, I  fell  for a kind of'Islamic' iconoclasm and believed, in all seriousness,  that one should nev er bo w before the graven grav en image. As a result result,, the things  that  survived this iconoclastic phase are, for the most  part, 'abstract'. I  still have, for example, a hanging of blue and  yellow  parrot

feathers, probably made for the back wall of a Peruvian Sun Temple  and supposed to date from the fifth century 

D .   In

1966,1

saw  a simila similarr piece in the the Du mba rt on Oa k s coll ecti on and, on

19

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

returning to New  Y o r k ,  went to see my friend John  Wise, who dealt in pre-Columbian art in a room in the Westbury Hotel.

John  Wise was a man of enormous presence and a finely developed sense  o f  the ridiculous. 'I'd give anything for one  o f  those,' I said. 'W o u ld you?' ld you?' he growled. 'How much money have you got in your pockets?' 'I don't know.' 'Em pty them, stupid stupid ' I handed him about $250  — and he hand ed me bac k $10 $10 wi th an equally grumpy 'I suppose you eat lunch.' He then called his as assis sistan tantt to unro un roll ll the textile texti le on to th the e floor. floor. 'Lucky  sod ' he called out, as I wal ke d away wi th it under my

arm. I also have a sheet  o f Is  Islam lamic ic Ku fi fic c calligraphy, from the eight ei ght hcentury Koran  —  which has a certain talismanic value for a writer, in  that  Allah first cut a reed pen and with it he wrote the world. There is an Indian painting of a  banana tree; a Sienese Sien ese

fifteen fifteenthth-

centur cen tury y cross cross in tempera and gold; gol d; and a gil t-b ron ze ro roun unde dell from from a  Japanese  Buddhist temple. Other  than  that,  I have a small collection  o f J  Japanes apanese e  negoro  lacquers, which once belonged to a German called Ernst Grosse. Grosse was the Keeper  o f J  Japanes apanese e  Art in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum in Berlin before the war. Before that,  I bel iev e, he lived in the Daitoku-ji in  K y o t o .  With his friend Eugen Herrigel, the author of  Zen fe w Zen and the Art of  Archery,  he was on e o f the few westerners to appreciate what the Japanese  call wabi; that is to say 'poverty' in art. My favourite possession is a round box, which surely represents the rising sun, dates from the  thirteenth  or fourteenth century, and has has be lo ng ed to a succession  o f famous tea masters. The story goes  that  the monks, who made this lacquer, boa t mo or e d o ut on a lak e, for fear fear the dust would  paint it in a boat would  would  spoil the final coat. would  20

 

A  Place  to Hang Your  Hat

Lastly,  I have one contemporary sculpture: a fibreglass  wall-

piece  the colour  o f watermelon,  by John  Duff. Three times I had gone into houses full  o f works by famous names; and each time the only  wor k  that  really grabbed me was by a 'strange man called Duff.  H e had o nc e bee n a surfer surfer and was a student  o f  Zen.

'I have to see this Duff,' I said, and when, finally, I walked into his studio studio in Ch in at ow n, I k ne w, for certai certain, n, that th  this is was the 'real thing'. I  don't do much writing in my room. For  that,  I nee d other

conditions and other  places. But I can think there, listen to music, read in bed, and take notes. I can feed four friends; and it   is , wh en all is said, said, a place plac e to ha ng one o ne's 's hat.

1984

21

 

A  T O W E R   IN  T U S C A N Y

Those  o f u  uss w h o presume to wri write te book s wo ul d appear to fall  into t wo   categories: the ones who 'dig in' and the ones who move.

The re are writers w h o can only function 'at ho me ', wi th the ri righ ghtt chair, the shelves o f dictiona dictionaries ries and ency encyclop clopaedi aedias, as, and n ow perhaps the word processor. And there are those, like myself, who are paralysed by 'home', for whom home is synonymous with the proverbial writer's block, and who believe naively  that all would be  w e l l  if only they were somewhere else. Even among the very great you find the same dichotomy: Flaubert and Tolstoy labouring in their libraries; Z o l a  wi with th a sui suitt  o f armour alongside his desk; Poe in hi hiss cottage; Proust in the cor k-l ine ined d room . O n the other  hand,  among the 'movers' you have  M e l v i l l e ,  who was 'undone' by his gentlemanly establishment in Massachusetts, or Hemingway,  G o g o l  or Dostoevsky whose  lives,  whether from choice  or necessity, were a headlong round of hotels and  rented

rooms  —  and, in the case of the last, a Siberian prison.

A s   for myself (for what  that's  worth), I have tried to write in such places as an African mud hut (with a we t to towe we l tied around my  head), an Athonite monastery, a writers' colony, a moorland

cottage, even a  tent.  But whenever the dust storms come, the rainy season set setss in, or a pne pneuma umati tic c drill destroys all ho hope pe o off concentration, concentr ation, I cur curse se myse myself lf and a ask sk,, ' Wha t am I doi ng here?

W h y   am I not at the Tower?' There are, in fact, two towers in my   life.  Both are mediaeval. 22

 

A Tower in Tusc Tuscany any

1  Joth have thick walls, wh ic h make them w ar m in win ter and cool in summer. Both have  views  of o f mountains, contained by b y ver y small windows  that  prevent prev ent yo u from getting distracte distracted. d. O n e tower i  iss on the Wel sh border, in the the wate r meado ws  o f the River Usk. T h e other is Beatrice v on R ezz or i' s signalli signalling ng tow er — in her

idiomatic English she calls it a 'signallation tower'   —  built in the days  of Guelph and Ghibelline and standing on a hillside of oak

.ind

chestnut

woods,

about

twenty-five

kilometres

east

of

Florence.

For years I had to admire Beatrice Monti della Corte (as she then was) from afar. She had been a golden girl of the postwar generation on Cap ri. W h e n she she was twen ty-thr ty- thr ee, l on g before big money mon ey cla mped its its leade n and rapacious rapacious hand on the art art market, mark et, she had opened a gallery in Milan, the Galleria dell'Ariete, one of the firs firstt in Euro Eu rope pe to show sh ow the new ne w N e w Y o r k  School o f painting. She  had had bought boug ht a sixtee nth-cent ury 'captain's 'captain's house ' in Lindos (long before the days  o f deafening discotheques). Ne x t I heard she

had ha d married married the Austrian novelist novelist Gre gor go r v o n Re zz or i (or was he Romanian?) and had setded in a Tuscan farmhouse. O n e  summer evening in England, this couple, whom my

imagination had inflated into figures  o f mythology,  were brought to our house. Within minutes we were all old friends: within months I was a regular visitor to D on ni ni . T h e  house is a  casa  colonica:  the colonists in question being setders from the Arno  V a l l e y  who fanned out in waves over the Tuscan  count rysi de from the fourteenth fourt eenth century cent ury onward onw ards. s. Its Its solid  architecture, o f stone and tile, is unc han ged since  that  o f classical  antiquity. Indeed, until about thirty years ago, what

Horace had to say  o f his Tuscan farm could also be said  o f  the  life in any  casa  colonica.

A t   nights the thirty-odd members  o f an extended family would curl up to sleep unde un derr the rafters rafters.. B y day the y w o u l d tend their sheep or their beehives, vines and  olives.  They ploughed the 23

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

narrow terraced fields with white oxen and lived, austerely, on a diet o f bread and beans, cakes of chestnut flou flour, r, and meat or pigeon  maybe once a month. Then, in the postwar industrial b o o m ,  the farmers went to work in the thousands  o f farms  untenanted.

factories, leaving

Grisha Gris ha Re zz or i, by temperament and upbringing, is is a 'mov er' : it would be impossible for any biographer to trace his zigzagging course through Europe and  America.  Th e Rez zor is wer e Sicili Sicilian an noblemen who Austrianised themselves and ended up in the Bukovina,  the farthes farthest-flu t-flung ng pr ovi nce o f the Au str o-Hu ngar ian

Empire, n ow swa llow ed into the Soviet Un io n.

A   marginal man, cast cast adri adrift ft as a civilian in warti me Ger man y, he fastened his ironic  stare  on the  fall  o f  the Nazi N azi s and its aftermath, and with his prodigious gift for storytelling setded down (more or less )  at Donnini and  w o v e  these stories stories into int o his mon ume nt al novel  The  Death  of   M y  Brother  Abel.

In summer he wo w o u l d w o r k in a conv ert ed hay barn; in winter win ter in a cavernous and book-stacked library where, among his rescued souvenirs, there is a faded sepia ph ot o  o f the rambling ramblin g manor, n o w

presumably a collective farm, which was once his family house. II Baro Ba rone ne (as hi hiss Tus can ca n neighb nei ghbour our s call him) reY e t   to wat ch II emerging from a snowstorm in a greatcoat after a night walk alone in the wo o ds or to see see hi m strolling strolling through thro ugh the oli ve groves wi th his dogs (or the two tame wild boars Inky and Pinkie) was to realise  that  he had recovered, or reinvented, the 'lost domain' of his boy ho od . I  associate visits to Donnini with hoots  o f  belly  laughter. The

o f attracting farcic farcical al situations. Th ei r Rezzoris  ha ve a kn ac k of immediate neighbours are a well-known German film director and his  w i f e .  This couple had friends among the European Far Left.  The ir gue guest stss included Daniel Co hn -B en di t, better kn o wn as as

Dan ny le Ro u g e ; and some ho w the the Itali Italian an  carabinieri got it into its collective head  that they might be harbouring  Brigate  Rosse.  They

24

 

A Tower in Tuscany

also also go t the wr o n g hous e and w it h helicopters and Jeeps Jeeps staged an 'attack' on the Re zz or is , calling th em with wi th loudhailers to c om e out, unarmed, with their hands up. The Tower stands a short way from the house on a spur  o f  land overlooking   the Arno  V a l l e y .  When I first went to Donnini, it overlooking li ved d in by a peasant peasant family and still still be lo ng ed to was  live

the

Guicciardini Guiccia rdini family, family, wh os e forebear forebear was the patron o f Dan te' s frie friend nd,, the po et G ui do Cava lcan ti. A n d althoug alt houg h Beatrice used to sa say, y, wi th a slightly predatory predator y glint, glint , 'I have h ave a fanta fantasy sy to t o buy b uy  that confess to havi ha ving ng had designs on it myself. myself. As a bo y, o n a Tower,'  I confess spent hours in Mon taig ta ig ne's ne 's walking  tour o f Perig ord, I had spent famous tower, with the Greek and Latin inscriptions on the rafters, and now I, too, had a fantasy  — the fantasy  o f a compulsiv e mover — that I would settle down in the smiling Tuscan landscape and take up scholarly pursuits. Beatrice's fantasy, however, was a lot stronger  than  mine. Besides, I have noticed in her a flair for putting fantasies into action. The  tenants  left the Tower. She boug ht it and began the w o r k of restoration. Her friend friend

the

Milanese architect Marco Zanuso designed the outside staircase leads to the upper ro om . Inside, it it became bec ame a 'tur querie'; querie '; for that  leads the T o w e r o f her particular particular fant fantas asy y was another 'lost dom ain', ai n', he re on the shores shores of the Bosporu s. Th is  part  of the lying  so mew here story goes back ba ck to the mid-20s wh w h e n Beatr ice's ice 's father, father, an aristocrat aristocrat and expert in heraldry with a great knowledge  o f  history and the fine fin e ar arts ts,, wen t to R o m e for the the wint wi nt er season and and married a fragile fragile Armenian girl who, since the massacres, had been living in Italy. She died seven years later. Yet the memory  o f her,  o f  a person unbelievably beautiful and exotic, gave Beatrice an idea to which she has has clu c lu ng all her  life:  that glamour  —  real glamour, not the fake Western substitute  — is a produc t  o f  the Ottoman world. Once the rooms o f the T o w e r we re plaster plastered, ed, she emp lo ye d a fresco fresco painter, an old ol d ro gue gu e called Barb acci, acc i, the last last o f the locals w h o could paint a  trompe-l'oeil  corn ice or an angel on the ceiling o f a 25

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

church. But when he came to paint the pink 'Ottoman' stripes of the room I write in, he was forever peering from the window at the baronessa in the swimming pool, and some  o f the stripes have gone  awry. I  have never known Beatrice to buy anything but a bargain, even  if she has to travel halfway across the world to get it. She

bought  dhurrie  carpets in the Kabul carpet bazaar. Nearer to home, she bought chairs from the Castello di Sammezzano, a fake Moorish  palace on a nearby hill. She had, in addition, an

assortment assortme nt o f strange strange objects, o f the ki nd  that  refugees pack in their trunks: a gilded gilde d incense incens e burner; engravings o f odalisques; or a

portrait  of her grandfather, grandfather, the pasha, pasha, wh o was onc e Christi Chr isti an governor  o f Lebanon — obje  objects cts wh ic h needed a ho me and whi ch , with  a bit o f imagination, could cou ld conjure conjure echoes echo es o f lazy  summer afternoons in summerhouses by the water. Whenever I have been in residence, the place becomes a sea of books  and papers and unmade beds and clothes thrown this way

and  that. But the Tower is a place where I have always worked, clearheadedly and  w e l l ,  in winter and summer, by day or night — and the places you work  well in are the places you love  the most.

1987

26

 

G O N E   T O  T I M B U C T O O

Timbuctoo,  Tumbuto, Tombouctou, Tumbyktu, Tumbuktu or

Tembuch? It doesn't  matter  how you spell it. The word is a slogan,  a ritual formula, once heard never forgotten. At eleven I

knew of Timbuctoo as a mysterious city in the   heart  o f  Africa where they ate mice  —  and ser served ved them th em tto o visitors. A blur blurred red  a  bowl of photograph, in a trav travelle eller's r's account o f Ti mb uc to o, o f a  tnuddy broth with little pink feet rising to the surface excited me greatly. great ly. Naturall Naturally, y, I wr wrot ot e an unprintable limerick limer ick about it. T h e words 'mice in the stew' rhymed with Timbuctoo and for me both are still inextricably associated. There are two Timbuctoos. One is the administrative centre of the Sixth Region of the Republic  o f  M a li l i ,  once French Sudan — the tired caravan city wh er e the Ni Nige ge r bends into int o the Sa Sahara hara,, 't 'the he meeting meeti ng place o f al alll w h o travel by camel or cano e', tthou hou gh the meeting meet ing was rrarely arely amicable; th the e shad shadel eles esss Ti mb uc to o that blisters in the sun, cut  o f f b y  grey -gre en waterways for much  o f  the year, and accessible by river, desert caravan or the Russian airplane  that comes three  times a week from Bamako.

A n d   then there is the Timbuctoo  o f the mind  — a mythical city in a Ne v e r - Ne ve r Land, a an n antipo antipodean dean mirage, a symbol fo forr the back  o f  beyond or a flat joke. 'He has gone to Timbuctoo,' they say, meaning 'He is out  o f  his his mi mind nd'' (or drugge drugged); d); ' He has lef leftt hi hiss

w i f e '   (or his creditors) creditors);; ''He He has go gone ne awa away y indefi indefinitel nitely y and  w i l l 27

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

probably not  return';  or 'He can't think  o f  anywhere better to go tourists ts we nt there.' than  Ti mb uc to o. I thou ght only Ameri can touris far from 'Was  it  l o v e l y ? '  asked a friend on my  return.  N o . It is far lovely; unless you find mud walls crumbling to dust  lovely — walls as i f all the co lo ur has has been be en suc ked ke d ou t by b y the o f   a  spectral grey, as

sun. T o  the passing visitor  there  are only two questions. 'Where is

my next drink coming from?' and 'Why am I here at all?' An d yet, as I write, I remember the desert wind whipping up the green waters; the  thin hard  blue of the sky; enormous women rolling round the town in pale indigo cotton  boubous;  the th e  shutters  on the houses the same hard blue against mud-grey  walls; orange orange bo wer birds  that  weave their basket nests in feathery acacias; gleaming black gardeners sluicing water from leather skins, lovingly, on rows of bluebl ue- gre en onion s; lean lean aristo aristocra cratic tic To uar eg s, of super

natural  appearance, with coloured leather shields and shining spears, their faces encased in indigo veils,  wh ic h, like carbon paper, paper, dye their skin a thun der-c loud blue; wil d Mo or s wi th co rksc rew curls; firm-breasted  Bela girls  o f  the old slave caste, stripped to the waist, pounding at their  mortars  and keeping time with monoto nous tunes; and monume nta l Song hai ladies ladies wi t h great basketshaped earri earrings ngs like those those wo rn b y the Q u e e n o f U r ove r four thousand years ago. A n d  at night the half-calabash moon reflected in the river of oxi dised oxidis ed silver, rippled rippled wi t h the activity acti vity o f insects; wh it e egrets

roosting in the acacias; the thumping of a  tam-tam  in town; the sound  o f spontaneous laughter  welling up lik e clear clear water; the bull frogs, whining mosquitoes  that preve pre vent nted ed sleep, and on the desert side sid e the far-off how ls o f jackals or the g uard-d ogs o f no mad camps. Perhaps Perhaps the Ti mb u ct o o o f the mind is mor e poten t  than one suspects. It has has been claiming clai ming Eur opean ope an  victims, and luring luri ng man y to their deaths, since it fir first st appeared (as Te mb uc h) on a Catalan Cata lan map o f 28

 

Gone   to Timbuctoo the the fourteenth century. R um ou rs had filtered filtered to Eur ope o f an sun ran ran about in naked African  K i n g d o m wh er e children of the sun innocence ruled by a wise black monarch called Rex  Melly.  H e

w a s   often confused with Prester  John,  the mysterious Christian king wh o , they prophesied, wo ul d ris rise e up out  o f h  his is cou nt ntry ry at the head  o f  countless multitudes. He would smite the Infidel,  reunite Christendom, and the world would settle down to an everlasting peace.  Rex  Melly's  ki ng do m was al also so k no w n to to the the commercially

minded as the inexhaustible source  o f red African gol d. Visions o f a New Jerusalem beyond the desert were more  than  tinged with thoughts  o f  commercial  enterprise.

B u t   Mansa Mussa, the  King  o f Mal i, w h o gave rise rise to the legend,  was a de vout vo ut Mus li m. Far Far from smiting smiti ng the Infidel, Infi del, the

founder o f Ti mb uc t oo gave founder g ave hi hiss Ara b frien friends ds so many golde go lde n handshakes handsha kes on his visit visit to Cai C ai ro in 1324 13 24 that the price  o f gold  took a sudden dip on the Cairo exchange. His entourage caused such a

stir  that  a stream o f merchants merch ants,, artisa artisans, ns, scholars and architects, archit ects, including an Andalucian called Es Saheli, followed him back. A great mosque, and the first black university in the world, rose up from the sand dunes.

T h e   gold  o f Timbuctoo came from a nearby country. It grew in the ground in nuggets as large as carrots. The men who brought it to market wer w er e cannibals cannibals and insisted on  slave-girls for dinner. Bu t pric e to pay in a barter system wher wh er e gold g old might be this was a small price exchanged for its own weight  o f salt.

B y   the end  o f the eighteenth century, Earthly Paradises were in short  supply. Most had evaporated  under  the critical gaze of geographers. The African Association was founded, and was determined   that a Britisher Britis her should shou ld be the first first Europ ean to set foot in Timbuctoo. And so he did. He did not   return.  Major Gordon Laing  arrived in Timbuctoo in 1826. He wore his uniform

thro ughout, ugho ut, talked grandly grandly of hi hiss  master,  the  King  of England, and ostentatiously made notes and plans  o f the city. He was murd29

 

'Horreur   du  Domicile' ered by his escort on leaving the city after refusing conversion to Islam (and probably slavery thereafter). T w o  years later the French announced  that  a Monsieur Rene Caillie  had reached the lost city, dressed as a poor Arab, and

returned   alive. 'I had formed a totally different idea of the grandeur grande ur

and wealth

of Ti mb uc to o, ' he

wrote .

'T he

city city

presented prese nted,, at fi firs rstt sight, noth no th in g but bu t a mass mass  o f ill-looking houses, built of  earth.  Nothing was to be seen in all directions, but immense quicksands quicksands of a yel lowis lo wis h whit wh it e col our . . . the most profound silence prevailed.' T h e  myt h of Ti mb uc to o the Go ld en had bee n punctured.

Wh er e Chapman could write .. .

Deep   in that  lion-haunted  inland  lies A  mystic  city,  goal  of   high enterprise the y ou n g Ten nys on only questioned questioned .. .

O r   is the rumour  of   thy  Timbuctoo A  dream  a s frail  frail   a s  those  of   ancient  time?

Apart  from the two French forts, the hotel, the  lycee  and the tactfully  hidden  quarter for the  colons,  the appearance  o f  T im b u c

too cannot have changed much since Caillie's time. It still presents 'a mass of ill-looking  houses, built of earth'.  Some, it is true,  are built  o f blocks  o f  white chalk, but the pale alluvial dust  works its wa y  into the pores very quickly. Some doorframes are painted a

strawberry red incised with green scrolls, the only concession to decoration, and sole legacy o f  Moroccan  conquest. Th e y still bring in slabs  o f salt from the dreaded Taodeni mines

in the Sahara Sahara - a favourite target for for anti-slavery societies. Th e Touareg  still prance like storks  around  the town, on  their  best

behaviour now, for they have little say in the government. They 30

 

Gone   to Timbuctoo still buy their spears, stone arm bracelets and the indigo veil called the  litham, for their mouths must never be seen in public. But next door to the Touaregi market booth, a salesman specialises in pots

o f  mac aw- col ou red brill brillianti iantine, ne, black lace bras brassi sier eres es,, T h e rm o gene Medicated Rub and 'Moon Rabbit Brand Nylon Stockings Made in China'. Such are the changing patterns  o f  trade. The market women hover over the most unlikely messes. Ochre-coloured calabashes contain a favourite drink  — o f sour milk, crushed millet and honey. Fricasse  o f  crocodile  crocodile  is also quite common. T h e street streetss are bare and dusty, but i f y o u peer pee r into

the

courtyards  o f the richer houses you can see obese women lying on the gro und or on lo w cou ches. che s. T o sit sit up is tho ugh t to ruin the shape  o f  the posterior. Obesi Obe sity ty in wo m e n is admired, as a sym bol o f  wealth. weal th. T o maintain such girth in a desiccating desert desert climate requires mountains  o f  food  —  all the time. Only the very rich can afford  the luxu ry of a  wife  so large  that  she has to be carried by afford  servant girls.

A n   enthusiastic  staff  o f boys  run the hotel for the benefit  o f  the staff. They  live  like princes. They dress up for dinner and eat sharply sharp ly at at eight. eig ht. Guests must must eat before befo re t hem he m or afte afterr th em. T h e leas leastt request request they greet wi th h owl s o f laughter. T h e y have a co mmu nal na l girlfriend. She is supposed suppos ed to be the barmaid. M o r e often she can be found on the floor in an agony   laughter. She   of then has to go home to change. The boys dance most  o f  the night to gram opho ne records records sent sent from Guinea. The y' v e be en dancing here for centuries. The

graffiti

are

wonderful

and

worth

a

special

visit

to

Timbuctoo alone. They range from the simple boy meets boy  — overt ly political - Chinois  sont les 'Mahomet aime Yahya'   -  to the overtly Cons'.   Happi ly they are are al alll in neat co py bo o k hand writing writ ing and in  

l

French. Th er e are are sti still ll t wo book sh ops . Th e Evangelica Evange licall Library and the 3i

 

'Horreur  du  Domicile'

Librairie Populaire du Mali glower at each other across the principal square. Sales cannot be high.  Above  the Evangelical Library a placard reads  'La  Crainte  de  L'Eternel  est le  Debut  de la

Sagesse'   —  fine words for a people who  live  sensibly in the Eternal Present. The complete works of  B i l l y  Graham are for sale and some postcards. The Librairie Populaire  runs  two periodicals — La  Femme

Sovietique  and  Les Nou velles de Moscou.  New sp ape r is at a premi um, and is very useful for wrapping fish, meat or vegetables in the market.. M o r e serious market serious and substant substantial ial ideo i deo log ical ica l bo ok s, such as the complete wo rks o f V . I. Lenin, Mao Ts e- Tu ng , Mar x or Engels are allowed to collect dust a little longer before their pages are passed on to the market. They are used for wrapping little packages  o f dy e, chile pepper, snuf packages  snuff, f, ch ew in g tob acc o, the crushed leaves  o f the baobab  tree  used as an aborti abo rti ve, o r charms to counteract  djinns.  Ne v er thr ow stone stoness at dogs in Ti mb uc to o. T h e lean hounds  that  skulk in the  thorn  bushes by day may be the

djinns   that  w i l l  haunt  you by night. A  djinn  starts as a small black spot in the corner  o f your room and ends up as big as the house. If y o u b eliev e in  djinns  and the ability  o f holy men to fly  o f their o wn

volition, the miracles of the jet age are amateur bungling. 'How long would it take me to fly from here to  Mecca?'  an old man asked. He might do it in under a day, I told him. He was unimpressed.  Local  sai saint ntss regularly regula rly take off on a Friday mo rn in g and are are ba back ck the same same aftern oon. He also k n e w  o f a peopl e called the Mericans who claim to have flown to the Moon. 'That is impossible,' he said said.. 'T h e y are are blasphemers.' T h e inhabitants inhabitants o f Timbuctoo are Arabs, Berbers, Songhoi, Mossi Toucouleur, Bambara, Bela, Mal ink e, Fulani, Fulani, Moo rs and and To uar egs. Later Later came the English, French, Germans, the Russians and then the Chinese. Many others  w i l l  come and go, and Timbuctoo  w i l l  remain the same.

1970 32

 

II

STORIES

 

MILK

T h e yo un g Ameri can put h his is head do wn to th the e mil k -b ow l and the milk  darkened, darkene d, from whi white te tto o grey, as his his head bl oc ocke ke d out the light. T he b ow l was a h a l f calabash. He held it in his palms and felt

the warmth coming through. There were black hairs floating on the surface and a faint smell of pitch. He tilted the bowl till the froth brushed against his moustache. 'Shall I?' He paused before his lips touched the milk. Then he tilted it again and gulped. He drank quickly and with concentration, watching the   l e ve l sink down the  w a l l  o f  the calabash. The globs  o f milk  cleared his dry, dust-clotted  throat. It was stronger  than milk in America and left a bitter  taste  on the tongue.

' B e   careful wh what at y yo o u ea eat, t, Jeb. Jeb.'' T h e voi ce was sh sharp arp and pleading. 'And don't, whatever you do, touch the milk. The milk's  tainted in them countries.' milk's  In his his mi mind nd Jeb An Andr dr ew s saw the carefu carefull wh whit it e clapboar clapboard d house hous e and the drawn face  o f  his mother. 'I know you'll be all right, Jeb. But  that  shan't k kee ee p me from worryin'.  I f y o u was goin' to Europe, I shouldn't be worryin', but

Africa,   Jeb, and them blacks.' He drained the bowl and  turned  it over. White drops splashed on his rawhide boots, now red with dust. The outside of the calabash was a warm golden colour and the surface scratched with drawings of animals and plants. It had broken in two places, but the woman had sewn it up with tarred twi  twine. ne. Tha t was wha whatt gave 35

 

Stories

calabash h a  lovely o f f   the pit chy smell. Jeb A nd re ws tho ugh t the calabas thing. It was mid-day and the sky was hazy and white hot. Sweat streamed inside his shirtf shirtfff ont and d o w n the small small  o f  his back. The blood ran into his feet and they felt as  i f they'd  burst  his boots. T h e wo m e n wer e Peuls. T h e y sold milk mil k to bus bus travelle travellers rs under unde r the speckled shade  o f an acacia. It was the one shade  tree for miles. T h e y  were lean and angular, as nomad women are. They wore

shifts  o f  indigo cotton and the blue rubbed  o f f  on their glistening br o wn skin. B i g bras brasss rings rings wei gh te d their earlobes d ow n . 'Another,'Jeb said to the woman. He felt for a coin in his damp pocket. The woman set the bowl in the dust and ladled it full.  A baby sucked at her nipple, its pink fingers clawing at her breast. Jeb watched a dribble of milk run from the corner  o f  the baby's mouth. The woman grabbed the coin and tied it in a knot of cotton. She flashed her teeth and then hid them. Her companions looked on, amused and disdainful, gaping at the  thin  b o y in the dusty whites,  his golden hair spilling round the half sphere of the whites,  calabash. 'Like  it's feedin g time at the zo o ,' Jeb tho ugh t. 'L ik e I'm the

animal.' advise y o u not to drink 'And  another thing, M r An dr ew s, I advise unb oil ed milk . T h e Fren ch veterinaria veterinarians ns have reported report ed outbreaks o f  brucellosis all along the  northern  zone.' Jeb coul d hear hear again the fl flat at vo ic e o f the Peace C or ps doct or and see the disapproving lips and  untanned  face above a spotless overall.  The doctor had given him sterilising tablets and packets of

dehydrated food. He had not used them. Jeb drank the milk in spite  o f  and because  o f  the doctor. Set apart  from the others was a small shrunken woman, her legs

red uced uc ed to spindles, her lips cracked crac ked , her hair scabbed scab bed and matted and her breasts shrivelled to leathery purses. She crouched with 36

 

Milk her sex uncovered, not caring, or shuffled round the women, pick ing up pieces  o f old calaba calabash. sh. Jeb wa tche tc he d her arrange arrange th em in piles as if, if, by fitting the m toget t oget her, she co ul d repair her he r br ok en womb.

He had been three wee k s on the road. T h e strang strangene eness ss  o f Africa had worn  o f f  and somehow, in the heat and light,  Africa  was less unbelieveable  than  home. It was winter in Vermont. He tried to picture it, but the picture kept slipping from focus, leaving only the heat and light. Still, he worried about Old Herb. In the  fall  they'd stood on the

bridge bel ow the the store. store. Th e y ' d be en lumbe ring all day and the leaves  fell,  red over yellow,  into the river.

'Sad you're goin',' Herb had said. 'Shan't last the winter through. T hat's ho w I'm feelin' any ways .' 'I'll be back, Herb.' 'D on 't mind me , Jeb. Y o u got to to go. An d don' t mi nd y ou r mothe r none . Y o u can't sit sit back home wi th her fuss fussin in'' y ou . Y o u ' r e  gr ow n enough to kn o w you r mind.' The re was a lump in

his throat. The snow would be piled up round Herb's cabin and it troubled him to think  o f  it. Jeb Andrews found his body thinning and hardening all the time,

and

the

old

prejudices

stripping

fascinated fasci nated h im — the mammas, ma mmas,

away.

The

the b i g cheerful

Africans

grain-filled grain-fi lled

mammas; and the Hausa men, their faces scarred like cat whiskers and their shiny sh iny skins skins reflectin refle cting g the blue o f their clothes clo thes and the blue of the sky so it was the colour of night without a trace of brown; and the Peul boys  strutting  about with swords and black leather kilts and ostrich feathers in their hats. Jeb was beginning to feel  how they looked. He even learned to spit like an African 'Yiakchh  ... ptoo ...' and the ball  o f saliva  would roll in the dust

and disappear. He l ov ed the smell of o f fr fres eshh-fl flail ailed ed millet mi llet in the villages and the bul gi ging ng mu d granari granaries es and rhyth mic thu mpin g o f pesdes; the 37

 

Stories

termitaries splashed wh i te by vultures and the red laterite laterite road streaking through the thorn  savannah. The bark  o f the bushes was orange or pale green and their spines were long and white as icicles.  In the heat heat o f the day the Peuls' Peul s' catde roamed am on g

them. They had rippling brown coats and white lyre-shaped horns. Jeb t hou ght th em the loveliest l oveliest animals animals in the wo rl d. He did not believe their milk could be diseased. The driver called the passengers back to the bus. The road forked  north  away from the river. The  earth be ca me less less red and the baobab trees fatter and more  stunted.  They reached the town late in the afternoon afterno on and stopped st opped outside a bar called Le Lot us street. t. In the barba r- ro om some Bleu. A mad bo y was whi rl in g in the stree bee r from from the o wne r, a Africans  we re drink ing. Jeb ord ered a beer squat Vietnamese woman with her head in a flowered scarf. A man came in selling meat on a metal tray. She prodded it with her pudgy fingers. 'The meat's too tough,' she said. The Africans laughed.

' Y o u   be the one  that's  tough, Mamma, not this meat.' The old woman liked being teased and squealed with pleasure. Jeb

compared

her

happy

face

with

Vietnamese

women

in

magazines. 'Have you a room?' he asked. 'This is a bar,' she said, 'not a bordel.' And the men laughed again. 'For a bed you must go to the  campement.  There is a white woman in the  campement.' Jeb walk ed be tw ee n mu d walls to the edge of to wn , and and then up an alley o f acacias, n  no o w black and leaf leafles lesss in the dry season. O n a hil hilll was a l ow whit ewash ed buildin g wit h roun ded arches. arches. O n ce it had be en the leg ionaires' ionai res' mess. mess. Th er e was a tennis court, n o w cracked and pitted, with the net frayed off. The white woman was hanging her laundry on the wire. She had red hair out  o f  a botde and her eyelids we re painted black bla ck and green. He r skin h un g 38

 

Milk loosely  in a collar ro roun und d the base base of o f her neck n eck . Jeb th thou ought ght she

looked a bit like a goldfish.

'Madame Annie? ' ' O u i . '  She stared coldly, without surprise or welcome.

'Est-ce  que vous avez  une chambre?' he said  slowly.

'I have a room,' she replied in English. 'Come this way please.' Under the arches were metal chairs and tables covered in green plastic. He followed her into the courtyard where  there  was an aviary  with doves and a caged monkey. Some bougainvillaea

straggl stra ggled ed ove r a trelli trellis. s. She called, called, 'Osm 'O sm an. an . K e y for number numb er  five,' and an old Touareg shuffled over. She unlocked a green door. T h e  room was bare but for a cot bed and  tattered  mosquito net

hanging from the ceiling. The whitewash was peeling and   there were  pale geckos on the  walls.

' A   thousand francs a day,' she said. 'Service included.' 'Have you anything cheaper?' ' T h e  cheapest,' she said unhelpfully. T h e  room was expensive but he was tired and took it. He had

slept  three  nights by the roadside. Jeb stripped. He stepped out  o f his pants and left them in a heap on the floor. The red dust had caked on his skin. He lay naked on the be d. A cool co ol er w i n d came in off the desert desert and throug thro ugh h the shutters. He felt the sweat drying on his parts. It was dark w h e n he wo k e . He dresse dressed d and and walk ed under the arches to the pissoir. pissoir. Passing Mada Ma da me Ann ie 's r o o m he heard creaking springs springs and the sighs and whi mperi mpe ring ngss  o f love. The blind was  not fully drawn and he caught sight of a sinuous black body

laid over a pile  o f  pink flesh.

He washed and went out onto the terrace. Insects were whining  round a single electric bulb. Another white woman sat

drinking. She was very thin  and tragic-looking. Her blonde hair 39

 

Stories

hung in rat-tails, and her face was lopsided from a broken jaw. O n e  arm was in a sling. sling. T h e mo nk ey had bitten her hand. 'T h e Madame is sleeping,' she said. ' N o t  sleeping exactly,'Jeb said.

'Is disgusting,' she said. 'She makes love with Africans so they

w i l l  not call her racist. Her husband leave her when she go with Africans.  N o w I think she hate hatess whit wh it e men .'

T h e woman's name was Gerda. She came from  Alsace and was

strande stra nded d wi th ou t mone mo ne y. O n c e she she had had work wo rk ed as as a journalist and had exposed French atrocities in the Algerian War. She had great sympathy for Arabs and great  hatred  for blacks and Jews.  She said France was overr un  by Jews.  Eve n de Gaulle was a Jew . Jeb k ne w about anti-Semitism but he had not heard the words 'pestilence', 'bacillus',  'infection' and 'cancer' used for people. She  said Madame Annie treated her as a servant. She got no

reply to her letters for help. She had called the postmaster a dirty

drunk and he had called her a Nazi Imperialist. She suspected him

o f   burning her mail. T h e  door of Anni An ni e' s ro om ope ned and a bo y in bright blue

jeans trod limberly across the yard. He nodded to Madame Gerda w h o  ignored him.

'Is disgusting,' she said. Madam e An ni e follo wed the boy out, out, com posed and and un dishevelled  in a  tartan  skirt. She asked Jeb if he want wa nt ed dinner dinn er and called to Osman to roast a pintade. Madame Gerda sat pretend in g  to read a newspaper. T h e  pintade was tough and the Algerian wine went to  Jeb's

head. Later some  o f Annie's regulars came up to drink her whisky. It was the only whisky in town. There were several Africans in European Euro pean dres dresss and and an ex-le gionnair gion nair e, a smal small, l, hea t-wrin t-w rin kl ed man with  grey hair  en  brosse. T h e  whore who lived in the  campement  heard the noise and

came out to join the party. 40

 

Milk 'Mamzelle  Dela,' the legionnaire greeted her. 'La Belle de la

Brousse ' She was a Peu l. She had a Peul wom an 's wo nderful nde rful hig h cheekbones and chiselled Hps, and long straight gleaming legs and a short body flexible as a hinge. She wore a tight pink dress in one table and gazed in jeb' je b' s direction. direct ion. piece. She put her el bow s on the table He felt felt her hu ge black blac k eyes undressing undressin g him. hi m. The men sang a song with a refrain ending 'Annie et son whisky '  and Annie began a discussion on whether Adam forced

the apple apple on Ev e or Ev e prostituted prosti tuted herself for the apple. apple . ' W h y  don't you drink?' the legionnaire called across. 'What are you,  some kind  o f  Englishman?'

'I'm an American.' 'Ha Ha L'Equipe C IA B oo m B oo m C o me and and drink drink some whisky.  Annie, give this young spy some whisky.' 'I don't drink whisky,'Jeb said.

' Y o u   must drink whisky,' Annie said. 'For the bacterias. Whisky  massacres bacterias. Osman.'

'Madame.' 'Whisky  for the young man.'

' A   very small one,' said Jeb.

' Y o u   pour what yo u lik e. Osma n does not like to pour whisk y. He is a Mussulman and he hates the drink. One day I give him pastis for his throat and he is drunk. I do not think he forgives me.' Osm an fetched fet ched the bo ttle, ho ld in g it gingerly gingerl y as a bo mb . He passed it to Jeb, who poured out  half  an inch. 'More,'  said Annie. 'More.' 'More,'  She took the bottle and filled the glass over half. She kept her o w n  Johnny  Walker beside her on the table. She gave herself

another and marked the level wi th a pencil. penci l. 'I cannot live without whisky,' she said. 'It's tea,' whis pered pere d Mamz el elle le Del a darkly. Jeb was troubl t roubl ed and excited when she looked at him. 4i

 

Stories

'This hotel is not my metier,' said Madame Annie. 'Soon I shall

retire  to the bush. I shall take a pretty black boy. I shall build a hut and sell my jewels to pay for the whisky. Some people die in a co nv en t and I shall shall die in the bus h.' Jeb agreed it was better  than  a convent. 'I have seen many jungles,' she said, 'and the worst jungle is a convent.  Very  unhealthy place. In a convent people  hate  each other all the time. In the jungle they  hate  each other sometimes but not always.' 'Mo n  n  Dieu, que ce garcon est beau,' said Mamzelle Dela. 'Sh e say sayss y o u are a beautiful bo y .' 'She's  pretty  nice herself 'Et il est americain?' 'American.' Je l'adore.' 'She says she loves you.' 'I love her too.' say y ou was Americ an, ' said said An ni e. ' Y o u   never say 'I thought you knew.' 'I think y ou was English. Very hypocrite people, English. I was many times in England, Engl and, in the war, aft after er the the war. Terribl e O n c e I was  in English city. The name of this  place is Hull. I am coming

from Germa ny wit h my German lover. W e go to a boarding house and the woman is so nice and polite and say how much she likes  the Germans, which is not at all true  because English  hate Germans. She thinks we are Germans both, and she shows the room. Nice room.  A l l fl  flowers owers a la maniere manier e anglaise. Th e n she say sayss wi th a charming, really really a charm ing smile, " O f course y o u are married?" A n d I say, say, "Mai s non , Ma dame. da me. Ce rta ine men t pas " and  this  wo ma n, w h i c h is is smiling, is n o w smiling not,

but

screaming, "Out  o f my house. This is is a nice house. Y o u have not business here. Go to the bordel where you belong.'" 'I never went to England,' Jeb said. 42

 

Milk 'I tell you, my God, they are very hypocrite.' 'I heard  that.' t hey think th ink th ey are are clean. Hull Hul l is is bad, my ' T h e y  are dirty and they dear, but Londres is worse  than  Hull. This German man and me, we  go to a film. Un film cochon. I don't speak  lies.  Old people naked. Gens de soixante ans tous nus. Doing things you can't imagine. Th e n they invite us us to sing a hy mn to the Qu ee n . An d in Hyd e Park, my God , unde r the trees trees Feet, my Go d

Q u e des

pieds ' The men fed the juke-box and played Togolese rock. The legionnaire stumbled to his feet and dragged Mamzelle Dela by the arm and tried to dance. She put on a long -sufferin -suff erin g l o o k and winked at Jeb. He winked back. ' Y o u   have loved an  Afficaine?'  asked Annie. 'Never,' Jeb said in an even  voice.  He had never been to bed with a woman, but he did not want to show this.

' Y o u   must go with Mamzelle Dela. She wants it.' Jeb  turned  red and felt his self-confidence running away. 'Listen,' she said protectively. 'I speak with you as a mother.

Y o u  are afraid to go with her because you have heard bad things. I tell you, African women are cleaner than white women. They are are mu ch mor e beautiful.' tres  pud iqu e. A n d they are

' Y o u   think I should?' 'I know it.' The legionnaire was too  drunk  to dance and stood with his arms round her buttocks. His head nuzzled her breasts, but he was slippin sli pping g graduall grad ually y to the floor. floor. ' D o w n , '  he spluttered. 'Down ... down ... down ... down ...' ' D o w n  where?' ' D o w n  into the  cave.'

'Monsieur, you know very  well  the price of entry is  five thousand francs.' 43

 

Stories

' A h Dela. Black,  beautiful and cruel.' N o w  he was sitting crouched and trying to get a hand up her legs.  Dela clamped them tight. She winked again. 'Black,  beautiful and cruel.' 'C'est  un con,' she said definitely.

Jeb helped get the legionnaire back to bis chair. There Dela pulled him and they were dancing. He loosened up and his legs flew.  T h en they the y closed and her  hard  belly burn ed thr ough his

pants, and he was pumped  hard,  and  there  were hot shivers up his back. Then they were in her room, he standing and she sitting on the bed, her quick fingers unzippering, and he praying, thinking else e no w, but praying it wo ul d co me right. right. o f  nothing and nob od y els A n d  then they were on the bed and clinching, and then she

pushed him away and sat up. 'I need a sand wich ,' she said said.. ' Y o u pay my sand wich .' 'Oh

No. God. Not now.'

' Y o u   pay my sandwich.' 'I pay your sandwich.'

' Y o u   pay my beer.' 'I pay also your beer.' He got up and took a note from his pocket. She put on a blue boubou and stalked out into the kitchen. She was back in  five minutes munching a chicken sandwich and smacking her Hps. Then she tied her hair in a bandana and was ready. face do wn on the pill pi ll ow , his head spinni sp inning ng from from B u t Jeb was face the whisky. She lay beside him and her hand felt him soft and limp. 'Pederast,' she snorted. ' N o .  No.'Jeb hit the pillow miserably. 'No. No.'

Ame ric ans are pederasts.' ' A l l   Americ She rolled rolle d over and began to snore, and her snores snores did no t ke ep him from sleeping. Bu t in the mor ni ng it was differe different. nt. Fro m  that  morning he forget the the whi te light and b l ow i ng curtains, curtains, and would  nev er forget would  44

 

Milk never stop thanking for the  taut  breasts; the  hard  mouth freely given;  the powerful arms; the nails  that  raised red welts on his

back; the soles  o f her feet sandpapering his thighs; again and again,

t w o   bodies floating and then heavy along the uneven line where the the br ow n met wh it e; and a afte fterwa rwards rds,, w he n they we re both bot h tired together, her amused smile and her fingers gently disentangling hi hiss hair. He left her and wa l k ed across across the terrace. Mada Ma da me Gerda Ger da

turned  her face to the  wall.  Madame Annie was knitting a pink jum per . She lo ok ed ove r her spectacl spectacles es and smiled.

' Y o u   are even walking differendy,' she said. 1977

45

 

T H E A T T R A C T I O N S  OF FRANCE

T H E   JOURNEY UP

The men waited for the truck in a tight rectangle  o f  shade und er the blue  wall.  The sun was glaring bright and sucked the colour from the dusty red street. The men were squatting. They had pulled their blue cottons above their knees. Their legs were lean and br o wn and the soles soles o f their feet we re ro ug h as as sandpaper. sandpaper. scuffing the dust A   boy was walking up the shadow  o f  the wa ll scuffing with his feet. His hair was red but it was the caked dust  that coloured it. He put down a kitbag and sat by me. are goi ng to Atar? ' ' Y o u   are

' Y o u   too?' 'I am going to France.' He was short and stocky, perhaps twenty. His  hard  thighs bul ged through white jeans  that  were now ruddy pink from the dust. He had not washed for some time. He smelled strong and acrid though the smell was not objectionable. He had been chewing  cola  nuts  and they had dyed his gums orange. His  thin

curling mouth showed offhis Moorish blood. The Moors ignored him. He was very black. 'What  w i l l  you do in France?' 'Continue my profession.' 'What's that?' 'Installation  sanitate.'

46

 

T he   Attractions  of   France hav e a passport? passport? ' Y o u   have

' N o   I need ne ed o ne not. n ot. I am a sailor. I have hav e a sailor's sailor's paper.' paper .' He squeezed his hand in his back pocket and with two fingers fished for a scrap  o f  damp and crumpled paper. Th e writ ing was in Spani Spanish: sh: 'I, D o n Hernando

Ord on ez ,

certify  that  Patrice Diole has worked as Seaman Third Class 'From Atar,' he said, 'I  w i l l  go to  Villa  Cissneros. I  w i l l  take a ship to Gran Canaria. I w i l l go to France, to Yugoslavia,  to China, and continue my profession.'

' A s   sanitary engineer?' adventurer. I w i l l  see all the peoples and all ' N o ,  Mons ieu r. As adventurer. the countries  o f  the world.' T h e truck came, almost almost filled up wi th sacks sacks o f sor ghu m and rice rice.. T h e Senegalese and Moo rs climb ed aboard. W e fol lo wed . T h e  trip to Atar was a bad trip, dust storm all the way. The Moors pulled down the folds of their blue turbans, covering their faces and leaving the narrowest horizontal  strip  through which their eyes  glittered. T h e Senegalese wo re a variety of head gear. O n e

man wo r e his his underpants. His nose, nose , not his eyes,  showed through the vertical slit. T h e tru ck stopped at a poli ce post. A gendarme cli mbed up and cou nte d

fift fiftyy-ni nine ne bod ies lyin g in amon g the sacks. sacks. T h e law

prohibited more  than  thirty. T h e gendarme genda rme was wa s a Sarakolle from from the river. He was not making his people move. The Moors were in their country now and they weren't moving either. All  fiftynine went on into the dust and the night. I had been squeezed against the sanitary engineer for twelve hours.  'Tell  me ,' he said. said. 'H av e y o u seen seen the the Indians? Indians?''

'Yes.' 'It's a village or what?' 'It's 'It's a bi g country wi th t oo many pe ople . Y o u should go see see it.' ou gh t it was a village.' '  Tiens.  I always th ough 47

 

Stories A T  THE MINE

Fro m the hill w e loo ke d do wn o ver the the flat flat country, golde n whi te and spotted black bla ck wi th flatflat-top toppe ped d  thorn trees; you could see why they once called it 'leopard country'.  Below  us was the min e. There were grey spoil tips and the new American crushing plant, green with purple scaffolding, and the old French mine  that  went bust,, because the bust the co pper was lo w-g rad e ore and they could n't ship ship it out economically. There were silver fuel tanks and shiny aluminium cabins and  yellow  cranes and bulldozers. Beyond we cou ld see see the the t ow n o f mud bri ck box es, and shan shanties ties made o f packing cases, and the  tents  o f  the nomads. The Major pointed to a grey hill where he had shot gazelles. said. d. 'Th ou gh t yo u' d like it up here.' 'Nice  view,'  he sai

He

looked  at his watch. looked  'Sorry, I'm afraid we have to go. I'm on parade at lunch.  Y o u ' l l see.' T h e Major was a neat, sandy-haired

man, greyi gre ying ng at the

temples. He wore khaki shorts, had a red face and red knees, and smiled wi t h a humor hu mor ou s grin. grin . He had been bee n retired from from the British Briti sh Army  and was working as personnel manager for the mine. The

company was American, but the Government did not allow American Ameri can s to staf stafff it, because o f Israel Israel.. Mos t o f the

mini mi ning ng

engineers wer e French. T h e Major had the unenviab le j o b of keeping Frenchmen happy in the desert and keeping American shareholders happy by keeping the costs down. statistic tic,' ,' he said. said. W e wer e taking our 'Let  me blind y o u wi th a statis trays in the canteen. 'It costs six times less to keep an Englishman in the desert  than  a French man, and  three  times less than a Yank .' W e  helped ourselves to  artichaut vinaigrette  andfilet de boeuf  with

mushrooms and a carafe of  beaujolais  nouveau.  The month was December. There were Frenchmen eating at most tables. The Major and I both wore khaki shorts. The Frenchmen stared at our knees and raised their eyebrows, nodding. 48

 

T h e   Attractions  o f  France 'T h e  English like filthy food,' I said.

'Probably something to do with the war,' said the Major. 'Probably.' 'I mean, Englishmen have had to make do.' ' N o t  all  o f  them,' I said. I  had been eating goat and couscous for some days.

'It's delicious,' I said.

' Y o u   wait, ' the the Major said said.. 'T he y' ll soon come ov er and complain.'

'There's nothing to complain about.' 'They'll  find something.  I f we  got the  Tour  d'Argent  to fly their

meals out, they'd still complain.' 'Only  tourists  go to the  Tour  d'Argent.'

and they ' Y o u   get in V i c h y and they wa nt Evian. Y o u get Evian and want Perrier. Can't win. I suggested a complaints book so they could  air specific grievances. They weren't having it. Want to

complain personally. It's supposed to be a safety  valve.' ' R o u g h  on you,' I said. 'Can 't g  get et used to bei ng a safet safety y valve for Frenc Fr ench h steam.'

'It must be  hard.' 'I should put in for a change.'

B y   working abroad and avoiding the taxman, the Major was hoping to set aside a small capital sum to  retire  on. His wife  had been out here. She had sat in the cabin with gardening catalogues. Planning her garden had kept her sane, but she couldn't take the heat. T h e  Major and I ate the main course. Then a big man in blue

jeans came over. He had a lock   o f black hair  rat-tailing down his forehead. He held out his Camembert on a plate. 'Monsieur, ce Camembert  n'est  pas mur.' 'What's he  say?' 'It's not ripe.' 'It's cheese not fruit.' 49

 

Stories

'C'est  dur.'

'It's  hard.' 'I could tell him where to stuffit but I won't.' ' O n ne met pas les bons fromages fromages  dans le frigo.'

' Y o u   shouldn't put good cheese in the icebox.' ' W e  took 'em out last week,' the Major said, 'and they went

orange.' The man shrugged and went back to his table. He showed the Ca memb me mb er t to his his fr frien iends ds and squeezed squeez ed it wi th hi hiss thumb th umb . 'We'll never understand the Frogs,' said the Major. 'Niggers are

much less foreign to me  than  Frogs. I've lived with niggers all my

life.  Bright, some of'em. Really bright.' 'Very  bright,' I said.

'Not like the Moors. Gimme a nigger any day over a Moor. Less  stuck on religion.'

'Much less stuck.'

' Y o u   can work with niggers, but the Moors give an awful lot of bother.' 'H o w 's  that,  Major?' 'They  won't work and they  don't  want anyone else to work.

Government owns half this mine and doesn't even want it to pay.' 'Perhaps it's something to do with  their  religion.' 'Bloody  religion.'

'I read somewhere  that  Moors believe copper's the property of the  D e v i l . ' 'It is the property prope rty o f the  D e v i l .  I could have told you  that. All mining engineers are Devils. For sheer arrogance they beat the lot. Th in k they can blas blastt thro ugh any where. whe re. ' ' T h e y  are tough,' I said.

' Y o u   know something?' The Major  returned  to the Moors. 'Mo or s remind me o f Frogs. Same Same loo k. Bo t h l oo k at at y o u as as though you're  dirt.' 50

 

T h e   Attractions  of   France 'Don't let them get you down.' 'But  I hate 'em. We had a welder here. A Belgian.  Go o d boy. I 'But  used to cut his hair. Fell fifteen feet and broke his neck on a girder. A n d  the Moor who was helping him stood by and laughed.

Laughed Stood  there  laughing. It makes you sick.' In the evening it was windy and nights of swifts cut the green air. It was the  third year  o f  the drought. The nomads had lost most

o f   their livestock and nocked to the fringes of the mining camp. In the market a marabout was reciting the suras of the Koran. He was blind . His eyes were we re almonds o f red veins and cloud cl oud y blue-white cataracts. His words came harsh and soaring as a drum solo.  An old man kep t time wi th one hand. He rested the other

hand on the marabout's shoulders. He was his father. Som e camel men were we re saddling up. T h e saddl saddles es were we re  o f red and yellow  leather. The men hated the mine.

T h e Major ho ped pe d to get me a ride do wn o n the the com pan y plane. He said said w e shou ldn't ldn' t k n o w until the last last minu te. H e tel epho ned and got word  that  a Frenchman had cancelled. 'Cheers ''   he called.  ' Y o u ' v e  a seat.' W e  drove to the airstrip but found another Frenchman who

had taken his friend's place. So we drove back into town and found a white pick-up ready to leave. They were waiting for one more mo re passenger. I squeezed sque ezed in behi be hi nd the tailboard. 'I'm awfully sorry about the plane,' the Major said. 'Don't think about it.' pretty uncomfortable .' ' Y o u   lo ok pretty 'But  w i l l  survive.' 'It does seem awful after promising the plane.' 'I said not to worry, Major.' 'It's 'It's a shame. shame. Bl oo dy Frogs.' 'Don't let them get you down.' 5i

 

Stories

'Easier said  than  don e. N o fun stuck in the desert desert with wi th a lot o f Frogs.'

The engine  started  and the red  rear  light lig ht lit up the Majo r's shorts and knees. 'W e' re off, off,'' I said said.. 'G oo db ye , Major, and and thanks.' 'Cheers ' said the Major, looking miserable.

T H E JOURNEY  BACK

The boy lay on the floor  o f  the the pic k- up . His lo ng tapering hands hands held hel d on to a cott co tt on sheet. H e was trying try ing to k ee p the dust off his clothes. They were beautiful clothes, green pants, a  yellow sweater and a scarf striped striped orange and wh it e. He had wo rn th em fresh to  start  the the jo ur ne y and n o w they were we re greasy greasy and flou floury ry with sand. He was the best-looking boy I ever saw. He had the kind of inad equate. e. He was frigh frighten tened ed looks  to make anyo ne feel ugl y and inadequat and unhappy and kept rolling his huge black eyes and shivering. 'Where are you going?' 'Dakar.' 'Home?' ba ck at the frontier. frontie r. I had a passport and a nd th ey ' T h e y  turned  me back

turned  me back.' He was al alll br ok en up about b ei ng turned  back. 'Where were you going?' 'Paris.' ' T o  study?' ' T o  continue my profession.'

'What's that?'

' Y o u   wouldn't  understand.' 'I would.' 'Non, Monsieur. Comprenez-pas. C'est un metier special.' 'I know most occupations in France.' 52

 

T he   Attractions  of   France ' B u t   this metier, no.' ' S a y   it.' no t understand. I am an ebeniste. I mak e  bureaux' Y o u   w i l l  not

plats,   Louis Qu in ze and Louis  S e i z e . '

53

 

THE E ST S T A T E OF

MAXIMILIAN  T O D

O n  6 February  1 9 7 5 , D r Estel Estelle le Neu man n  fell down a crevasse of

the Belgrano Glacier in Chilean Patagonia. Her death robbed Harvard University  o f the finest finest glaciologist glaciol ogist at wo r k in the U ni te d States; States; I lost a close ally and a go o d friend. I cannot think  o f Estelle wi thou th outt recalling her humou r, her capacity capacity for  statistics and the blind, unreflecting courage  that  lacked the

imagination to  turn  round. Her work has continued, but in lesser hands; I could say treacherous hands. In February of last year, her research   student D r  (n ow Profe Professo ssor) r) H el mut mu t Leander, o f the  Institute  o f  Glacial

Studies at K y d d  C o l l e g e , Minnesota, published a 103-page attack

th e  Southern  Hemisphere.  T h e n in Septembe r, at on her  Glaciers  of  the the Symposium  o f W o r ld  Climatology i n  T e l -A - A v i v ,  he described her findings as 'irresponsible'. That evening, in the bar of the Hilton Hotel, I overheard shreds of his conversation explaining, in Germa n and to to an audience o f Wes t Germans, ho w the Ne um an n Th eo ry was the product prod uct o f it itss author's

incurable

optimism. 'Or else,' he added in a whisper, 'she was bought.' I checked her figures. I double-checked them. The work took

me six weeks: it left me red-eyed and exhausted. Estelle had scribbled her material over thirteen hip-pocket notebooks with black  leatherette covers —  equations, graphs and diagrams, which

she alone could decipher, or someone as close to her as I. I was 54

 

T h e   Estate  of   Maximilian  Tod d o it, as mu c h for her me mo ry as to reass reassure ure the obliged  to do organisations  that  had invested in our research. I found no fault with her data, her method or her conclusions. Estelle'ss w o r k was b ou n d to Estelle' t o upset the catastrop catastrophists. hists. She had proved beyond question  that  the injection  o f  fossil  fuels fuels in into to the atmosphere had no effect whatever on the  temperature  o f glaciers. The Th e prospects prospect s  o f triggering  o f f  another Ice A g e ,  at least least wi with th in the next 10,0 10,000 00 years, we re nil. A n d the pronou nce ment s

o f Dr

Leander and his colleagues merely reflected  that  bias for selfdestruction now engrained in American academic circles. 'Those dodos ' she would sigh. 'Those dodos ' Estelle published her thesis in 1965 and from  that year her wo rk attrac att racted ted the attention o f the chemical, chemi cal, the petr oche mical mica l and aerospace industries. T h e Cliffhart Fou nda tion ti on (a subsidiary o f Heartland Oil) financed our first project to the  tune  o f  $150,000. For  five  months we studied the  structure  o f Tyndall  Flowers, the six-petalled six-pet alled cavities wh i c h appear appear in parallel parallel layers on the surfac surface e

o f   melting ice and resemble the superimposed calligraphies of some Japanese  Zen Master. (The other expert in the field, Dr No no mu ra Hid eyo shi , had retired to a monastery near Nara.) Before  we had finished, nineteen other foundations pressed us

to accept what eve r mo ne y we needed . N o expense seemed unreasonable unreas onable to their their trustee trustees: s: they on ly wis he hed d the w o r k to continue. O n 9 Oc to be r 1974, a luminous  fall  day whirling with scarlet leaves, Estelle and I lunched at the Harvard Faculty Club to discuss

our expedi tion to the the Belgran o ice- cap. Ou r Eggs Ben edi ct wer e all  but uneatable,

our conversation conversati on dro wn ed by the braying brayi ng

accents  o f five  Oxford historians at the next table. Estelle Estell e was forty-three, forty-three , a handsome handsome,, masculine wo ma n w it h black

hair

cropped

short

and

worn

in

a

fringe

above

her

considerable eyebrows. Years  o f  exposure to sun, wind and snow 55

 

Stories

had burnished burnishe d her skin skin the texture o f shoe-leather; w h e n not beaming with self-satisfaction, her crow's-feet showed up white. Her dress was simple and unaffected, a sweater and tweed skirt for the laboratory, hardly anything more elaborate for the cheesefondue parties she gave in her Cambridge  apartment. But she was addicted to 'primiti ve' jew ell ery o f the worst kin d -

Navajo

turquoise, African bangles, amber beads. That morning a golden eagle  o f  the Veraguas Culture was flapping between her breasts; I did not have the  heart  to tell her it was a fake. Over lunch Estelle gave me a critical resume  o f the literature on;

Patagonian

glacie glaciers. rs. She cou ld rememb er

if a pamphlet

was

printed in  Valdivia  or Valparaiso in 1897 or 1899. She drew my

1

attention to some ne w wo r k by Dr And rei Shirokogoff, o f the

1

Antarctic  Institute in Novosibirsk, who explored the north face of Co rd on Tannhauser during th the e Allen de years. years. Bu t her c onvers a tion kept harping back to certain topographical details of the Belgrano  Glacier. Belgrano  She eyed me in a peculiar way. She asked a number of penetrating questions about our research fund  —  which was most unlike unl ike her. She even eve n asked questions abo ut o ur Swiss accoun acc ounts. ts. I can safely say that  my face was a total blank until she gave up and reverted to her superior manner.

She then spo ke o f V ai no

Mustanoja's  Patagonian  Researches,  published in English, in Hel sinki, in 1939. Musta noj a,' she said. said. 'His prose style is simply ' Y o u ' l l  lo ve old Mustanoj entrancing.' N o w  Estelle knew nothing about prose style and her choice of

the word 'entrancing' lay far outside her usual range  o f  adjectives. 'I' ve got to have it photostatted,' she we nt on . 'I promis ed old Shirokogoff  a copy. Know something? Peabody's got the only

Finns don' t eve n have a co py. ' copy  in existence. Th in k Th e Finns Excusing  myself, I hurried to the library of the Peabody Excusing  Museum and withdrew the quarto volume whose existence I had 56

 

T h e   Estate  of   Maximilian  Tod overlooked.  The pink paper cover was charmingly illustrated with  Mustanoja's own copper plate engraving of the Belgrano.

Rustic letters,  o f  nothofagus t wigs, formed the tides. tides. Ar ou nd the borders were vignettes of the ethnographical specimens he collected from the Te hu el ch e Indi Indian anss on his his 1934 expe dit ion and

presented to the Rovaniemi Museum. It touched me to think of these southerly artefacts in  that northernmost norther nmost city. I  turned  to pp.  141—2.  The stroke of a razor, two tw o neat folds and the sheet was in my pock et . Mustan Mustanoja's oja's prose style, it so happens, is outstanding for a Finn:

From Lago Angostura the track led across a plain denuded by wind  erosion and sparsely covered with xerophytic plants.

Stunted bushes  o f calafate  (Berberis  Darwinii)  man manage age d to exist, but the region was wild and poor, deserted by guanacos, unsuitable for sheep. After marching twenty-three miles with dust from the salt-pans streaming into my   eyes,  the wooded valley  o f  the Rio Tannhauser came into  view.  Bey ond , I could

see the pink and green  strata  o f the Meseta Meseta Col ora do; beyond

that,  the azure ice-caps  o f the Andean Cordillera.

A  descent  o f t w o hours brought me into the logging camp of Puesto Ibanez, where I had hoped to purchase a meal from the inhabitant inhab itants. s. For a w e e k my diet had been reduced redu ced to grilled military starlings  (Trupialis militaris) militaris),,  which were by no means easy to shoot, havi ng exceptionall y hard crania for birds  o f their size.

T h e  settlement, however, was in ruins, thanks to the activities  o f a Chi le an bandit. A w om a n squatt squatted ed before the

charred remains of her cottage, holding a dead baby and poi nti ng wi th an expression of abject abject misery at the half-dug grave  o f  her husband. This  dismal scene was offset, somewhat, by a magnificent

Emhothrium   coccineum  ablaze with scarlet flowers.  Along  the 57

 

Stories

riverbank we re groves o f fuchsi fuchsia a  (F.  Magellanica),  bamboos

(Chusquea   Cumingia)  and o f  Saxegothaea  conspicua.  An alstromeria was in bloom, as were  yellow  violets, calceolarias, the snowdrop orchis and an orange mimulus, which proved to be a new species and which my friend, Dr Bjom Topelius

o f   Uppsala, has named  M.  Mustanojensis  in my honou r. Th re e miles upstream I came on a burnt  timber shack, fresh evidence o f the bandit's bandit's w or k, from from whi ch I rem ov ed an interesting human calvarium. I pitched camp on an inviting meadow where, to my satisfaction, I noticed the fresh spoor of some Huemul deer and walked  o f f  to shoot my dinner. I had not gone  three  hundred yards when a doe came into my sights: sights: I dispatched her wi t h a single shot. A fawn then rushed up to its dead mother: I dispatched it as w e l l .  I had not, however, noticed  that  the buck had come within range  o f  the fawn.  My second shot passed through the skull  o f  the latter and

carried carri ed awa y the symphysial symphysial reg ion o f the l ow er j a w o f the former. I was  thus  obliged to  kill  the  third  animal and exterminate the family. In the morni ng, tho rou ghl y nourished, I set set off to expl ore the Meseta Colorado ... The next page of  Patagonian  Researches  — and eve n n o w I trembl e at the tho ug ht o f reveal tremble rev ealing ing its its contents cont ents - describes Mustanoja's discovery  o f a 'lost' valley ov erl ook ed by the British British surveyors  o f  the Holditch Commission in 1902. It appalled me to think  that Estelle was aware  o f  its existence. On 3 Nov emb er I flew  ffrrom N e w Y o r k  to Buenos Aires. I was alone, having arranged for her to  give  the F. Z. Bo ei ng Memoria l Lect ure in Seattle, Seattle, an invitati invi tation on she cou ld hardly refuse. refuse. W e agreed to meet in January at a poi nt o n the Arg en ti ne front frontie ierr near Esquel. I reached reached Lago Angostura on 9 No ve mb er . Th e settlement settlement had 58

 

T h e   Estate  of   Maximilian  Tod grown  since Mustanoja's time. The estancia now belonged to a

German, Don Guillermo Meingast, who came here after World War   II. There was a police post, a gas-pump and the Hotel-Bar Alhambra,  a corrugated iron building, painted a livid green but

stripped by salt dust on the windward side. T h e  owner was a sorrowful young widow running to fat who

spent her days lacquering her nails and leafing through Argentine football  magazines. magazines . Di nner nn er , the invariable dinner dinn er o f the Pata-

gonian pampas, consisted  o f a can  o f sardines, a lump  o f lamb that bounced on the plate and acid red wine  that  came in a penguin jug.

T h e  two other customers wore  hard hats and sat by a window playing  dominoes. One was a big weatherbeaten man with an

implacable mouth and wandering  eyes,  dressed from head to foot in black. His partner  was a hunch hu nch back ba ck Indian dwarf. T h e  dwarf wo n the game and said, 'Vamos ' quiedy, and the big

man sheathed his knife and sat him on his forearm. Together they rode  o f f  into the storm. T h e  track to Puesto Ibanez still answered Mustanoja's descrip

tion, but there was no sign o f the logging camp and the valley floor was  ch ok ed wit h bamboos. N o travell traveller er wit hou t a cop y o f

Patagonian  Researches could have found his way up the  cliffs  o f  the Meseta.

readin g is correct corr ect - I stood stoo d o n A t   5,050  feet - if m y aneroid reading Chilean  territory and looked down from the ridge where Mustanoja first sighted the  valley.  I let my eyes wander over the sights he described so vividly: the barrage  o f purple clouds ringing the ice-caps; the 'hole'  o f clear  blue blu e sky; the rainbow rai nbows; s; the chutes

o f   light rain; the Bel gran gr ano o itself 'streaming l ike the folds folds of of a wedding  garment': the glittering screes of micaceous schist, the black  fores forests ts and, far far be lo w, the river snaking snak ing through throu gh bright

green pastures. More  than  ever I realised what he meant by 'the ideal 59

 

Stories

microclimate'.

I

followed

the

track

downwards,

zigzagging

through a 'floweri ng mead'  o f columbines, tulips, narcissi, widow iris, crocuses crocus es and fritilla fritillaries ries  — al  alll Asiatic spec  species; ies; in fact, fact, the nu mber mb er

o f   rarities from the Caucasus and Hindu Kush made it clear  that the plantsman plantsman

was a botanist

o f no ordinary ordina ry c om pete pe te nc e. I

stopped beside a gnarled cypress to rest in a hut built  o f  bark and

tree  roots and modelled on Rousseau's hermitage in the park at Ermenon vill e (af (after the engraving by Huber t R ob er t) . And the track  itself  less ss a wo rk  o f art art - spread spread wi t h wh it e gravel and itself was  no le so graded to ensure perfect footfalls with all debris and jarring stones removed. Brushing through curtains  o f jade -gre en lic hen I plun ged into the dark wood of  Nothofagus

antarct antarctica, ica,  silent silent but for the to c-

tocking  o f  Magellan woodpeckers. Another descent of 1,000 feet brought me into the dappled sunlight  o f  young specimen trees  — poplars, paulownias, wing-nuts, Siberian birches and the blueneedled Kurile larch. The valley floor was an expanse  o f  undulating turf that  proved not to be  o f gras  grass, s, bu t a carpet  o f th  the e  prostrate  Andean strawberry, studded with fruit  that  gave  o f f  a delicious smell smell wh e n crushed.

A   cobalt ribbon of Iris  Kaempferi  bor der ed a lake wh os e waters were the palest silvery celadon and so  transparent  that  the  trout floating over its bed  o f  wh it e stones stones seemed see med to be airborne. airbo rne. These irises were the only blue flowers in the  valley. Oth erwi se, the veget ation consi consiste sted d o f whi te  w i l l o w s ,  w h itemargined aralias, silver whitebeams and the tansy-leaved  thorn. Among  the flowers were a white eremurus, Moutan peonies, the

Mount Omei rose and the  waxy  pagodas of the giant Himalayan

lily.   Or else the plants were black, black trilliums, black-stemmed bamboos and the  Black  Knight Fritillary from Kamchatka. The spat sp athe hess of the Cre tan D rag on Ar um people d a gro ve  o f  willows with funereal shades. Mr Tod's house  — for that was the name  o f the proprietor  — was 60

 

T h e   Estate  o f  Maximilian  Tod an airy pavil ion built o n a kn oll about one hundr h undr ed yards yards from from the water. It was thirty-five feet square, aligned to the cardinal points, and had  five  sa sash sh wi n do ws on each face face exc ept for for the  north.  The walls  were of battened vertical planks painted the colour of

pewt er. T h e glazi ng bars bars wer e a wa rm ivory. N o  structure  could be simpler. It owed its severity and perfect

proportions to the Utopian projects  o f Ledoux  and the houses of Shaker communities in New  Y o r k  State. The only  attempt  at decoration lay in two  thin  stri strips ps of bead ing round the wi n d o w frames, one painted a dark lapis, the other a dry red.

Y e t   the architect had avoided the absolute regularity of the West ern tradition tradition.. Th e ro of was  slightly  hipped in the Chinese manner; none  o f the walls we re precisely  the same length; all were

fractionally   inclin inc lined ed inwards; and these marginal assymetri assymetries es gave the building an air  o f  movement in repose. T h e  doorstep door step was a slab slab  o f grey  schist, chamf ered at the corners corner s

and embedded with balas rubies. A bed   o f rue had been planted to conceal the foundations fou ndations and the glaucou gl aucouss foliage see med to lif liftt the

house above the ground.

A t  the foot of the knoll was a wooden pillar, ten feet high and lacquered cinnabar red. Hitched to it with a green rein was a light bay ba y Turkoman stallion. The saddle was  o f th  the e Mon go li an type, type, o f yellow  leather, with base silver stirrups.

A   b o y came out o f the ho house use wit w it h a peregrine pereg rine falcon on his gauntlet. He wore a collarless shirt of grey silk, snuff-brown breeches breech es and red leather boots c rinkl ed like a concertina. His grey un ted eyes  lo ok ed only into the eyes o f the bird. He mo unted

and

cantered  o f f  westwards towards a cleft in the mountain  wall.

A   second path led ove r a cloud -blu e bridge that arched over the stream into a pasture. A range  o f buildings sh ow ed up indistinctly indistinctly from beh ind a smoke screen o f whit wh it e poplar poplars. s. Nea rb y was the black  neo-classical pig eon eo n house whe re M r T o d was in the habit 61

 

Stories

o f   training his favourite birds to imitate the dances of  Sufi dervishes in trance. O n such occasions he would wear boots  o f canvas and rawhide el elk k  and a  hubertusmantel  o f light grey loden lod en cloth. clo th. He was an

athletic man of about  fifty-five  . . . but it is not my intenti int enti on to describe his appearance in this memoir.

A l l  the interior walls of his house were painted an ivorycoloured  tempera. T h e  shutters were grey: there  were no curtains. T h e hall was lit by a Swedish chandelier with amber instead of crystal  drops. T h e fl floo oorr was a pebble peb ble mosaic o f jasper

and

chalcedony  from the screes of the volcano. Laid out on a trestle

table were two Purdey shotguns and a pair   o f Napoleonic  green morocco  dispatch boxe bo xe s, one on e no w used for cartridges, cartridges, the other oth er for  trout  flies. Around the walls was an arrangement  en  trophee  o f

split cane rods,  gaffs  and Mr To d' s archery archery equipment: a y e w w o o d  b o w made for the Che val ier de Monv il le in 1788, a

Mongolian  double-reflex bow, and a Japanese  samurai target of

the Muromachi.

A   pair of Austrian ice-axes were crossed about the lightest imaginable rucksack, stitched from strips  o f seal bladder and lashed to a frame  o f laminated birch. T h e  kitchen and bathroom were purely functional, the only evidence  o f luxury b  bei ei ng a se sett  o f silver-lidded toilet pots made of imperial porphyry. Apart from some built-in cupboards, the rest

o f   the house was a single room, heated by a Rostrand stove of whit wh it e faience tiles. tiles. T h e floor floo r was a parquet  o f  scrubbed pine. The rug was Tibetan and blue.

A t   the eastern end  o f t  the he roo m there was a screen cover cov er ed wit h the palest orange Hawaiian tapa-cloth and, behind it, Marshal campaig n bed w it h its its original lime green gr een taff taffet eta a Ney's  steel campaign hangings. O n  the back of the screen hu ng the few watercolours waterco lours and

62

 

T he   Estate  of  Maximilian 

Tod

drawings, salvaged fro from m a far larger larger coll ectio n and wh i c h M r T o d

did not now absolutely loathe. Among them were:  The  Horsehair

Standards   of   Suleiman  the Ma gnificent gnificent,,  by the Germa Ge rma n draughtsman draughts man Melchior  Lorch;  The  Mechanics  of an  Eagle's

Wing,  by Jacopo

L i g o z z i ;   a miniature of an Arctic Tern done by Mansur for the Emperor Jahangir; a few brushstrokes  o f the quarry at Bibemus;  an Caspar Dav id Friedrich; Friedrich; Delac roix' s o w n rumpled ice-floe  by Caspar bed-sheets, bed-she ets, and o ne o f Turner' s

'col our beginnings ' — tw o

crimson clouds in a golden sky. Apart  from a steel  chaise  de  camp  and Baron Vivant-Denon's travelling desk, the furniture  o f the room was  o f  no consequence.

said he had no time for furniture  that wo u ld not fit fit on the M r   T o d said pannier  o f  a mule. Ther e wer e, howe ver , two wi ng chai chairs rs wit h  decisively  cut linen tables we re arranged the covers.  And on  three  grey tempera tables collection of curiosities  that Mr Tod, by a process of elimination

and the exigencies o f  travel,  had reduced to the bleak essentials. In none  o f  the works  o f  art was the human image to be found. Inventories make tiresome reading, so I shall confine the list to a Shang  bronze fang-i with the 'melon-skin' patina; a Nuremberg

sorcerer's mirror; an  Aztec  plate with a purple bloom; the crystal reliquary o f a Gandharan Gandha ran stupa; stupa; a gol d moun mo un te d bezoar; bezo ar; a ja de flut flute; e; a w a m pu m belt; a pink granite Horus Ho rus falcon o f Dynast Dyn ast y I and some Eskimo morse ivory animals which, for all the stylised attenuation  o f their features, seemed positively to breathe. I must, however, single out  three  cutting implements since they were the

subject of Maximilan Tod's essay  Die  Asthetik  der  Messerschdrfe, published in Jena  in 194 1, in whi ch he claimed that  all weapons are artificial claws or canines and  give  their users the satisfaction k n o w n  to carnivores as they rend warm flesh. These  were:

1 A n Ach eul ian fli flint nt hand-axe hand- axe from the Seine Gravels wi th the 63

 

Stories

added attract attraction ion o f Louis Q ui nz e ormo lu mounts and the dedication, 'Pour le Roi'. 2  A German Bronze-Age  dagger excavated by Mr To d' s fath father er

from a tumulus at Ueckermtinde on the Baltic. 3 A swo rd blade from the collect ion  o f  his friend and teacher, teach er, Ernst Ern st

Gru G ruenw enwald ald ,

dated

1279 and and

signed by

To shi ru

Yoshimitsu,  the greatest swordsmith  o f Mediaeval Japan. (A  ( A

mark on the blade signified  that  it had successfully per formed, on a criminal, the movement known as   iai,  an upward thrust that se  severs vers the bo dy clean from the right hip to the left shoulder.) N o r  shall I omit a description of  three  other items from the Gruenwald  Collection: a tea tea bo wl byK oe ts u called called 'Mountains in Winter', a box of woven birchbark from the Gold Tribe of

Manchuria, and a block  o f blue-black  stone with green markings and the inscription:'  This  inkstone  with Dead  Eyes  Eyes  comesfrom   the Old

P it   o f  the Lower  Cliff  at Tuan Hsi and was the property  of  the painter  Mi Fei.' In

the bark

bo x M r

To T o d ke pt

his his t w o most

treasured treasured

possessions: posse ssions: a calligraphy by the Z e n Master, Sen Sotan, Sota n, wi th the tenet: 'M an originally originall y posse possesse ssess nothing noth ing ', and a landscape scroll by M i  Fei himself —  painter of cloud-like  mountains and mountain

like  clouds, drunk,  petromaniac, connoisseur o f inkstones,  hater o f   domesticated animals, who roamed about the mountains with

hi hiss priceless priceless art art c oll ect ion always beside hi him. m. T h e  walls of the room were bare but for a framed Turkish calligraphy,  written on a gilded skeleton  leaf  wi th a line from from

Rumi (Mathnavi  V I , 723): 'To be a dead man walking, one who has died before his death.' M r To d' s library - the visible part o f it at at lleast east - was not no t a library

in the usual sense but a collection  o f texts  that held for him some special significance.  T h e y we re boun bo un d in grey papers papers and kept in a

64

 

T he   Estate  of  Maximilian  Tod shagreen travelling box. I shall itemise the order of their arrangement, since this this order  itself furnishes furnishes a measure  o f insight into their owner's character: Cassian's treatise on  A c c i d i e ;  the Early Irish Poem  The Hermit's  Hut;  Hsien Hsien Yi n Lung's Poetic Poetic  Essay

o n   Living  in the M ountai ountains; ns;  a facsimile  o f the  t he  De  Arte Venandi  Cum Avibus   by the Empe ror Freder ick II;  Abu'l  Fazl's account of Akbar's  pigeon  flying;  John  Tyndall's  Notes  on the Colour  of  Water

a nd   Ice;  Hugo von Hofmannsthal's  The  Irony  of  Things;

La ndor's

Cottage   by Poe; Wol fg ang Hammerli's  Pilgrimage  of Cain;  Baude laire's prose poem with the English title Any  where out of  o f  the th e  World and the 1840 1840 editio edi tion n  o f Louis  Agassiz's  Etude  sur  les Glaciers  with the appe ndi x of chromoli chro moli thograph thog raphss o f the Jungfrau Jungfrau and other Swiss glaciers.

It should be clear, even to the most unobservant reader,   that  I am

Maximili an T o d . M y

history history

is is unimportant.

I

detest detest

confidences.  Besides, I bel ieve iev e that a man is the sum  o f his things, even  i f a few fortunate fortunate me n are the sum s um  o f  an absence of things.

Y e t  a few facts of my existence may help pattern  my acquisitions into a chronological sequence. I  was born bo rn on 13 Marc Ma rc h 1921 in the granite mansion o f my American  forebear forebearss at Buck sport, spo rt, Mai ne. (The ( The house contained

an indiffer indifferent ent portrait portrait by Co pl e y and a colle ction of  Attic  vases

that  did not, even as a child, excite my cupidity.) My father was Caleb  Saltonstall Todd and my mother Maria Grafin Henkel von Trotschke of Ueckermiinde in East Prussia. The Todds of

Bucksport  o w e d their fortune to the expor t of ice to India. India. M y

Germa Ge rma n ancestors ancestors stepped into history his tory in the afterma aftermath th o f the Mongol  invasions. invasions . My father father was a disciple  o f Madison  Grant and was  forever quoting from  that  author's  The  Passing  of the  Great

Race.  As an undergraduate undergra duate o f the Harvard Harvar d Class o f  1 9 1 0  he read and swallowed the racial philosophy of Ernst Haeckel, whose attempts attem pts

to explain expl ain history in terms terms

o f a crude biolog bio log ical ica l

determinism are an affront to logic and common sense.

65

 

Stories

firsst wen t to German y in 1 912 whe re his looks Caleb  T o d d fir w o n  him many admirers and his charm concealed a mind of

exceptional vacuity. At Harvard he had become interested in archaeology and, after reading Kossinna's inflated chronology of the German Bronze  A g e ,  seriously believed that  the Aryan Race had occurred, spontaneously, on Liineburg Heath. He stayed in America  for the  duration  o f  the War, but went back to Germany

in 19 19. Whi le excavat ing the tumulus tumulus on the the V o n Trots chke' s estate, esta te, he met me t my moth er and married her. Th e summer summerss o f my child hood wer e divided be twe en M aine and the vast neo-classical house at Ueckermiinde, with its view  o f

marsh and sky and its atrium  o f frigid marble goddesses. I can date my enthusiasm for blue ice to a visit to the Hamburg Kunsthalle in 1930 where I saw Friedrich's masterpiece  The  Wreck  of   the th e  Hope.  I confirmed  this  passion in 1934 w h e n I firs firstt set eyes o n the

pinnacles and 'chimneys'  o f  th the e  Lower  Grindelwald Glacier. M y  mother drowned in a yachting accident in the  G u l f  o f

Bothnia in June  1938, the con seque nce  o f  my father's cowardice and lack  o f  seamanship. I never saw him again. M y  education had been  entrusted  to private  tutors: as a result I

was entirely self-educated. In May  19371 published the first  o f  m y

art-historical essays, on Altdorfer's  Alexanderschlacht  in Mun ich . Some  months  before I had bought from an  antiquaire  in the rue du Bac the steel easel on which Napoleon had the picture wheeled into his bathroom at Malmaison. My theme was the expression in the eye of Darius, horrified yet amorous, as he sees the tip of Alexander's  lance aimed at him through the furious melee  o f  the Alexander's  battle. I was in Innsbruck Innsbr uck w h e n war was declared, declare d, takin ta king g notes for an article on the Archduke Ferdinand's Wunderkammer at Schloss Ambras. I knew the United States would fight with the  A l l iiee s ,  and Ambras. I

hurried  to Berl in. Th r ou g h the influence o f my grandfa grandfather ther I became a citizen  o f  the Reich. 66

 

T h e   Estate  of   Maximilian  Tod M y  reasons for choosing Germany were aesthetic. I believed

that war is Man's supreme aesthetic experience and  that  only the Germans and Japanese under stood stoo d this. this. O n l y they understood unders tood the texture  o f war:  it it was unthink unth inkable able to fight on the othe r side. N o t  that I or my frie friends nds e xpec ted to wi n. W e ne ver shared shared the hysterical  optimism o f the Hig h Com ma nd . W e fought for

reasons

inexplicable

to

those

opportunist

parvenus:

for

Bolshevism  and Nati N ati ona l Socialism Soci alism we re facets facets of the

us, same

phe nome no me no n. N o r did w e fight for the Fatherland. Fatherland. W e fought foug ht only to fight. W e fought fo ught , in fact, fact, to lose. Aesthetica Aesth etically, lly, it is is always

safer to lose. In Berlin I made friend friendss wi th Ernst Ernst Gru G ruenw enw al d, the Secretary o f the German-Japanese Friendship Friendshi p Socie Soc iety. ty. H e had li lived ved thirty years in Japan,  ten  o f them in the Daitoku-ji Monastery in  K y o t o . He alone in the wes t unders und erstoo tood d the quality in art art the Japanese call 'wabi'.  Literally the word means 'poverty', but applied to a work

 true  beauty, 'the beauty that breaks away from o f  art it means that  that true this world', must rely on the use   o f  its humblest materials. I  went to  live  wit h Gruen Gru enwal wal d at his his count ry house near Eberswalde.  That summer, intoxicated by the scent of late-

flow flower erin ing g lindens, lindens , w e practised Z e n archery wh il e, outside the gates,  tanks rumbled along the road to Poland.

In De ce mb er 1940 1940 I jo in ed the 24th 24th Panzer Korp K orp s; in the following  summer we invaded the Ukraine. I could squeeze few luxuries into my  tank,  but did manage to take my Purdeys, some

volumes  o f Voltaire  and my smo kin g jack et. M y frien friend d Rai ner v o n  Hagenburg and I had agreed to  attend  the first night of the

renamed  Bolshoi Ballet in civilian dres dresss - a performance performan ce w e k n e w would  never take place.

aspect o f the invasion disappointed me: the exc elle nce of N o  aspect wildfowl  shooting in the Pripet Marshes; the oxyhydrogen flares

o f   the th e flame-throwers; th the e  yellow shield  o f a dead Mongol's face; the Soviet loudspeakers blaring the Budenny March over long67

 

Stories

abandoned

wheatfields;

the

drawn

but

happy

faces

of

the

aristocrats who greeted us after twenty-four years  o f living  death. tembe mberr 1942, 1942 , at ou r a ass ssau ault lt on Stalingrad, a bullet bul let O n  12 Sep te caught me in the groin. Laid out on a field stretcher I removed the fina final'd l'd''

from my name. name . A n d yet ye t I reco re co vere ve red d from from the oper ation. ati on.

V o n   Hagenburg even recovered my Voltaire and my Purdeys. I returned,  an invalid, to Berlin. The next summer found me in Finland in my capacity as expert on the fracture of ice.  At Rovaniemi I met Vaino Mustanoja, a man whose  tastes  corresponded so precisely with my own. His description of the Patagonian glaciers fired me with longing for the Far South. I envied his collection  o f  Eskimo artefacts. Mustanoja had built a Doric pavilion in the forest. Inside and out were painted black and stencilled with silver tears  in memory

o f   the room decorated by the regicide St Just  at Rheims. Here, with the light  o f  white nights nickering through the birches, we dined on gravlax, smoked reindeer fillet and cloudberries, our conversations unexhausted by the morning. Here also I witnessed his sad end. late as No ve mb er 1944 the Fiihrer was was impo rting rti ng porp hyry A s   late colu mns fro from m Swed en , doubtless intende int ended d for some mon ume nt to himself, doubtless unaware  that  Swedish porphyry is not an acceptable  substitute  for Egyptian. His geologists were incapable quality. M y services services were we re accepted. acce pted. I o f   cho osi ng stone o f g o o d quality. left  for Stockholm, taking with me the finest pieces of the

Grue nwal d Col le ct io n, savin saving g the m from from certain certain

destruction. destruction.

Th ro ug h an intermediary intermediary I gave the Cr o w n Prince a stem cup that had belonged to the Emperor Hsuan Tsang. I was granted asylum. The cup was no loss: it was, in my opinion, the only lapse in Gruenwald's taste. In

1945 1945 I bec ame

an

Arge nti ne

citizen

and  under  the

pseudonym of Mills  began be gan my academic career as as a glaciolog ist. 68

 

T h e   Estate  o f  Maximilian  Tod Eventually I  returned  to the United States, where, from minor colleges,  I assembled a portfolio  o f  pointless distinctions.

I began wo rk on my 'refined Th eb ai d' in the souther n summer inevitabl e in o f   1947-8, believing at the time  that nuclear war was inevitable the Northern Hemisphere. In the years  that  followed  I spent at least three  months in my valley,  but by i960 inflation, the cost of frei freigh ghtt and the blackmailin blackmai lin g demands o f Ch il ea ean n and Ar gen tin e officials  had eaten into the capital I had placed in  Swiss  banks.

I met Estelle Ne um an n in the Pea bod y Mu s eu m in 1962 as she was  admiring a case of glass  flowers.  She Sh e said said she came ca me

from from

Trenton,  N e w  Jersey. I was surprised, neither by Trenton nor her admiration for the  flowers.  I fou nd in her an ideal mix tur e of brilliance and incredib le stupidity. N o original tho ugh t entered her head, ye t she did have hav e the wi t to appropriate appropriate each one on e  o f  m y suggestions as her own. as planne pla nned. d. I am B u t  now my schemes have not  turned  ou t as writing this memoir in a tin shack in the Atacama Desert. My water is runn ing  low. I had intended to settle for ever in my valley; I have left it for others to pillage. I have have le left my yo un g compan ion. I have left my things. I, who with bedouin rigour abolished the human form from my possessions ... I, who did everything to protect my retina from the visual affronts  o f the twent ieth century, n o w I to o am prey to hallucinations. hallucinations. W o m e n wi th red fac faces es leer at at me. W e t lips lips slaver slaver ov er me. Monstro us blocs bl ocs o f col our smother me. Je dus voyager,  distraire  les enchantements  assembles  dans  mon

cerveau.   One particular colour continues to torment me: the orange  o f  Estelle Neum Ne um an n' s anorak the second before I pushed her.

1979

69

 

BEDOUINS ...  and  dwell in tents that ye may 

live long live  long in the

land   where ye  are strangers. Jeremiah

He was travelling to see his old father who was a rabbi in Vienna. His skin was white. He had a small fair moustache and bloodshot eyes,  the eyes of a textual scholar. He held up a grey serge

overcoat, not k n ow i ng wh er e to hang it. it. He was ver y shy. H e was so  shy  that  he could not undress with anyone else in the

compartment. I went into the corridor. The  train was speeding up. T h e lights lights

o f   Frankfurt disappeared into the night. Five minutes later he was lying on the upper bunk, relaxed and

eager to talk. He had studied at a Talmu Ta lmu di dic c Academy in Brookl yn.

His fathe fatherr had left Amer Am er ic a fifte fifteen en years earlier: the morn mo rn in g would  reunite them. He and his father disapproved  o f America.  T h e y mistrusted the Zionist  mood. Israel was an idea, not a country.  Besides,  Jahweh gave the Land for his Children to wander through, not to settle or

sink roots there. his fami family ly had lived in Sibiu in Rom an ia . W h e n Before  the war his the wa r came they the y hop ed they we re safe safe;; then, in 1942, Nazis Naz is set a mark on the house. T h e  father shaved his beard and cut his ringlets. His Gentile

70

 

Bedouins

servant fetched him a peasant costume, black breaches and a smocked linen  shirt.  He took his first-born son and ran into the woods.

T h e Nazis to ok the mother, mot her, the sis siste ters rs and the baby bo y. T h e y died in Dachau. The rabbi walked through the Carpathian beech forests with his son. Shepherds sheltered him and gave him meat. The way the shepherds slaughtered sheep did not offend his principles. Finally, he crossed the Turkish frontier and made his wa y  to America.

father er a and nd son son wer e returning to Roma ni a. Re ce nt ly they N o w  fath had a sign, poi nti ng the wa y back . Late Late one night, in his his apartment in Vi enn a, the rabbi reluctandy relucta ndy answered answere d the door bell. bel l. O n the landing stood an old woman with a shopping basket. She said, 'I have found you.' She had blue lips and wispy hair. Dimly he recognised his Gentile servant. ' T h e house hou se is safe,' safe,' she said. said. 'Forg 'Fo rg iv e me . For years I preten pre ten ded it was now a Gentile house.  Y o u r  clothes are there, your books even.  I am dying. Here is the key.'

' A l l   houses are Gentile houses,' the rabbi said. 1978

71

 

Ill

' T H E  N O M A D I C A LT ERN A T IVE'

 

LETTER T O T O M MASCHLER

24th  February,  1969

Dear  Tom,

propos ed boo b oo k on Y o u   asked me to writ e yo u a letter about my proposed nomads. I cannot p rov ide id e a history  o f nomads. It wo u l d take years years to write. In any case I want the book to be general  rather than specialist  in tone. The question I  w i l l  try to answer is 'Why do

men wander  rather than  sit still?' I have proposed one title  —  The

Nomadic   Alternative.  W e obvio Nomadic ob vio usl y w o n ' t use use it. it. It It is too rational rational a title for a subject  that  appeals to irrational instincts. For the moment it has the advantage of implying  that  the nomad's  life  is not inferior to the city cit y dwe lle r' r's. s. I have to try and see the nomads as they see themselves, looking outwards at civilisation with envy or mistrust. mistrust. B y civilisation civilisat ion I mean  'life  in cities', and by civilised those who  live  within the ambit  o f  literate urban civilisation. All civilisations  are based on regimentation and rational behaviour.

Nomads are uncivilised and all the words traditionally used in con nec ti on wi th them are charged wi th civilised civilised prejudices prejudices

-

vagrant, vagabond, shifty, barbarian, savage, etc. Wandering nomads are bound to be a disruptive influence but they have been blamed out of all  propor pro por tion tio n to the materia materiall damage they cause. cause. This blame is rationalised and justified  by fa fals lse e piety. Th T h e nomads

75

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' are excluded; they are outcasts. Cain 'wandered over the surface

o f   the earth'. T h e  firs firstt chapter migh t ask ask the question questi on - W h y wander? wand er? It coul co uld d

start with the Gr eek legend  o f Io and her compulsive wandering, and be called 'Io's Gadfly' (if   that's  not too trite). The word 'no mad' comes from words meani ng 'to pasture' pasture' b ut it it has has com e to apply to the th e earliest hunters as w e l l .  Hunters and herdsmen herd smen shif shiftt for  economic reasons. Less obvious are the reasons for the

nomad's intransigence in face of settlement even when the economic induce ments ar are e ove rwhel rw hel min gl y in it itss favour. Bu t the

mutual antagonism of citizen and nomad is only one half of the theme. The other is much nearer home 

—  E

S C A P I S M   (a good

personal reason for personal for writ ing in g the bo ok ). W h y do I be co me rest restle less ss after a month in a single place, unbearable after two? (I am, I admit, a bad case.) Some travel for business. But there is no economic  reason for me to g o, and and ev ery er y reason to stay stay put. M y motives,  then, ar are e materially irrational. Wh a t is is this this neurotic neur otic

restlessness, the gadfly  that  tormented the Greeks? Wandering may settle some  o f  m y  natural curiosity and my urge to explore, but then I am tugged back by a longing for home. I have a compulsion to wander and a compulsion to  return  —  a homing instinct like a migrating bird. True nomads have no fixed home as such; they  compensate  for this this by fo ll ow ing in g unalterable paths of migration.  I f these are upset it is is usually b y interfere inter ference nce from fro m the civilised  or semi-civi semi- civi lised lis ed half-nomads. half-no mads.

T h e result is chaos.

Noma No ma ds de vel op exaggera exag gerated ted fixations about their tribal tribal territory. 'Land is the basis  o f our nation. W e shall shall fight fight ' said a noma no mad d chief

o f  the second century  B C .  He cheerfully gave away his best horse, all h  his is treasure treasure and his favourite favou rite  w i f e ,  but fought to the death for a few fe w miles  o f useless scrub. This obsession for tribal land lies behind

the tragedy  o f  the Near East. The High Seas do not invoke quite the same emotional response, and territorial waters he close to

76

 

Letter  to Tom  Maschler

land. Sailors' emotions are directed towards the feminised ship

that  carries them and their home port. toda y's studies studies o f animal and Looking  at some o f today's

huma n

behaviour, one can detect two  trends  ... is a huma n charac character teristi istic c genetically gen etically inherited 1   Wan de ri ng is from the vegetarian primates. 2  A l l huma n beings being s have the emotion emot ional, al, i f not an actual actual

biological,  need

for

a  base,  cave,  den,

tribal

territory,

possessions or port. This is something we share with the carnivores.

Chapter

II  w i l l  deal

with

the

omnivorous

weapon-using

A R C H A I C   H U N T E R S .  They can be traced from the lower Palaeolithic to the present day. They ollow  their food foo d supply; they return  home to  base.  T h e y  take,  gratefully, what  nature  offers (chapter title title -

'Predators'?) 'Predat ors'?),, but make ma ke no practical ef effor fortt t o

propagate

food

their

supply,

except

by

ritually

identifying

themselves with animals or inanimate objects in their environ ment.  Living  for the moment, they are distinguished from us by having  a radically radically different different con cep t o f time and its significance,

though differences of this kind are  matters of degree  rather than kind. Their lives are not one long struggle for food, as many imagine. M u c h  o f their time tim e is passed passed in gross idleness, particularly particular ly the Australian Australian Aboriginals Aborig inals whos wh os e dialecti dialectic c arguments arguments k n o w no

bounds of complication. Th o u g h capabl capable e o f bouts o f intens intense e concentration while actually getting their food supply, they do not take kindly to manual work. The leaders lead; they do not coerce. Th e who le point  o f receiving a gift is to give it away; a pair

o f  tro  trousers users giv g iv en to an Aboriginal w i l l p  pa ass rapidly thr ough oug h twen tw enty ty hands and end up decorating a tree. Vendetta is a private  rather

than a public affair. If they  kill  one another, it is usually for ritual reasons. Mass extermi ext erminat nation ion is a speciality o f the civilised. T h e 77

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' 'Ne o-b arb ari sm' o f Hitler Hitle r was Civili sation in its its most vicious aspect. Chapter III  w i l l  be a discussion of Civili Civ ilisat sation ion (a (as som eth ing to escape escap e from). Chap te terr ti title tle - ' T h e Comfor ts o f Liter acy'. acy' . 'Put writing in your  heart.  Thus you may protect yourself from any kind ki nd o f labou r' - Egyptian Egypt ian scribe scribe to his his son  c.  2400  B C .   The triumph  o f  the white-collar worker was achieved over the backs

o f   sweated labour. The Civilisations o f the Old World crystallised in river valleys  where the soil was fertile but the choice was 'Make dams or be swept out to sea'. Note the hero's medals offered grateful ul M a o to those 'hu man dams' dr ow ne d posthumously   by a gratef while  blocking the Hwang-Ho in spate. Diffusionism is unfash

ionable but I believe (with  Lewis  among others)  that Civilisation as such was an accident  that  happened once and once only in the very  peculiar conditions of Southern  Iraq,  and  that  the con

sequences of this 'accident' spread as far as the Andes before debatable. O n it hinges the Columbus.  T his proposition is hig hly debatable. Columbus.  question 'Is 'Is Civil isation isat ion somet hing  natural — a state to  to wh ic h many different diffe rent cultures have irrevocab irrev ocab ly le led?' d?' 'Ar e those  that  did not failures  —  or are they alternatives to Civilisation?' 'Or is  Civilisa tion an  anti-natural accident?'  I f so,  the evolutionary analogies, of Darwinism and the survival of the fittest, are misapplied when used with reference to human cultures. In any case  writing develops devel ops hand in hand wi th specialisation, specialisation, standar standardisation disation and bureaucracy, and with them a stratified social and economic hierarchy, hierarch y, and the repression o f on e grou p by a ruli ng m mino inorit rity. y. The first written tablets record how much the slaves are bringing in. Literate Civilisation freed some for the higher exercises  o f  the mind, for the devel de vel opm en t o f logical logic al thou ght,

mathematics,

practical medicine based on scientific observation rather than  faith healing etc. But in Mesopotamia the two highest gods were Anu (Order) and Enlil (Compulsion). Breasted writes  o f  the 'dauntless 'dauntl ess

78

 

Letter  to  Tom  Maschler

courage  o f  the architect  o f the Great Pyramid'. However, the 2.5 million bl ocks we re hauled up by fettered fettered labour. labou r. Civilisation was

lashed   into int o place. W e inherit the load. Cha pte r IV 'He rds men' (or 'Pastora 'Pastoralist lists'). s'). T h e herding of domesticated animals was one  o f  the technical

advances that led towards the formation  o f Civilisation, but it was always  combined

with

some

sort

of

agriculture,

and

was,

therefore, always reasonably settled. settled. Tru e pastora pastorall noma dism, dis m, with herds on the move all the time and no agriculture, was not a

stage towards Civilisation.  It dev el elope ope d as an  alternative to it. It was directly  in competit ion wi th it, especially especially in bor der regions. Th e

art  o f riding provided the means  o f  mobility;  it was the 't ip- over' ov er' factor  that  enabled some groups to abandon agriculture and be permanently on the move. The pastoralist had much in common with  the  hunter  — they bel ieved iev ed in a mystical mystical bo nd bet wee n

animal and man. But from  Civilisation they learned the idea  o f  the unity  o f  the State, and from the techniques  o f herding and killing domesticated animals animals,, they discovered disco vered those those o f human coe rci on and extermination. This  is a long chapter and perhaps best divided into two. I  w i l l

then trace the origins of the great nomad cultures, the Scythians, the Huns, the Germanic  'waves',  the Dorian Greeks, the Arabs, the Mongols and the Turks, the last (semi)nomadic people to aspire to world conquest. There  w i l l  be an account of nomadic  life;  its its harshness and intolerance, its illiteracy and obsession with genealogies; the comparative lack of slavery,  though  that  did not preven pre ventt nomads from being the most successful slave traders; the renunciation  o f all but the most portable possessions in times of emergency; the failure to appreciate  civilised standards  o f human  life bal anced by a adjustment towards death, wh i c h the super-civilised super-civ ilised have natural  adjustment lost;  the communality  o f property and land within a tribe.  ' A l l  are

79

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' God's  guests. guests. W e share share and and shar share e alike' ( B e d o u chie f) ; the

position o f w o m e n (remar ( remarkably kably emancipated, particular particularly ly in Northern  A s i a ) ;  the sanctity o f the craftsma craftsman n etc. Chapter V  w i l l  conti co nti nue the story o f the nomads noma ds i n face face o f a

triumphant  agricultural and then industrial  Civilisation.  I may call it ' "Ci vi vili li sa sati tion on or Death Dea th " ' the cry o f the Amer ican ic an fron fronti tier ers s man. This  w i l l  be a record of the  hard  line towards nomads, its rationalised  hatred  and self-assumed moral superiority. Nomads are equated with animals, and treated as such. I  w i l l discuss the fate

o f   the Gypsies, the American Indians, the Lapps and the Zulus, also nomads within highly civilised societies, tramps, hobos etc. I would  give  an account acco unt o f the Beja in the Eastern Sudan, the Fuzzy-Wuzzies   of Kipling. They have been able to resist all

civilising  influences, since they were first mentioned in Egyptian

annals some  three  thousand years ago, only because they are prepared to tolerate the lowest level  o f personal personal comfort. T h e y are are sensationally idle and truculent as  w e l l .  Most  o f  the morning for the men is taken up by a fantastic mutual coiffure session (grooming urge?). There is also the depressing moral and physical effect  o f Civilisation  on the Arab. 'Law and order have settled in like  a blight on Sinai and Palestine' (G. W. Murray,  The  Sons  oj Ishmael).

Chapter VI  w i l l  be the reverse of Chapter V and  w i l l  trace the longings  o f civilised  men for a natural life  identified with  that  o f

the nomads nomads or other 'pri mitiv e' peoples. T o be called called 'Nost algia for  Paradise', the belief that all  all those w h o have hav e successfully resisted

or remained remaine d unaffected by b y civilisation have a secret to happiness happiness

that the civilised have lost. It is bound up with the idea  o f the 'Fall o f  Man', w  wit it h Paradi Paradise se myths and and Utopias , the My t h  o f t  the he No bl e and primitivist writings writi ngs from Hes io d on. on . Its Its most extrem ext reme e Savage  and form

is

Animalitarianism,

the 80

assumption  that  animals

are

 

Letter  to Tom  Maschler

endowed  with superior moral qualities to human beings. 'I could

turn  and  live  wi th the anim animals als

(Walt Whi tm an). an ). He nc e at a

different  level  the popularity of such books as  Born 

Free.

Otherwise it may emphasise the essential unity  o f animal and man,

an intellectual tendency far older than Ae so p and still still wi th us. W e also  have a lingering idea  that  eating animals is sinful, and it is

interesting to find  that some Asian hunting tribes preserve legends

o f  a Vegetarian Paradise, Paradise, a folk folk me mory mo ry  o f  our vegetarian primate days.

Chapter VII —  'The Compensations  o f  Faith' No ma ds are are hated - or adored. ador ed. Wh y ? It cannot cann ot be sheer chance chanc e

that no great transcendental faith faith has has ever ev er be en bo rn  o f an Ag e o f Reason.  Civilisation is its own religion; religion and  state  are wedded;  at the apex the god king of Egypt,  the deified Roman

emperor or the papal monarch. In its own day 'Pax Britannica' was  a religion, and and on e ni neteen th-ce ntur y sceptic sceptic described as

religion 'civilisation as inflicted on the "lower" races at the end of

a Hotchkiss gun'. The great faiths renounce material wealth and the idea  o f progress in favour  o f  spiri spiritua tuall values. Th ei r ideologies hark back to the religious experiences of the early   hunters  and herdsmen  — a complex of religious  beliefs known as Shamanism. T h e  shaman is is the original or iginal religious mystic, androgynou androg ynouss and

ecstatic. T h e nearest nearest the Chi C hi ne se have hav e to a transcendental transcendent al faith faith  — Taoism  —  is 'little more  than  systematised shamanism'; JudaeoChristianity, Zoroastrianism and the Hindu Buddhist traditions preserve their pastoral past (Feed my Sheep  — Th e Lord is is a G o o d Shepherd - The Flock o f the Faithful Faithful - Th e Sacred C o w ) . Islam is the great nomadic religion. Even in the Middle   A g e s  the ecstatic dualist cults of the Bogomils and Albigenses had their origins in Manichaeanism and the shamanic traditions  o f the western end of the steppe steppess and they paved pav ed the the way wa y for the Refor Ref ormat mat ion. io n. T h e religious leaders  o f th  the e  Civilised give way to the shamanic type of

81

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' religious  hero, the self-destructive evangelist, the celibate, the

wandering dervish or divine healer. Note the difference between the Shakers (ecstatics) who shook themselves out  o f existence  and the Mormons (enthusiasts), who aspired to the Presidency. The nomad no mad r enounce enou nces; s; he reflect reflectss in his his solitude; he

abandons

collective  rituals, and cares little for the rational processes of

learning or literacy. He is a man  o f  faith. T h e  Jewish diaspora obviously violates every  attempt  to

categorise it. I w o u l d think it wor th a chapter to itsel itself. f. Titl Ti tl e - ? 'T h e  Wan de ri ng Jew ' -

a daunting subject. subject. Th er e a are re t w o

questions que stions I w o u l d like to a s k - W a s Jewish  'exclusivism' kept alive by   the loss  o f  the 'Promised Land', their tribal territory? and were

their energies diverted as a result towards the nomad's other great stand-by - portable gold? Incidentally,, whil Incidentally wh il e w e are about it w e can lay for all all time the Great Aryan Myth; it surfaced again the other day in a new disguise  - the wishful thin kin g  o f  a frustrated frustrated lady archaeolo archae ologis gist. t.

Nor the rn nomads - T h e Bl on d Brutes - we re not the active masculine principle  that  fertilised an effete south. The Amazons are

not

my

idea

of

femininity;

they

could

not

aspire

to

womanhood till they had killed their man. Neither are the Maenads nor the Bacchae. They were all nomad ladies. There must be some other explanation. Chapter VIII w i l l continue some more general aspects  o f  nomadic behaviour, and may be called the 'Nomadic Sensibility'; their sense  o f values; the importance  o f  music (the drum and guitar are pre -emine -em ine ntl y nomadic noma dic instruments); instruments); the craving cravi ng for brilliant colour  and the reassuring brilliance of gold. Nomads wear the

most elaborate  jewellery;  a Bedou woman  w i l l  wear her whole fortune round rou nd her neck; nec k; the nomads' nomad s' roads to ecsta ecstasy sy - Tur ki sh Baths,  saunas, Indian hemp and mushrooms. Nomadic art is

intuitive and irrational  rather than  analytic and static. I could use 82

 

Letter  to Tom  Maschler

some illustrations to make my points and this chapter  w i l l obviously  be expanded as I go along.

Chapter IX to be called the 'Nomadic Alternative' calls into question the wh o l e basi basiss for for Civilisation, Civilis ation, and is is con cer ned wi th the present and future as mu ch as the past. past. Th er e have bee n t w o main inducements to wander:  E C O N O M I C  and  N E U R O T I C . For exampl e, the International

Set are neurotics. neuro tics. T h e y have

reached reach ed satiat satiation ion poi nt at ho me ; so they the y wa nd er - from from tax -h -have ave n to tax-have tax- have n wit h an occasional raid raid on the source  o f their wealth — 

their  base.  How often has one heard the lamentations of an

American  expatriate at the prospect of a visit to his trustees in

Pittsburgh. The same thing happened in the Roman Empire in the  third century 

D  and

later. The rich abdicated the responsibil

ities iti es o f their weal th; the cities bec ame unendu u nendurabl rable e and at at the th e mercy  o f propert pro pert y speculators. We al th was di divo vorc rced ed from from its its sources.  A strong  state  took over and collapsed under the strain. T h e  rich wore their wealth, and the governments passed endless laws  against against extravagance extrav agance in dress dress.. Co mp ar e the diamonds and gold boxes  o f today, and the  aura  attached to portable possessions.

T h e  mobile rich were impossible to tax: the advantages of no-

fixed-address were obvious. So the unpredictable demands  o f  the tax-collector we re laid at at the feet  o f those wh w h o cou c ould ld least least afford afford tto o pay.  Wandering passed from the neurotic to the economic stage. True nomads watch the passing  o f civilisations  with equanim ity;  so does China,  that  unique combination of  Civilisation  and

Barbarism. T he re is a g o o d Egyptia Egyp tia n text to illus illustrat trate e

the

patronising  attitude  of the super-civilised in his self-confident days.  'The miserable Asiatic ... he does not  live  in one place but

his feet wander ... he conquers not, neither is he conquered. He may plunder a lonely lon ely settlement settlement b ut he   w i l l neve r take take a popul ous city.'  Civili Ci vilisati sations ons destroy themselves; themselv es; nomads have h ave never (to my

certain knowledge)  destroyed o ne, thoug th oug h t hey are are neve r far awa y 83

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' at the  kill, and may topple a disintegrating structure. The civilised alone have control  o f their destiny, and I do not believe in any of the  cyclical  theories  o f  decline,  fall  and rebirth. N o w  for today. W e may have enou gh foo d even, but w e certainly

do not have enough room. Marshall McLuhan asks us to accept

that literacy, the linch-pin  o f  Civilisation i  iss O U T ; that  electronic technology  is by-pass by- passing ing the 'rational processes o f lear ning' ning ' and

that  jobs and  specialists  are things of the past. 'The World has become  a Global V i l l a g e , ' he says. Or is it Mobile Encampment? 'T h e  expert is the man who  stays  put.'  Literature, he says  w i l l

disappear, and the social barriers are coming down; everyone is free for the higher exercises  o f  the mind (or spirit?). One thing is certain 

— 

the Paterfamilias,  that  bastion bastion o f Civilis ation (not the

matri ma triarc arch) h) is right O U T . Mc Lu ha n is correct in mu ch o f his his analysis  of the effects of the new media. He does not seem to

appreciate their probable long-term consequences. They are likely to be  rather less than  comfortable. The old nostalgic dream

o f  a free free classle classless ss societ soc iet y may inde in de ed n o w be possible. B u t there are too many of us and  there  would have to be a drastic drop in population. Much of the world's population is on the move as never nev er before, before , tourists, tourists, businessmen, business men, itinerant labour, drop-o dro p-outs uts,, political activ  activists, ists, etc: like the nomads nomad s w h o firs firstt sat sat on a horse, hors e, w e

have again the means for total mobility. As anyone who owns a house knows,  it i  iss often cheaper to mo ve than to stay. But this new Internationalism has has activated a n e w parochialism. parochialis m. Separatism is

rampant.  Minori ties tie s feel threatened;

small small exclus exc lusive ive groups grou ps

splinter spli nter off off.. Th e ^ 5 0 travel allowa nce was not i mposed mpos ed for for purel y economic  reasons. Ar e these two trends not representative  o f the two basic human

characteristics characterist ics I me nt io ne d earlier? Yours  ever,

Bruce  Chatwin

84

 

THE  N O M A D IIC C

ALTERNATIVE

Diogenes  the Cynic said  that  men first crowded into cities to

escape the fury of those outside. Locked within their walls, they committed every outrage against one  another  as if this we re the sole  object of their coming together. Diogenes' deprecation of city  life is an early exa example mple o f 'cultural pr primi imitiv tivism' ism' or

'the

discontent of the civilised wi th civi civilisati lisation'. on'.   It It iiss an emo emoti tiona onall 1

rather than a rational impulse  that h  has as always led me men n to aband abandon on civilisation and seek a simpler  life, a life in harmony with  'nature',

unhamper unha mpered ed wi th possess possessions, ions, fre free e from the grind grinding ing bonds o f technology,  sinless, promiscuous, anarchic, and sometimes  v e g e 

tarian. Bu t  civilisation rarely lack lackss its its champions. 'A ll men have civic  —

virtues,' as Protagoras suggested   'a democratic note often in modern times associated with the  b e l i e f that democr  d emocr acy is a return to the original goodness of man.'   The word 'civilisation' is 2

charged wit h moral and ethical overtones, overt ones, the

accumulate accumulated d

inheritance o f our o w n sself-esteem. elf-esteem. W e con contrast trast it wi with th  barbar ism, savagery, and ev even en bestiality, wher whereas eas it means not nothi hing ng mor more e

than ' livi ng in cities'. Th e  C i t y , as such, appeared with astonishing   Art hur O. Lovejoy and Geor ge Boas,  Primitivism and  Related  Ideas in Antiquity  (rcpr.

1

Octagon Books, lyfij), p. 7. Ibid., p. 210.

85

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' abrupt abr uptnes nesss out o f the alluvium alluv ium o f Southe rn Me sopo tami a in the late fourth millennium  B C .   This Thi s transformation transformation

dep end ed on

irrigation works, intensive agriculture, specialised skills such as pottery and metallurgy, and supervision by a literate bureaucracy, judiciary  and priesthoo pries thood. d. Civili Civ ilisat sation ion demands a stratif stratified ied social

and economic hierarchy. There is, regrettably, no indication  that it is cohesive without one. The urban civilisations of the Old World  radiated radiated outwards, e xcl udi ng all all w h o w ou l d not confor con for m

to the canons o f civilised beha viou r. T he re we re setbacks. setbacks. Mesopotamian chroniclers lament the ravages of the 'Amorite w h o  knows not the grain' or the 'host whose onslaught is like a

hurricane, a people who have never known a city'.' But as the civilisations consolidated they came, in the  north,  to the point of

diminishing   returns.  Their  natural  fronti frontiers ers crystallised crystallised.. Be yo nd , the 'barbarians' were to be left to their own devices. As some Han officials  said, said, ' T h e lands lands are all all swamps and saline waters, wate rs, not n ot fit for

habitation. It is better to make peace.'   But the stigmatised 2

outsider was unlikely to regard the frontier with the smugness of the man inside; nor could he emulate urban civilisation in land unsuited to it. On the steppe, from Mongolia to Hungary and beyond,  he gave up his agriculture and opted for a 'Nomadic Alternative'.

3

A   nomad no mad does not 'wan 'w ande derr aimlessly aimlessly from from place to place ' as one dictionary would have it. The word derives from the Latin and Greek  meaning 'to pasture'. Pastoral tribes  follow  the most conservative patterns o f migration, changing changin g the m o nly in times times of

drought or disaster. The animals provide their food; agriculture,

trade  or plunder are additional benefits. 'The Nomad' is a clan 1

  C. J. Gadd, 'The Dynasty of Agade and the Gutian Invasion',  The  Cambridge

Ancient

History,  rev. edn, (Cambridge,  1 9 6 3 ),  vol. I, ch. XIX.

  Ssu-Ma-Ch'icn,  Records  of   th e  Grand  Historian  of China  (Shih  Chi), trans. B. Watso n (Ne w

2

York  and London,  iyf>[),  ch ch..  1 1 0 ,  p. irty. '  For

pastoral nomadism sec O. Lattimorc,  Inner  Asian  Frontiers  of  China,  reprint (N ew

York,  i2), p. 238 ff.

86

 

T h e   Nomadic

Alternative

elder, responsible to the whole tribe, who parcels out the grazing for  each person. Ssu-Ma-Ch'ien says  that  the Hsiung-nu con

gregated grega ted in the fir first st mon th o f the year for the allotment o f their rights, and again in the autumn when the cattle were fat. Hay making does not enter into this scheme:  that  would prejudice mobility  and grazing claims. Spring and summer are the times when  the nomads are on the move. 'The days are long and the

nights are short,' a Chinese said of the plains about the Caspian in the  thirteenth  century: 'in little more  than  the time needed to co ok a mut ton chop ch op , the sun ris rises es again." again ." T h e  nomads selected their animals to make the best use of all

types  o f  pasture. Horses and cattle cannot graze where sheep and goats have already cropped; herdsmen must move to keep their animals from starving. Heavy oxcarts are known from the steppe from the  third  millennium  B C the progenitors of the Scythian wagons,  'the smallest with four wheels, the largest with six, all

covered  over with felt'.   But equitation, adopted some thousand 2

years  later, so increased the nomads' range  that  they could

abandon their unprofitable unprofitable agriculture complet ely. Al l k n o w n species  of horse can hybridise with one another;  there  are two

distinct species species in vo lv ed in domesticatio domesti cation: n: the one on e the steppe ponies of Tarpan and Przevalski's type, the other the 'cold blooded'  European forest horse. When riding horses first appear

in graves near the Danube they resemble Przevalski's horse, a species  confined in the wild to Mongolia. Central  A s i a  bred the finest fine st horses, the 'Cel ' Cel est ial Horses' Hors es' o f Ferghana   that  fed on fields

o f   blue blu e alf alfal alfa fa,, or the 'hoar-frost' 'hoa r-frost' colo co lour ur ed chargers chargers of the  Alans. T h e  Emperor Hadrian had an Alanic horse  that  'flew'  and he

named it Caesar. The steppe came to resemble a vast exercise ground with squadrons of cavalry  moving up and down it. 1

,  vol. I,   E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches  from  Eastern  Asiatic Sources  (London,  (London,  1 9 1 0 ) , 

p . 25. 2

  Hippocrates,  Airs,  Waters and Places,  xvii.

87

 

'The   Nomadic  Alternative' T h e  nomad had a tactical advantage over the farmer. He could

descend and  pasture  his horses on the irrigated fields.  After  the Great  Wall  of China was built, the Hsiung-nu 'no longer ventured to come south to  pasture  their horses'. But if the defences  were unmanned, they demanded  tribute  or threatened: ' W h e n  autumn comes w e  w i l l  take our horses and trample your crops.'   The same problem faced the Romans on the Rhine and 1

Dan ube limes. N o m a d and citizen belo nge d to exclusi ve sys syste tems ms and both knew it. Bu t  a pastoralist pastoralist is is a po o r man. man . H e coul co ul d not no t always alway s resist resist the

temptations of  trade  or plunder  that  brought the luxuries of civilisation. The steppe is brilliant with spring flowers in May. At

other seasons the featureless landscape is dry and dusty or leaden with  frost and snow. The nomad craves colour. He is also traditionally drawn to the reassuring brilliance o f gold.  'The Huns

burned with an insatiable lust for gold,' wrote Ammianus Marcellinusr   He spoke  o f their 'hideous clothes', and Apollinaris Marcellinusr garish outf outfits its  o f the yo u ng Frankish Frankish Sidonius was ov er co me by the garish Sidonius was prince Sigismer, 'a flame red mantle with much glint o f ruddy gol d . . . 

feet feet laced in bristl bristly y hide . .. and gree n cloaks wi th crimson

borders'.

3

Luxury hamp  hampers ers mobil ity. Th e noma d leader leaderss kn ew that over

indulgence threatened their system.  Civilised ways  were insidi ous. Attila drank drank from a w oo d e n cup and and Chin gis K ha n lived in a yurt to the end of his days.   Like  so many colonists, the Greeks

brought drink to the lands they colonised. Herodotus tells the sad tale of the Scythian king,  S c y l e s .  D is cov eri ng the delights o f Bacchus, he was 'madde ned' by the god. T h e  Scythians, howev er,

were  intolerant o f such innova tions and dema nded confor mity. They beheaded their king. They also shot Anacharsis, a Scythian '  Ssu-Ma-Ch'ien, op.

cit., ch. 48.

  Marccllinus,  History,  xxxi,  2. 10.

2

'  Sidonius,  Letter xx.

88

 

T h e   Nomadic Alternative divine healer or shaman, who wandered through Greece 'carrying

a smal smalll drum

and hanging hang ing himsel f about wi th image s'.   A t 1

Cyzicus  he worshipped the Great Goddess, and the Greeks

admired h im for his his spiritua spirituality lity.. ' An d no w, ' say says Her odot us, 'the Scythians  say they have no knowledge about him; this is because

he left his country and followed the customs   o f  strangers.' There were, however, obvious attractions for the city dweller in a society where 'all are born noble' and where  there  was less slavery  (for it was too trou t roubles bles ome) . In times o f despair despair the

'Nomadic

Alternative'

was

too

tempting

to

resist.

A

Han

 a proposed counsellor, Yin Shan, was appalled at the prospect of of a  proposed abandonment abando nment o f the Great  Wall.  'The frontier posts  o f  China  are as much needed to keep the Chinese  traitors  out o f the Tartar's land as keeping the Tartars out of China.'   The eunuch Chung2

hsing-sho, a defector to the Hsiung-nu, decried the complications

o f   city  life,  its useless silks, elaborate food,  ornate  houses and tiresome social obligations; he contrasted them with the simplicity

o f   felt and leather clothing, comradeship, cheese and plain meat. Similarly a Gre ek , once married to a rich wo ma n, ran ran awa y to the

Huns. With  tears  in his eyes he admitted  that  the Roman constitution was the best in the world but claimed  that  the complacency  o f  its rulers, the tyranny  o f i  its ts generals, the inequi ine quity ty

o f   its legal expenses and the unpredictable burdens  o f  its taxation had ruined it. Nomads rarely, if ever, destroyed a civilisation. T h e y  merely took advantage of a disintegrating situation. In this

they we re encourag ed by defe defecto ctors rs or unco mmitt ed nomads, nomads, w h o were  the disruptive factor in steppe politics. T h e  military tactics tactics o f the steppe hor seme n and those o f civilised  states were incompatible. Once the steppe ponies passed

into agricultural lands lands their short legs bogged dow n. Conversely it '  Herodo tus

iv, iv,  7 6 - S 0 .

  E. H. Parker,  One  Thousand Years  of   th e  Tartars, 2nd cdn rev. (N ew York,  1 9 2 4 ), p . 49.

2

89

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' was  only onl y in times o f national prosperity and outstanding outst anding leader leade r

ship that any great po we r could cou ld count enance the hideous e xpense

o f  a mounted expedition against the 'natural cavalry' o f the steppe. ' N o  profit comes to an army  that  has has to fight fight a thousan tho usand d miles

from home,' the Imperial Secretary lamented.   What was worse, 1

the nomads ran away. away . T h e Celts Celt s taunted their fo foes es and rushed into battle. The Scythians or the Huns did nothing so inept. 'They do not consider it a disgrace to run away. Their only concern is selfadvantage, advant age, and they k n o w nothi ng of o f propriety or righteou righ teous s ness,'   the assumption, so recurrent in our time,  that the enemy is 2

obliged  to show its  face.

Part of Herodotus'  B o o k  iv reads like a manual for guerilla warfare. 'They [the Scythians] have devised that  none who attack

them the m can escape, and none no ne catch the m if they desire desire not to be found. For when men have no stabilised cities or fortresses, but are all  house-bearers house-bearers and mount mou nt ed archers, archers, liv ing not by tilling the the soil  but by raising cattle and carrying their dwellings on wagons,

h o w  should they not be invincible and unapproachable.'   Darius 3

invaded Scythia in 516  B C   with a conventional army. He chased around arou nd Russia, Russ ia, probably prob ably as fa farr north as Ka zan on the  V o l g a ,  the Scythians  always retreating before him. In exasperation he sent a

message mes sage to their king. ' W h y do yo u always run away? W h y don 't yo u  stand and fight or else submit?' The reply, 'I have never fled

for fear  o f any man, nor do I n o w flee flee from  you.  I f y o u really want a fight, find the graves  o f  our fathers, and then you'll see whether we'll fight. As for your boast that you are my master, go and cry.'

4

T h e  retreat  o f  Darius resembled the retreat  o f Napoleon;  he only

just escaped. Compare the tactics  o f M a o Tse-T ung. T h e  steppe nomads mo ve d in summer. T h e norther n tribe tribess o f 1

:

  S s u - M a - C h ' i e n ,  op . cit, ch. 108.

  Ibid.,  ch .  110. 1

  H e r o d o t u s ,  iv, 46.

  Ibid.,  126,  127.

4

90

 

T he   Nomadic Alternative the taiga and  tundra  stayed put. Swamps and swollen rivers impeded all movement, except, perhaps, when escape from the clouds  of mosquitoes  that  make the short Arctic summer so

uncomfortable was imperative. T h e y awaited the great migrations migrations

o f  wild-fowl,  swans, ducks and geese, clubbing them to death in moult. In some rivers the teeming  runs  of salmon and sturgeon sturge on provided food close to their settlements. The winter was the season for mobility, when the rivers and bogs froze, and since the Arctic  Stone Age these peoples had known the use of dog- and

deer -dr awn sledges sledges and  skis; Ptolemy refers to the Skrithifinnoi or Skiing  Finns. It was also the trapping season, for sables, marten,

mink, lemming, ermine and Arctic fox. Fur was, and still is, the staple of the Siberian tribes. The heroes of the Nibelungenlied wallowed  in their sables; Kubilai Khan had a  tent  lined with

ermine and sable, and the Cossack colonists  o f  Boris  Goudonov greeted the Ki rghi z wi th cries cries of'S able s or Death ' Following  their

passion

for

human

urine,

reindeer

were

attracted attrac ted to human hum an setdement. setde ment. T h e y we re easily easily tamed, coul co uld d be ridden and harnessed. They provided meat, milk and hides. The

e l k   was also ridden, and it was once claimed  that  reindeer- and elk-riding preceded equitation. The poet  o f  the Finnish epic, the

Kalevala,  was quite unable to deci de  i f  the hero Vainamoinen  fell from his 'blue elk' or his 'dun-coloured courser';   this seems to be 1

reflected  in the Pazyryk burials where horses  o f  the finest central Asiatic  breed were fitted with reindeer masks. The Mongols

themselves were one  o f  the forest tribes who broke out onto the horse-riding steppe.

T h e   condition

of  north  Asian  hunters  remained virtually

unchan unc hanged ged from from prehistoric times times until the ninetee nin etee nth centur y. Their  tangible remains, when recovered, testify to this tenacious

conservatism. Metal-working came late to the  north,  and though 1

  Knlcvala,  trans. W . F. Kirby (London,  1 0 2 5 ) ,  rune vi, 25.

91

 

'The   Nomadic Alternativ Alternative' e' wood,  leather and bone preserve  well  in b o g condi tions , their

survival is less favoured  than  is  that  o f the debris debris o f civilised commu nit ies . Con seq uent ue ntly ly , asse assess ssme ment ntss o f the An ima l Style art art stress ss on influences influenc es o f   northern  Europe and  A s i a  may lay und ue stre emanating from the south. Influences  there  certainly were; many indivi ind ividual dual motifs motifs can be traced back ba ck to their southern southe rn sources. But, from the Upper Palaeolithic era, the North had its own Animal  Style,  conserving its own peculiar conventions. These

finds include the wo o d e n bird and animal Arctic  Stone Ag e finds figures from the Gorbunovo bog in the Urals, slate maces from Sweden  and Finland, the bone carvings from the graves on the Sweden  middle  Yenisei  River in Siberia, the rock carvings of animals stretching from central Siberia to Norway. Three wooden ladles from southern south ern Finland we re carved from a pine  (pinus cembra) that gr ew in the Urals a thousand thous and miles away. awa y. Th os e sledges certainly travelled. T o  the Greeks, northern  and central  A s iiaa was a Lan d  o f Darkness,

a land

of abominab le

monstrosities. monstrosities.

Th ei r

main main

source

of

information came from a an n epic po em , n o w lost, lost, the A ris rismaspeia maspeia  b y Aristeas of Proconnessus.   This traveller seems to have made a 1

jou rney rne y into Scythia and fa far be yo nd duri ng the seventh century B C  , in advance  o f the first Greek settlements on the  northern  coast

 t he  Black  Sea. Som e say his was a jo ur ne y  o f  the spirit, a 'soulo f  the jo ur ne y' like a shaman's, shaman's, bu t his topo graph y is to o circumstantial. circumstantial. He knew  o f the promiscuous Agathyrsi 'greatly 'greatly give n to wear ing probabl y the Dzung arian ari an Gap in gold',  the  Cave  o f the Win ds - probably Wester n Mong ol ia - and the the Rh ip ea n Mountain s, identified identified as as the Altai - the 'Mou nta in  o f Rhipe, aflower with forests, breast of the black night,' wrote the Spartan poet Alcman. Thereabouts beaked griffins guarded sacred gold from the one-eyed Arismas' J.

D. P. Bolton,  Aristeas  of   Proconnessus  (Oxford,  1 9 6 2 ).

92

 

T h e   Nomadic

Alternative

peians, 'the horsemen who  live  about Pluto's stream  that  flows with gold'. Nearb y, Aesch ylus placed the home o f the Phorcides, Phorcide s, 'aged 'age d swan-shaped maidens possessing one eye in common and one tooth', and the  three  winged Gorgons 'with  their  snaky  hair'. Long before, Hesiod knew  o f t  the he Do g - Me n and and Herodotus  o f  the

Neuri, 'one o f w h o m is  turned  into a  w o l f  for a few days each year'. Simias in the  third  century  B C   tells of'islands dark green with wi th fi firs rs,, ove rg ro wn wit h lofty reeds reeds . .. and a monstrous race o f men,, h alf dogs upo n wh os e supple men supple necks n ecks is se sett a canine head armed with powerful jaws.  Th e y bark bark like dogs but compreh end the speech of men.' There was a Land of Feathers;  there  were headless people with faces on  their  shoulders, the Ox-Feet, the Goat-Feet, the Web-Feet, the Parasol-Feet, and, in the Hima layas,  'hairy men swift  o f foot  with  their  feet  turned  backwards'. 1

The Abominable Snowman is the one monstrosity  that  has resolutely refused to die. The monstrosities of  A s ia i a  are difficult to explain away. Some dismiss dism iss them th em as mythi myt hical cal nonsense non sense in the same cla class ss as the ' P o b b l e wit h- no -t oe s' .

Others

resolve them in purely

ethnographical

terms. The Web-Feet are wearing snow-shoes, the headless humpty hum pty -du mpti es Sober

Chinese

anoraks, and so on. on . Bu t they are are persistent. persistent.

annalists

and

the

first

European

travellers

to

Central  A s i a  in the  thirteenth  century  report  them too. The Dog actually fought. ' Th e Jung  wer e nomads wit h w h o m the Chine se actually appeara app earance nce o f these these peop le is like dogs.' The re w er e the  Kuei. 'These people have the faces  o f  men but only one eye'; and  there 'were wild men with hairy bodies and pendulous breasts'.   'These 2

are are the Thi ngs from from the North -East Co rn er to the No rt h- We st Corner,' wrote the  author  of the  Shan-Hai-Ching, 

no later  than

  Pliny,  Nat. Hist.,  vii, 2.

1

Bolt on, op. cit. cit.,, notes to ch. iv, iv, 7 (quotes Sha n-H ai- Chi ng, Ssu Ssu Pu Ts- un gK 'a n edition,

B -5 / 6a). 5

5

93

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' the end  o f  the first century  B C

'the Shankless, ... the  Long-Legs,

. . .   the One-Eyes  —  these people have only one eye set in the middle  o f the  their ir forehead', and 'the Jou -L i — these people have one hand and one foot'.' Other sources report the 'Tip-Toes' and the 'No-Bellies'.  The Annals of the Bamboo Books speak of  King

M u   (of the C h o u Dynasty) Dynasty) pushing westwards over the the Mo vi n g Sands (the Gobi) and the 'Country of the Heaps of Feathers'.

2

Some  t wo thousand years later later Bis hop Ivo o f Na rb on ne wr ot e

in a panic-stricken letter  that,  on his his invasion invasio n o f Hunga Hun gary, ry, the Mongol  Batu was accompanied by Dog-Headed Warriors.

3

Civilised  me n  attributed  animal properties to the nomads.

Ammianus Marcellinus spoke  o f the bestial cunning  o f the Hun s -

'one might take t hem for tw o- le gg ed beast beasts, s, or for stumps stumps rou gh hewn  into images'.   In his  Gothic  History,  Jordanes  wrote, 'They had a sort  o f lump, not a head, with pin-holes rather than eyes ... 4

though they live in the form  o f  men they have the cruelty  o f  wild beasts.'   T h e Han Imperial Imperial Secretary Secretary said said o f the Hsiu ng- nu 'in 3

their breasts beat the heart  o f bea st s. .. from the most ancient times times they have never been regarded as a part  o f humanity'.   In the year 6

i  B C their ruler paid a state  visit to the Chinese capital. His hosts lodged him in the  Zoological  Gardens.  In Central Asian folklore 7

supernatural beings bei ngs put pu t their bir d and animal forms on and  o f f  at

w i l l .  Th e Lady Ala Man gn yk 'puts  on her golden swan clothing'; Jelbagan's  wife  was a 'leaden-eyed, copper-nosed witch';  there '  Ibid., Ibid., p. B- 4i a/4 b. 2

I b i d . , p .  l o i  (quotes J. Lcggc,  Tlie Ch inese Classics,  vol. Ill, i ,p .  1 5 1 ) .

"' Ma t t h e w Paris,  Chronicle,  cd. H. R. Luard, Roll s Scries Scries (Lond on,  1 8 7 2 - 1 8 8 3 ) , vol. IV, p . 27. 4

  Ammianus Marcellinus,  History,  xxxi, 21.

"Jordanes,   Gothic  History,  ed. C. C. Mierow (Princeton,  1 9 1 5 ) ,  section 127.

'' Ssu-Ma-Ch'ien, op. cit., ch. 108. '  Mental attitudes attitudes die hard. A Russian Imperial Commiss ion to t he Re in dee r Tung us on t h e   Amur River wrote that 'they resemble dogs or horses, but have nothing in common with the race  o f m e n ' .  Sec Lindgrcn,  'Nor th West Manchuria and the Rein dee r Tungus',

Geographical  Journal  75  ( 1 9 3 0 ) ,  p. 532.

94

 

T h e   Nomadic Alternative were  'swan maidens living in the dark with leaden  eyes,  hempen

plaits,

hands

with  yellow  nails

and

murderous',   and 1

royal

emissaries in the form  o f hounds or eagles. Som e shaman shaman costumes are hung with ribbons  that  represent snakes; in the  Yakut  and other traditions, traditions, snakes have the same same magico-r magico -reli eli gious gio us signifi cance as  as hair does. Her odo odotu tuss reports a plague  o f snakes that drove

the Neuri, the  w o l f  tribe, from their lands; 'maybe they were sorcerers', he says.   Other costumes are hung with mirrors  that 2

represent little  'eyes'  and little images of human organs. Tales o f such curiosities may have given birth to the monsters   that puzzled the Greeks; the Gorgons with their snaky hair, the swan-shaped Phorcides, griffins and Dog-Men.

Shamanism

is a religious religi ous ideo id eo lo logy gy peculiar to hunters

and

herdsmen.   It appears appears to be north no rth Asian in ori gi gin, n, ye t is diffuse diffused d 3

thro ughout ugh out No rt h and South Amer ica, Ocea nia , Indonesia Indonesia and Australia. Shamanist practices practices are are historically docu do cumen men ted te d in lands lands

as far apart as China, Ireland  o f  the Iron  A g e ,  Pagan Scandinavia, am on g the Scythians Scythi ans and Thr acians, acian s, in Classical Gr ee ce af afte terr the opening of the  Black  Sea trade  route, and even in Siberia in the nine teenth teen th

century. centu ry.

It Itss basic basic feature featuress are a Celestial Celes tial Be i ng

identified with the Sky, direct communication between Heaven and Earth, and an infernal Region connected to these  loci  by a Cosmic  A x i s . A   shaman, as Professor E. R. Dodds describes one, is 'a psychically unstable person perso n w h o has has recei ved a call to the religious religiou s

life.  As a result o f his call call he unde u ndergo rgoes es a peri pe riod od o f rigoro rigorous us training, traini ng, w hi ch co mm on ly involv es solitude solitude and fasti fasting ng,, and may involve  a psychologic psycho logic al change '  N .

o f sex. Fr om this this religious

K. C had wic k, 'T he Spiritual Spiritual Ideas Ideas an and d Experie nces of the Tartars of Central Asia',

Journal   of   the Royal  Anthropological  Institute 66  (i 9 3 6 ) , p. 293 ff.   Herodotus, iv, 105.

2

  M. Eliadc, Shamanism  —  Archaic Techniques  of   Ecstasy  (New York,  1962).

1

95

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' "retreat" he emerges with the power, real or assumed,  o f passing at

w i l l  into a  state  of mental dissociation." Each trance repeats his symbolic  death; he achieves it by fasting, followed by dancing to

 a   drum. He often resorts to pharmaco the monotonous beat of of a poeia,  hemp, and the shamanic mushroom - the Fly  Agaric, which  is probably the Soma of Vedic  texts. Ostyak and  V o g u l

shamans eat this mushroom and fly to the Sky 'where they  live  in the Sun's Su n's rays rays like insects insects in human hair'. hair '.   Herodotus describes 2

some som e Scythia Scythians ns 'h ow li ng  for j o y '  in what wh at seems seems to have be en some kind  o f  sauna bath with the added benefits  o f hemp.   Strabo talks 3

o f   shamans or seers 'walking in smoke', and the first  part  o f Aristophanes'  Clouds  seems to be little more mo re  than  a moralistic take-off  o f  a shamanistic seance.

T h e  shaman's body 'dies', and his soul flies  o f f on the wings of ecstasy to the Sky or to the Underworld. Dodds says, 'From these experiences,  narrated  by him in extempore song, he derives the skill  in divination, religious poetry, and magical medicine which

makes him socially important . He b ecome ec ome s the the repository repos itory o f a supernormal

w i s d o m. " Feared, sexually ambivalent, ambivalen t, set set aside aside

from the 'normal'  life  o f the tribe, tri be, he remains the hub h ub o f it itss creative  activity, it itss culture her o.

A   fabl fable e of o f Ae so p te tell llss o f the G ol de n A g e wh en 'the other animal ani malss had articulate articulate spe ech, and kn e w the use o f word wo rds; s; and they held meetings in the forests; and the stones spoke and needles o f   the pine  tree  .. .  In his his trance, the shaman forsakes his human hu man V1

condition and regains this Paradisal Time. He identifies himself with  a 'helping spirit', usually an animal or bird, and learns to 1

  E. R. Dodds,  Tlte Greeks  and The  Irrational,  sixth printing (Berkeley and Los Angeles,

i y 6 8 ) , p. 140. :

  G. Rohei m, Hungarian and  Vogul  Mythology,  Monographs of the  American Ethnological

Society, vol. XXIII (New York,  ,  p. 51. York,  1 9 5 4 ) ,  •' Herodot us, '  E.

iv iv,, 74, 75 .

R. Dodds, op. cit., p. 140.

'  Babrius, Fab. Aesop, 

Preamb.  1—13.

96

 

T h e   Nomadic

Alternative

imitate its its lang uage. uage . A cost ume complete compl etess the

transformation.

The Tungus have duck and reindeer costumes, the duck for ascent asc entss to the Sky , the reind eer for descents to the Un de rw or ld .

B y   putting on the costume he becomes  that  animal or bird. 'I transfo tran sforme rmed d myse lf into my ho ly shape shape o f a black -thro ated lo on and flew from  tree  to  tree  whe re m y fest festiva ivall was celeb rated ." In the Yng li ng a Saga, Saga, Od in 's b od y 'lay as tho ugh dead, and then he became a bird, or a beast, a fish or a dragon, and went  o f f  in an this the under un der lyin ly in g idea beh in ind d the instant  into  far-off  lands'.   Is this 2

symplegma  o f  animals, so recurren recu rrentt a feature  o f the Ani mal Style? The shaman changes himself into his alter-ego. Yet he is the focal  po int o f all tribal tribal activities, activitie s, his protec pro tec tive ti ve spirit iiss the on e

which  the tribe  w i l l adopt as its totem. The Teleut believe that  the

eagle  is their protector; their words for eagle and shaman are the eagle  same. Attila Attila was surro unded unde d by sorcerers, and eagles eagles we re emblazoned on his shields. The undivided Turks had golden standar ards ds.. wolf-head  stand wolf-head 

Ss u- Ma -C hi 'e n records records  that  'King Mu

attacked the Ch'uan barbarians and brought back with him four whit e wolv es and four four white d eer.'   Chingis Khan's ancestor was 3

a w o l f se  sent nt d o wn from the sky, wh os e wife was a whi te deer. Th e Hungarian Hungaria n chronicles tell o f the origin  o f  their race: two  hunters crossed cros sed the Maeo Ma eo ti c swamp chasing a doe (the (the to tem  o f those lands which  they then annexed); the doe  turned  itself into a beautiful beauti ful

woman, and the sexual implications are obvious. The animal totem represents the ideal  o f  the tribe; henc he nce e the urge to denigrate or

subdue

the

totems

o f other oth er

tribes; henc he nce e

one

possible possibl e

explanatio n for the 'animal combats' combat s' o f the Anim al Style. Mental disorders are common in  northern  A s i a .  T h e harshness harshness the o f   the

climate cl imate

is is sometimes somet imes

blamed bl amed .

Shamanist

candidates,

'morbid and sensitive', tell of the relief that  shamanising brings. ' R oh ci m,

op. cit., cit., p. 5 1.

Ynglinga Saga,   tran trans. s. E. Mons on and A.H . Smith (Cambridge,  1 9 3 2 ), vol. VII, p. 5. Ssu-Ma-Ch'icn,  op. cit., ch. 110.

97

 

'The   Nomadic Alternativ Alternative' e' The deliberate  dereglement  de  torn  les sens  of the shaman's ordeal stabilises an otherwise disintegrating mental condition. Periods of sanity are offset by bouts  o f psychosis or excursions into the world

o f   dreams. Modern reports  o f  hallucinations under trance include a disord ering o f space and form, the disintegration o f eidetic images int o spirals spirals,, whor wh or ls , vol utes, ute s, carpet patterns, patterns, nets and lattices; colours are  o f othe rworldl y brilliance brilliance;; there are half-faces, central axis, X- ra y vision , and 'amputated faces split in half about a central limbs, mutilated bodies, detached heads and fusion  o f  parts'.' art, eve e ve n mechan mec hanica ica l artif artifac acts, ts, reflect the aspir aspira a A l l  wo rk s of art, tions  o f  their makers, and are eye-witnesses  o f  the past. The art of urban civilisation civil isationss tends to be static, static, solid and symmet sy mmetric rical. al. It is disciplined by the representation representation o f the human bo dy and by the mathematical skills attendant  upo n monumen tal architecture. T o a greater or lesser extent, nomadic art tends to be portable, asymmetric, discordant, discordant, restle restless ss,, incorporeal incorpore al and intuitive. intui tive. Natu Na tu r alisti ali stic c representations moti on,

o f animals, animals, themselves themselv es often in viol vi olen en t

ar are e combi ned wi th a compulsiv e tenden cy

ornamentation.

towards towards

The  northerners  rarely concerned themselves

with human activities, admitting only an occasional mask. Colour is violent; mass and volume are rejected in favour of bold silhouettes and a pierced technique of openwork spirals, lattices and geometric tracery. Animals are depicted from both sides at on ce, their heads abutted to form a fronta frontall mask. T h e so-called so-cal led X ray style is common and shows a schematised  view  o f  the animal's skeleton. So is the convention  of   pars pro  toto,  especially wi th the amputated amputate d limbs of animals, and the fusion o f  parts  to form a repertory repert ory o f fanta fantasti stic c beasts. T h e similarit similarities ies b et we en halluc hal lucina ina tory experience and nomadic art cannot be explained away as pure chance. In Siberia and elsewhere there was a close relationship be tw ee n '  F.

Rcitman,  Psychotic Art  (London,  iyjo),  p. 62.

98

 

T he   Nomadic Alternative the shaman, as creative personality, and the craftsman, especially the metal-smith. 'Smiths and shamans shamans co me from the same same nest,' says  a Yakut  proverb. In nomadic society the smith was not the

underprivileged artisan of civilisation;  for the Mongols he was a hero her o and a free free knight kni ght . Shamanism Shamanis m has has always been be en conn co nnec ecte ted d with  mastery ov er fire; fire; metallurgical secrets secrets are handed hand ed d o w n

within a closed circle associated with magic and sorcery. There were  the Irish 'Men  o f A r t ' ,  the Hephaestus tradition in Greece,

the shaman-smiths shaman-smiths o f the  Kalevala,  and Germa Ge rma n and  Japanese metallurgical secret societies.

1

T h e   shaman's disordered disord ered appreciation o f reality reality verified verif ied the 'spiritual' truth  o f the artistic traditions ofhis tribe. In time, models strayed from their archetypes and became slack and repetitive. But as the shamans were able to renew the spiritual content of their beliefs,  so the Animal Style was able to renew its vitality and

power  through to the Middle  A g eess  and beyond. 1970

M .   Eliadc,  Tlie Forge and the Crucible  (Ne w York,  1 yf>2), p. 81 ff.

99

 

IT'S  A N O M A D  N O M A D WORLD

In one of his gloomier moments Pascal said  that  all man's unhappiness stemmed from a single cause, his inability to remain quietly in a room. 'Notre  nature,'  he wrote, 'est  dans  le mo u v e me n t . . . La seule seule c chose hose q qui ui nous console de n nos os m mise iseres res e est st le  divertissement.' Diversion. Distraction. Fantasy. Change of

need eed tthe hem m a ass the air w e fashion,   food,  l o v e  and landscape. W e n fashion, breathe. Wi th ou t change our br brain ainss and bodies rot. Th e man w h o sits quietly in a shuttered  room is  likely  to be mad,  tortured  b y hallucinations and introspection. Some American brain specialists took encephalograph readings

o f travellers. They found  that changes  o f scenery and awareness of the passage  o f  seasons through the year stimulated the rhythms of the brain, cont contribu ribu ting tto o a sen sense se of we ll -b ei ng and an active purpose in  life.  Monotonous surroundings and tedious regular activities  w o v e  patterns  which produced fatigue, nervous dis

orders, apathy, self-disgust and violent reactions. Hardly surpris ing,  then,  that  a generation cushioned from the cold by central

heating, from the heat by air-conditioning, carted in aseptic

transports  from one identical house or hotel to  another,  should

feel   the need for journeys of mind or body, for pep pills or tranquillisers, or for the cathartic journeys  o f sex, music and dance. W e   spend far too much time in shuttered  rooms. I prefe preferr the cos mopolitan scepticism o f Mon ta ig ne ne.. He saw 100

 

It's a  nomad nomad world

travel as a 'profitable exercise; the mind is constantly stimulated by observing ne w and un k no wn th in gs .. . N o propositions propositions astoni astonish sh me, no  belief  offends me, however much opposed to my own ... T h e savages savages w h o roast roast and eat the bodies bodi es o f their dead d ead do no t scandalise me so much as those who persecute the  living.' Cu st om , he said, said, and set attitudes o f min d, dulled dul led the senses senses and hid the  true nature  o f  things. Ma n is is naturally curious curi ous..

'H e   who  does  not  travel  does  not  know   the  value  of men,'  said Ib'n Battuta, the indefatigable indefatigable Arab wand erer ere r w h o strolled strolled

from from

Tangier to China and back for the sake  o f  it. But travel does not merely

broaden

the

mind.

It

makes

the

mind.

Our

early

explorations are the raw materials  o f  our intelligence, and, on the day I write this, I see  that  th the e  N S P C C   suggests  that  children penn pe nn ed up in 'hi gh-ri gh -ri se' fla flats are are in danger dang er of o f retarded mental menta l development. Why did nobody think  o f  it before? Children need paths  to explore, to take bearings on the  earth  in which  they  l i v e ,  as

a

navigator

takes

bearings

landmarks. landm arks. I f w e excavate the memories

on

familiar

o f chil dhoo d,

we

remember the  paths  first, things and people second -  paths  down the garden, the wa y to sch ool, ool , the wa y rou nd the house, house , corridors through the bracken or long grass. Tracking the  paths  o f  animals firstt and most important importa nt element ele ment in the educat edu cation ion  o f early was  the firs man. The raw materials  o f  Proust's imagination were the two walks round the town  o f Illiers where he spent his family holidays. family holidays. These  These walks  later became Meseglise and Guermantes  Ways  in  A la

Recherche   du  Temps  Perdu.  The hawthorn  path  that  led to his uncle's garden became a symbol  o f  his lost innocence. 'It was on this way', he wrote,  'that  I first noticed the round shadow which apple trees cast on the sunlit ground', and later in  life,  drugged wi th caffei caffeine ne and verona ver ona l, he dragged himself himse lf fro from m his his shuttered room on a rare  excu ex curs rsio ion n in a taxi, to see the apple trees in flower, flower, the windows firmly shut for their smell would overpower his 101

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' emotions. Evolution intended us to be travellers. Setdement for any length of time, in cave or casde, has at best been a sporadic cond itio n in the history o f man. P rolon conditio ro lon ged settlement has has a vertical  axis axis o f som e ten thousand t housand years, a drop dro p in the ocean oc ean o f evolut evo lution ionary ary

time. W e

are are traveller travellerss from

birth.

Our

mad

obsession wit h t echnol ech nol ogi cal progress is is a response to barriers barriers in the way  o f ou r geographical progress. progress. T h e  few 'primitive' peoples in the forgotten corners of the

earth understand  this simple fact about our  nature better  than  w e do . T h e y ar are e perpetually perpetually mobile. Th e golden -br own bab babie iess  o f the Kalahari  Bushmen  hunters  never neve r cry and are are am on g the most

contented babies in the world. They also grow up to be the gentlest people. They are happy with their lot, which they consider ideal, and anyone w h o talk talkss o f 'a murderous

hunt ing

instinct  innate  in man' displays his wanton ignorance. W h y  do they grow up so straight? Because they are never

frustrated by  tortured  childhoods. The mothers never sit still for long, and their babies are never left alone until the age  o f three  and

mor e. T h e y he close to their mot her s' breast breastss in a leather sling,  and are rocked into contentment by the gentle swaying walk walk . Wh en a mother mot her rocks her baby, she is imitating, imitating , unaware, unawa re, the gend ge nde e savage  as as she walk s thr ough oug h the grassy grassy savannah, savannah, prot pr otect ect ing her child from snakes, scorpions and the terrors o f the bush.  I fw   e  need

movement from birth, how should we setde down later? Travel  must he adventurous.  'Thegreat  affair is to move,'  wrote

Ro be rt Louis Stevenson in  Travels with a Donkey,  't 'to o feel the needs and hitches  o f life  more nearly; to come down  o f f t  this his feather bed be d

o f   civilisation,  and find the globe granite underfoot, and strewn with  cutting flints.' The bumps are vital. They keep the adrenalin

pumping round. hav e adrenalin. adrenali n. W e cannot cann ot drain it from from ou ourr systems systems or W e  all have pray it  w i l l  evaporate. Deprived of danger we invent artificial enemies, psychosomatic illnesses, tax-collectors, and, worst   o f all, 102

 

It's a nomad nomad  world

ourselves,  i f w  we e are left alone in the single room. Adrenalin is our

travel allowance. W e might just  as well use it up in a harmless way.   travel is livening up in  this  respect but as a species we are

A ir terrestrial.  Man walked and swam long before he rode or  flew. O u r  human  possibilities are best fulfilled on land or sea. Poor Icarus crashed. T h e  best thing is to wal k. W e should  follow  the Chinese poet

L i   Po in 'the  hardships  of travel and the many branchings of the way'.  For Fo r  life  is a jo ur ne y through a wilderness. wilderness. This conc ept,

universal to the point  o f banality, could cou ld not have sur vive d unless unless it were  biologically true. N o n e  o f our revolutionary heroes is worth

a thing until he has been on a good walk. Che Guevara spoke of the 'nomadic phase' phase' o f the Cub an Rev ol ut io n. Lo ok wha t the Long March did for Mao Tse-Tung, or Exodus for Moses. Movement  is the best cure for melancholy, as Robert Burton

(the  author  o f  The  Anatomy 

of  Melancholy)  understood.

'The

heavens themselves run continuall y round, the sun riseth and sets,

stars  and planets keep  their  constant motions, the air is still tossed b y  the winds, the waters ebb and  flow  ... to teach us  that  w e

should ever be in moti mo ti on .' Al l birds birds and animals animals have biologi bio logi cal time clocks regulated by the passage of celestial bodies. They are used as as chrono chr onomete mete rs and navigation navig ation aids. aids. Geese Gee se migrate by the st star ars, s, and some beha b eha vioura vio ura l scie scienti ntists sts have at at las lastt w o k e n up to the fact  that  man is a seasonal animal. A  tramp  I once met best described  this  involuntary compulsion to wander. 'It's as though the tides was pulling you along the high road. I'm like the Arctic Te rn . Tha t's a beautiful beautiful whi te bird, y o u k no w, wha t flies flies fro from m the North Pole to the South Pole and back again.' T h e  word 'revolution', so offensive to the persecutors of Galileo,  was originally used to denote the  cyclical  passage of

celestial bodies. Wh e n the geographical movemen ts  o f people are

tampered with, they attach themselves to political movements. 103

 

'The   Nomadic Alternativ Alternative' e' When a revolutionary hijacker says, 'I'm married to the Revolu tio n,' h e means it. For Re v ol u ti o n is a liberating god , the Dionysus  our age. It is a cure for melancholy. Revolution is the  o f W a y  to Freedom, even  i f  the end result is greater servitude. Each spring the nomadic tribes  o f  A s i a  shrug off the inertia o f winter, and  return  with the regularity of swallows  returning to their summer pastures. The women put on fresh flowered calico dres dresse ses, s, a and nd literally literally 'w ear ea r the spring'. T h e y sway to the rh ythm yt hm o f their pitching saddles, and mark time to the insistent beat of the camel bell. They look neither right nor left. Their eyes are glued to the way ahead  —  ov er the hori zon . T h e spring migration migrati on is a ritual. It fu fulfi lfils ls all their thei r spiritual requiremen requir emen ts, and the no mads mad s are notorio usly irreligious. i rreligious. T h e wa y up to the mountains is the path o f their salvation. The great religious teachers, Buddha in the Punjab, Christ, and Mohammed in the Near East, came among peoples whose migr atio n had been bee n disrupted b y settlement. settlement . Isla Islam m patterns  o f migratio germinate germi nated d not am on g the tribesmen o f the desert, desert, but in the carav ca ravan an cities cities,, in the worl d of high finance. finance. Bu t ' No b o dy ' , Mohammed said, 'becomes a prophet who was not first a shepherd.' The Hadj, Apostolic  Life  and the Pilgrimage to a religious centre w er e instituti institutions ons

to compensate

for lack o f

migrations, and led to the extreme imitators  o f John  the Baptist, 'wandering about in the desert with the wild beasts as if they themselves were animals'. Ever  since, settled people have  returned  to Arcadian  idylls,  or

have

sought

adventure

in

the the

'interests' 'interests'

o f their

coun try,

misguidedly imposing on others the settlement they could not endure

at

Katmand u,

home. but

Wanderers

those those w h o

line

the

roads

from

here

complain should remem ber

to the

incurable  student  restlessness  o f  Mediaeval Europe. The Univer sity of Paris was lucky to get through an academic year without closing.  'T h e  students  were carrying weapons,' complained one 104

 

It's a nomad nomad   world

provost. 'When I came back home in the summer, from school,' said a  student,  'my father hardly knew me. I was so blackened from tramping in the sun.'

A l l   roads led to Rome, and St Bernard complained  that  there was  not a single town in France or Italy without its quota of

English whores, the pioneers of a great  tradition.  The Church finally  became exasperated by its novices going about naked in

public, sleeping in baking ovens and singing Goliardic verses with titles like 'The Oracle  o f  the Holy Bottle'. A new order went out: 'SIT I N T H Y C E L L and walk round the cloister onl y wh e n asked

to do so.' It was no use. The Sufis spoke of themselves as 'travellers on the way' and used the same expression as the nomads used for  their  migration route. T h e y al also so wo re the nomads' w oo ll en clothing. Th e id ideal eal o f a Sufi was to walk as a beggar or dance himself into a  state  o f

permanent  ecst  ecstasy asy,, 'to b ec om e a dead man walking',  'one who has died before his time'. 'The dervish', says one text, 'is a place over hi ng is passing, not a wayfarer fol lo wing wi ng his o w n free free which so met hing

w i l l . '  This sen sentimen timentt is close close to Wal t Whit man' s ' O  Public  Road,

y o u   express  me  better  than  I  express  myselfThe

dances o f the

whirl whi rling ing dervishes dervishes imitated the move men ts o f the sun, m oo n, planets and stars. 'He who knows the Dance knows God,' says Rumi. Dervishes in ecstasy believed  that  they  flew.  Their dancing costumes were adorned with symbolic wings. Sometimes  their clothes were deliberately shredded and patched. This denoted  that the wea rer had ripped th em to bits in the fury fury o f the dance. dan ce. A fashion for patchwork has a habit  o f returning  with ecstatic dance movements. To dance is to go on pilgrimage, and people dance mor e in periods of dist distre ress ss.. Dur in g the the Frenc h Rev Re v ol u ti on Paris Paris went on one  o f  the greatest dancing sprees in history. Agonistic games are also pilgrimages. The word for chess player

in Sanskrit is the same for pilg rim, 'he 'h e wh w h o reaches the opposit oppo site e 105

 

'The   Nomadic Alternative' shore'. Footballers are little aware  that they too are pilgrims. The ball  they boo t symbolises a migrant bird.

A l l  our activities are linked to the idea  o f journeys. A n d I like to think  that  our brains have an information informat ion system gi givi vi ng us our ou r orders for the road, and  that  here lie the mainsprings of our restlessness. At an early stage man found he could spill out all this information in one go, by tampering with the chemistry of the brain. H e coul co uld d fly off on an illusory jo ur ne y or o r an imaginary ascent. Consequently settlers naively identified God with the vine,  hashish or a hallucinatory mushroom, but  true  wanderers

rarely  fell  prey to this illusion. Drugs are vehicles for people who have forgotten how to walk. Actual  journeys are more  effective,  economic and instructive

than  faked faked ones. W e should tread the step stepss of Hes iod io d up M o u n t Helicon  and hear the Mus Muses. es. Th e y ar are e certain to appear if w e

listen carefully. carefully. W e should shou ld  follow  the Taoist sages, Han Shan up Cold Mountain in his little hut, watching the seasons go by, or the

great gre at Li Po - ' Y o u asked me w hat is my reason reason for lodg in g in the grey hills: I smiled but made no reply for my thoughts were idling

on their own; like the flowers of the peach tree, they had sauntered of f to ot other her climes, to other oth er lands lands  that  are not of the world  o f  men.'

1970

106

 

IV

REVIEWS

 

ABEL  T  TH HE  N O M A D

1

Wilfred  Thesiger's  Arabian  Sands  and  The  Marsh Arabs  are classics

in line with Doughty's  Travels  in  Arabia  Deserta.  Y e t hi hiss ne w autobiographical sketch,  Desert,  Marsh  and  Mountain,  tho ugh it borrows large chunks  o f  the tw o earlier earlier bo ok s, is mor e absorbing

than  either. The subtitle, 'The World of a  Nomad',  gives  a clue about what he is up to. The nomad in question is Mr Thesiger himself, as he travels, by camel or on foot, in  Africa  or in  A s i a , among tribesmen who are  — or were  —  for the most part  nomadic.

A t   first sight, the book appears to be a collection  o f  short  travelpieces,  illus illustrat trated ed wit h photogr aphs by som eon e wi th an unerr ing

sense of composition. A closer look reveals a declaration  o f  faith

that  goes a lo ng wa y towards explai e xplai ning the 'strange 'strange com pulsio pul sio n' find, the which  drives me n lik e Wilf red Th esi ger to seek, and find, consolation  o f  the desert. He was born bo rn to travel. His fathe fatherr was British Minister Minis ter in Add is Ababa.  His first memories were  ' o f camels and  o f  tents,  o f a river

and men with spears'. His book wa  wass Jock  of  the Bushveld,  that child's bible  o f  the British Empire. His friends were orderlies and grooms wh o t oo k him ou t hun ti ting ng or held his his po ny . He was always a stranger among his own  —  as remote from his schoolfellows as he was  from the few of his countrymen, such as the late Gavin Maxwell,  who had the stamina to  follow  hi m on his jou rne ys. A ' 

Desert,  Marsh  and Mountain,  Wilfred Thesiger, Lond on: Collins, 19 79.

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photograph taken at Eton shows a face already set in the mould of the horizon-struck dreamer. He we nt back to Ethiopia Ethiop ia in 1930 1930 for the coronat cor onat ion of Haile Selassie.  Afterwards, he made a jo ur ne y across across the countr cou ntr y o f the Danakils,  first cousins  o f  Kipling's  'fuzzy-wuzzies'  and incredibly fierce. He found 'even more  than I had dreamed dre amed  o f as  as a bo y por ing

th e  Bushveld',  and, incident over Jock  of  the inci dentally ally,, crossed the tracks o f Arthur Rimbaud, who had trekked up and down those  'routes

horribles'  forty year yearss before. T h e Danak ilj our ney se sett the pattern for a life that turned into a perpetual  tramp through the wilderness: an officer in the Sudan Political Service; in the Empty Quarter; in the

Marshes of Southern Iraq; on the spring migration of the Bakhtiari; wi th the Kurds   o f the Zagros or the Kaffirs o f  the Hindu Kush;  watching Nasser's planes bomb the Yemini Royalists; or living,  as he now does, in a tent,  shooting the odd buck for food,

among the Samburu cattle-herdsmen  o f  Northern Kenya. M r  Thesiger makes no secret of his conviction that  the heroic world  o f  pastoral pastoral nomads nomad s is finer - morally mora lly and physicall physi cally y — than

the  life  of settled civilisations: 'All that  is best in the Arabs came from the desert.' (Indeed, the word  arab means a 'd 'dwe well ll er in tents', as opposed oppo sed to hazar 'a man who lives in a house' hou se' — wi th the original origin al implication   that  the latter was  rather  less  than  human.) human. ) It is, therefore, nothing short of catastrophic for him to find his old Bedu  friends friends driving driv ing about abo ut in cars cars and seduced by the 'tawdriest 'tawdries t

and most trivial trivial aspec aspects ts of Wester Wes ter n civilisation'. O f the Ras hi d tribe, his companions in the Empty Quarter, he writes: 'They wore  their clothes wit h distinction, distinct ion, e ven if they we re in rags. rags. They  were small deft men, alert and watchful, tempered in the

furnace furna ce o f the desert desert and trained to unbe lievabl lie vabl e endurance endur ance . . . They  we re fi fine ne-d -dra rawn wn and highly hig hly strung as thor oug hbr eds .'

These  are not the reveries of an armchair anthropolog anthro pologist: ist: M r Thesiger k no ws what he is talking about. Ti me and again, he  gives examples  o f Bedu cou  courage, rage, loyalty, generosity, open-mi ndedness; ndedn ess;

no

 

Abel   the Nomad and he contrasts these qualities with the narrow, close-fisted fanaticism of the oases-dwellers. It is the test of his   stature  as a writer  that  he can describe with wi th ou t a trace trace o f embarrassment embarrassment or sentimentality the rewards o f wi nn in g the friendship friendship o f his t w o young  guides, guides , bin K abina abi na and and bin Ghabaisha. Ghabaisha . H e is not no t the confessional  type. ty pe. Y e t w h e n another friend, friend, Falih bin Majid, gets killed in a shooting accident in the Marshes, he manages to inject,

into a few terse lines, a pain made even more harrowing by his o w n  inability to cry. The description  o f Falih's mourning father is

equally fine: 'Majid, grey and unshaven, his great stomach bulging

out in front front o f him , lo ok ed very tired, tired, an old br ok en man filled filled with  bitterness. bitterness. " W h y did did it have to be Falih? Falih? W h y Falih?" he

burst  out. "God, now I have no one left.'" M r  Thes ige r has so absorbed the temper o f the heroic w or ld

that his descriptions  o f  raids, blood-feuds and reconciliations  give his prose the character of an ancient epic or saga. Even plodding passages, full  o f what wh at E. M . Forster Forster called 'those dreadful Ori ent al

names',  w i l l  suddenly break into images of great beauty  that suggest far more  than  they state: 'The sun was on the desert rim, a

red ball ball wi thou th ou t heat'; ' Th e win d bl ew cold off dark dark water and I heard wav es lappi ng on an unseen shor e.' For F or it its internal rhythms and the cadence of its  repetitions, this description of an Eden in the Western Hejaz should perhaps be read aloud: W e  cli mbed mbe d steep pass passes es wh er e baboons baboon s bark ed at us from the

cliffs   and lammergeyer sailed over the misty depths, and we rested beside cold streams in forests  o f juni per and and wil d  olive. Th er e we re wi ld flowers here, jasmine and honeys ho neys uck le, roses, roses, pinks and primulas. Sometimes we spent the night in a castle with  an amir, sometimes in a mud cabin with a slave, and everywhere  we were  well  received. We fed  well  and slept in comfort,  but I could not forget the desert and the challenge of

the Sands.

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A n   'ache' to  return  to the desert is the constant theme of the b o o k .  It is easy to mock Mr Thesiger, as some have done, as an

old-fashioned English Eng lish eccentric wh o has has wilfully  romanticised the desert creed, or to complain  that  nomads have added nothing to art, to architecture, or the general glories of   civilisation. civilisation.  But the origins  o f civilisation are not all that respectable. Pharaoh built the pyramid wi th slave-labour. Mose s to ok his people peo ple back into the clean  air  o f the desert and lived in a black tent,  and when he died,

he walked out  o f the camp and the vultures got him in a valley in Beth-Peor  -

'and no man k no we th his his tom b'. Mr Thesiger's

beliefs  are not eccentric. They are consistent with principles laid

down,  at one time or other since the beginning  o f  civilisation,  b y

historians, philosophers, poets, teachers and mystics. One strain of the Old Testament, particularly strong among the later prophets, harps on the theme  that, by settling the Land instead  o f  migrating through it, the Children of Israel have 'waxed fat and gone awhoring'  and  w i l l  find favour with their God only when they go back to the black tents: 'And again I w i l l make yo u live i n tents as  as

in the days  o f old'  (Hosea,  1 2 .  Desert,  Marsh  and Mountain  can, in fact,  be read as a sustained lament for  A b e l  the noma d, murder ed b y  Cain, the planter and builder  o f  the First  City, whose sacrifice was  unacceptable to the Lord, yet who would have dominion

over  his brother. T h e  most concise concis e statement ever eve r made on the no ma d question questio n comes  from no less a historian  than  Ibn Khaldun: 'Nomads are closer  to the created world of God and removed from the

blameworthy customs  that  have infected the hearts of settlers.' Only  they would avoid the  cycles  of decadence  that  have ruined every  kn o w n civilisation civilisation - and, indeed, the nomad wo rl d has has not no t

changed sinc since e Abra ham the the Be du sheikh wen t on jou rne ys 'from the south even unto Bethel, unto the place where his   tent  had been at the beginning'. 112

 

Abel   the  Nomad Th er e is a case case for supposing suppo sing  that all  all the transcendental religions are stratagems for peoples whose  lives  were wrecked by settle ment. But it is the paradox of Islam  that,  though the Hadj or Sacred  Pilgrimage to  Mecca  reproduces for townspeople the automatic

asceticism o f desert  life,  and though the Fast of

Ram ada n was originally 'the m ont h o f bur ning', nin g', the real real Be d u often have only the vaguest notions  o f religion and are shamelessly materialistic. mater ialistic. As a Be du told Palgrave Palgra ve in the last last century, cent ury, ' w e  w i l l go   up to God and salute him, and  i f he proves hospitable, hospitable, w e  w i l l

st stay ay wi th h im:  i f otherwise, w e w i l l mo moun un t our ou r horses horses and ride off.' Nomads may be closer to the created world of  God,  but they are not a part  o f it  it.. A nom ad pr ope r is a herdsman w h o moves mov es his his prope rty thr ough oug h a sequence sequ ence o f pastures. pastures. He is tied to a most rigorous time-table and commit ted t o the incre increase ase  o f his herds and his sons. It is no accident  that  such words as 'stock', 'capital', 'pecuni ary' and eve n 'sterling' com e from the past pastora orall wor ld ld.. A n d it is the nomad's fatal yearning for increase  that  causes the endless rou nd o f raid raid and feud, and finally finally tempts hi m to succumb succ umb to settlement.

B y  these standard standards, s, M r Thes Th esig iger er is not no t a nomad no mad but a traveller, in w h o m the old sen sense se  o f travel as as 'travail' has has be en revived: at one point he writes that the cartilages in his knee wore out and he had to have them removed. There are no metaphysical overtones in his book: he is always the English gentleman explorer. Yet the form  o f asceticism he has practised over fifty years puts him in the class  o f  other travellers —  the Desert Fathers, the Irish Pilgrims, the fakirs,  the Holy Wanderers of India, or marvellous intellects like

the poet Li Po who travelled to discover the 'great calm'   that  is perhaps the same as the Peace of God. It was said of the Buddha  that  he 'found the Ancient Way and followed  it', and  that  his last words to his disciples were: 'Walk

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on ' It is no t un unreasona reasonable ble to suppose  that  the first men walked lo ng jou rne ys th rough the wilderness wilderness  o f thorns and cutting grasses south of the Sahara: Mr Thesiger, it seems, has  returned  to the centre.

1979

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THE A N A R C H IIS S T S OF

PATAGONIA

1

In 192 1920 0 an anarch anarchist ist r evo luti lu tion, on, called in the names  o f  Proudhon, Baku nin, K ro pot ki n and Ma Malate latesta sta,, brok broke e over tthe he British-run sheep farms of Southern Patagonia. Its instigator was a lanky Gallician  o f twent twenty-thr y-three ee call called ed Ant oni o Soto. He had chestn chestnut ut

hair and a thrilling voice and was slightly  w a l l -e - e y e d ;  he had been piously  brought up by maiden  aunts  at El Ferrol, where he was a

contempora cont emporary ry o f Francisco Franco. A Att sevente seventeen en he read  T o l  stoy's  condemna cond emnati tion on o f military service, skipped to Arge Argenti ntina na to avoid  his own, and drifted into the  theatre  and the fringes of the

anarchist movement. Employed  as a scene shifter in a travelling Spanish  theatre

company, Soto ended up in Rio  G a l l e g o s ,  a dismal seaport  near the Straits  o f Magellan. Her e a compatriot told him hi m  o f the plight of the migrant farm workers, mostly mestizo Indians  from the green but over-populated island of  C h i llo o e .  The situation appealed to Soto's  messianic impulses. He switched from the  theatre  into politics,  go gott himself elected  secretary-general  o f the local wor worke kers rs '  elected secretary-general

union and, with a crew of amateur revolutionaries, led his followers  to loot and  burn,  and finally left them to the firing

squads. Osvaldo  Ba yer iiss a lef t-wi ng Argen tine his histori torian an o f Ge German rman 1

  Los Vengadores de la  Patagonia  Trdgka,  Osvaldo Bayer, Buenos Aires: Editorial Galerna,

1972-4.

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descent. The facts speak for themselves; and the author is a brave man who has risked his  life  to publish them. The revolution of 1920—21 does indeed read like a pro phec y  o f contemporary events

in Chile and Argentina, though it must be said  that Bayer's lapses into rhetoric and his polemical outbursts aimed at current military and foreign foreign inter venti on in Latin Latin Ame ric a rather we ak en the force force

o f   his narrative. Patagonia, the backdrop to this story, is the wind-blown tip of the continent below latitude 42 , and is split between Chile and 0

Argentina. T h e Chil Ch il ea n coasts coasts ar are e chok ch ok ed wi th rain rain forest, forest, but east

o f  the Andes there are deserts  o f grey-green  thornscrub and grassy pampas  that  remind one o f Nev ada or Wy o mi n g. After 1900 1900,, Patagonia actually became an extension  o f t  the he rough-r iding West : Butch Cassidy and the Sundance K i d came do w n and and robbed rob bed the Bank  o f Tara  Tarapaca paca and and L on do n in R i o Gal legos in 1905. 1905. Magellan  gave the name 'Patagon' to the Tehuelche Indian

giant he saw dancing danc ing on the shore at St Julian in 1520. T h e wo w o r d is is supposed to mean  'Big-Foot' for the size o f h  his is moccasi mocc asins, ns, but this this is not the case. The Tehuelches wore dog-head battle masks, and

the Grand Patagon is a dog-headed monster in the chivalric romance  Primaleon  of  Greece  printed in Spain seven years before Magellan  sailed. (Hence Caliban, who invoked the Tehuelche go d  Setebos, has additional claims to Patagonian ancestry  —  vide

Trinculo's:  'I sha shall ll laugh laug h myse my self lf to death at this this puppy pu ppy -h ea de d monster.') monster. ') Th e Tehuel Tehu el che s we re guanaco hunters, hunters, w ho se siz size e and booming voices belied their docile character. And after the sheep-

farme far mers rs came, ca me, they died out - from drink, dr ink, despair, disease disease and intermarriage. Darwin  had writte wr itten n o f Patagonia: Patagon ia: ' T h e curse of sterility is on

the land', and for for most of the nine teenth teen th century cent ury Arge nti na had ignored it. There were a few Argentine settlements down the coast, but most  o f the colonising was Chile an. Ch il e occ upie d the

Straits  o f Magellan  in 1843, one day ahead of the French, and by

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T h e   Anarchists  o f  Patagonia the late 1870s her convict station at Punta Arenas had grown into a thriving port. Then Argentina woke up, realising  that  Darwin's estimate was ill-judged and, as the price  o f her neutrality while her neighbour was at war with Peru, forced a division of Patagonia roughl y along the the watershed  o f  the Andes. The Chileans felt they had been tricked out o f the best land and always always l oo k ed for for opportunities to get it back. Mea nwh il e, an English resident resident o f Punta Arenas bro ug ht the first sheep over from the Falklands in  1 8 7 7 .  When they multiplied, others took the  hint.  The two big pioneers were a charmless Asturian, Jose  Menendez, and his son-in-law, Moritz Braun, the son  o f a Jewish Jewi sh bu tc tche herr fr from om the Baltic.  Between them, the Braun and Mene Me ne nd ez familie familiess got colossal colossal land grant grantss from the A r g e n  tine Government, throttled the territory with their company, La Ano ni ma, ma , and impo rted rte d stud flocks from from N e w Zealan Zea lan d, farmmanagers

from

the

British

army,

and

shepherds

from

the

Highlands. T h e y became immensely rich. When he died in  1 9 1 8 D o n Jose

surpluss o f his millions milli ons to Alfon so XIII XI II o f Spain. In In Punta left  the surplu Arenas y o u can still still see the Palais Palais Braun, Bra un, impo i mporte rte d piecem pie cemeal eal from from France in 1902, wh er e, in a setting  o f  damasks, Cordoba leathers, hygienic  marbles, and a painting of amorous geese by Picasso's hygienic  father fat her,, the Edwar dia n era has has survive surv ived d the All ende en de regime reg ime.. Other

foreigners

also

got

land

in

Patagonia.

The

Land

Depar tmen t in Bu en os Aires deliberately favoured  Anglo-Saxons, since they were identified with Progress, and such Argentine proprietors as there  we re tende te nded d to install install British managers. T h e result was that Santa Cruz province looked like an outpost  o f  the Empire administered by Spanish-speaking  officials.  Some of the British Britis h farm farmss were we re - and still still are - run b y bi g outfits, quote quo ted d o n the Lo nd on St ock Exc ha ng e. Bu t many setde setders rs we re 'kelpers' 'kel pers' from from the Falklands, wi t h memo ries rie s o f the High land la nd clearances and no wh er e else else to go . Th ei r esta estanci ncias, as, th ou gh almost almost bankrupt, are are

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still  smartly smartly painted up u p and remind remi nd one o f an English Engl ish bo ys '

boarding school: the headmaster's house sits with its herbaceous borders, lawn-sprayers and bound copies of  Punch  and  Black wood's,   whil wh il e the peons sleep in  spartan  dormitories, have their orders posted on blackboards and make trivial purchases in the farm shop. Bayer is not quite fair to the  latifundistas.  T h e y had labou red for twenty-five  years, and their position was still extremely precari

ous; what one government gave, another might take back without

compensa compe nsation tion so the temptation temptat ion to get mo ne y out was irresistible. irresistible. Because  of their cheap labour lab our force, Patagonian Patago nian sheep-farmers

had bee n able able to undercut undercu t their Australian Australian and N e w Zeal and competitors and throughout the  1914—18 W  Wa a r  there was a bo om , but in the slump  that  followed there  came new taxes, inflation, customs controls and workers' agitation. The farmers of Santa Cruz  began bega n to compare compa re themselves wi t h Russia Rus sian n

aristo aristocra crats ts

stranded on the steppe at the mercy   o f violent  peasants. O n e  issue of the  Magellan Times,  the local English Engli sh newspaper ,

carries a picture  o f  a Russian country house, its owner grovelling to a slab-sided slab-sided muscleman, wi th the caption: ' A nocturna l org y of the Maximalists at the estate  o f Kislodovsk.  5,000 roubles or your lives ' Alongside an advertisement for 'party frocks by Marcells in

beige georget geo rget te w it h a silver sash' sash' was a profile  o f Trotsky, 'a sullen

despot in the the style style o f N e r o , open op enin ing g his murdero murd erous us dispatches dispatches with  a gold paper knife  that  once belonged to the Tsars ... note

the sullen indifference with which he  treats  beautiful linen table cloths'. T h e  peons wer e almos almostt all all from Ch il oe . Th e y wer e tougher

and poorer  than the sun-l ovin g Argentines and wor k ed harder for du mp troubl e-maker s less.  Besides wh ic h, their employers cou ld dump over  the border and earn the approval  o f  the authorities, who saw

in the large numbers of Chilean nationals a   threat  to Argentine security. Bayer describes the Chilotes thus:

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T h e   Anarchists  o f  Patagonia A l l  day on horseback; their backsides calloused; in heat and cold;  without women; without children, books or schooling.

A l w a y s   wearing the same submissive smile; always the clumsy evasiveness  o f the Chil ean peon . Me n wit h ski skins ns the colo ur of

those who never wash. Numberless men with glassy stares. M e n  represse repressed, d, l oo k in g as i f capon flesh were incarnate in their lifeless  faces, in their bodies without beauty, in clothes fit only

to cover their nakedness, not to keep out the cold ... B u t  this picture of the Chilotes as mindless victims of foreign greed  does scant scant jus tice tic e to their ow o w n culture, for the folklore folklo re o f

these steel-hard peo ple is full full o f hellish visions o f the outside wor ld and prophesies a time when they  w i l l  sweep the land of their oppressors. Like other pinioned races, their reserve w i l l  suddenly break d ow n in bouts  o f sex,  drink and violence (and did so before the coming of the Spaniards). This aspect of their character is something Bayer has overlooked. Rio Gallegos in 1920 was a grid  o f streets lined with corrugated

iron buildings, with the smoke-stacks  o f  the  Swift  Corporation's freezing-plant rearing above the prison yard. Antonio Soto had found foun d a ment or, a bald and dandified Spanish lawyer, Jose  Maria Borrero,  who had left the University  o f  Santiago  de Compostela with  a doctor ate in theol the ol ogy og y and drifted drifted to the end o f the wo rl d

where he ran a bi-weekly  newspaper,  La  Verdad, and laid into the Anglo-Saxon  plutocracy. His language thrilled his compatriots and they began to imitate his style: 'In this society   o f Judases  and Pulchinellas Borrero alone preserves the  rare integrity  o f  man ... amo ng these egotistic egotistic gluttons of lucre

. . . these these

twitte ring

pachyderms with their snapping teeth and castrated consciences.' Bor rer o int roduc ed Soto So to to the local ju dg e, Ismael Ismael Vinas, Vin as, a youngish  demagogue who also hated the foreign pirates and had

done his best to ruin a Scottish sheep-farming company  that  had contravened the Argentine  fisc.  The trio formed an alliance

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against the landowners, hoteliers and general traders, and against two me n in part particu icular lar.. O n e was the Act in g- Go ve rn or o f Sant Santa a Cruz, Ed elmir o Corr ea Falcon, a twe edy anglophile and property agent, the chairman of the local Sociedad Rural. The other was

Ibon Noya, the Spanish owner  o f  the Bu ic k garage garage and and president R i o Galleg os branch o f the Argen tin e Patriotic Patriotic Lea gue, gue , a o f   the Ri right-wing organisation formed to combat the bacillus  o f  foreign ideology.  In the case  o f Correa Falcon it was a case  o f love  turned

to hate; hate; Judge Vinas had insulted insulted the Ac ti ng -Go ve rn or 's wife by appearing at a civic civ ic function funct ion on the arm ar m  o f  his concubine. In September Soto began his career as a revolutionist by organising a strike  o f  waiters at the Grand Hotel. The police chief

o f   R i o Gallegos was a big, bad-tempered

Scot called called Rit ch ie

whose immediate reaction was to put all the rabble-rousers in jail.

B y   the time he awoke to the real threat  o f a Gen eral era l Strike and the pitiful size size o f his o w n force, the Judge Judg e had already order ed the prisoners' release, but the strike spread and paralysed some estancias which were in the middle  o f  lambing. Soto  then hoisted his political colours, the red and the black of Soto  anarchism. anarc hism. His next mOve, tou chi ng but not entirely enti rely to the point, was  a march o f Chil otes to commemorate the eleventh anniver

sary  o f the  the shooti ng  o f  the Catalan educator Francisco Ferrer. Soto insisted  that  the workers were honouring Ferrer, as Catholics hon oure d

the the

Maid

of

Orleans,

or

the

Mo ha mme d, but the police chi ef banned the

Moha mmed ans demonstration, demonstration,

giving  Vinas a chance to ridicule his ignorance  o f  Ferrer's place in

the history o f ideas. T h e Judge Judg e squashed the ban and the march marc h went ahead.

B y   the last week in October, the  Magellan  Magellan  Times  was giving gloomy warnings  o f the  unrest. On the night of i November Soto

escaped murder at the hands  o f  a hired Chilean  —  the knife blade hit the silver watch in his waistcoat. Convinced of his mission, Soto  called a general strike and marshalled a List of minimum Soto  120

 

T h e   Anarchists  of   Patagonia demands for estancia workers. The tone of the document was quite sedate. sedate. Borr Bo rr er o and and the Judge wan ted o nly to rout the other faction,  not to topple the system. But Soto insisted on a final clause:  that  his own Federacion Obrera should mediate all

disputes between employers and their men and concluded with a barrage o f insults insults agains againstt the la ndowne ndo wners rs and their system   that 'placed  the value of a man alongside that of a mule, a sheep or a

horse'. The farmers offered better wages and conditions but would  not let the chorus-boy step between them and their men.

A s  they hoped, their offer produced a schism among the workers: Soto  and

the

anarchists rejected the

terms; the

syndicalists

accepted   them, speaking of Soto's 'mental obtuseness and total accepted ignorance  o f h o w  to run a strike'. So to replied that the syndicalists were pimps for the local brothel, La Chocolateria. Isolated from the moderates, he then took up with some 'propagandists by the deed', who called themselves the Red Council  and wore red armbands. The leaders were two Italians,

one known as the '68' who had once made shepherdesses in a Dre sde n porcelain factory factory and the the other a red-bearde red-b earde d army deserter  called El Toscano. Their followers w er e a fluid mixtu re o f German  Wandervogel,  Russian Russ ian anarch anarchist ists, s, tw o  Scots,  some North American  cowboy-outlaws,  and the usual corps  o f  Chilotes.

A t   the head o f up to  five  hundred rough-riders, the Red Council  swooped on isolated farms, burning, requisitioning firearms, provisions and liquor, and taking the owners and managers hostage. The centre  o f their operations were the steppes east  o f Lago A rge nti no within easy easy reach  o f th  the e Cordil lera. In R i o Gallegos  Commissioner

Ritchie

sent

his

sub-commissioner

Micheri  to size up the situation.  A l s o  in the party were sergeant Sosa  'the Peon-Beater' and Jorge Perez Millan Temperley, a

pretty upper-class boy with a weakness for uniforms, who had joined the Gendarmeria as a subaltern.

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O v e r  Christmas Micheri's party patrolled the lake and beat up

peons at random, then retreated back across the pampas in two Ford cars. Passing the hotel of El Cerrito they  fell  into a Red iceme eme n and a chauffeur chauffeur wer e killed , the Council ambush. T w o pol ic sub-commissioner was wounded, and Temperley was shot in the genitals. Soto went into hiding and Borrero went to jail.  When he came out he found  that  Ritchie had raided the  offices  of   La Verdad  and destroyed the typeface. In Buenos  Aires,  President Hipolito Yrigoyen  received a firm note from the British Embassy and

decided to send in the troops. His choice  fell  on a small but patriotic officer, Lieutenant Colonel Hector Benigno Varela. th e  tenth Argentine Cavalry there sailed Captain Ignacio W i t h  h  the Santa a Cru z, w h o had had done Y z a ,   the appointed Gov er no r o f Sant everyt eve rythin hin g to delay taking taki ng up his his appoint ment. He was wa s a radical radical but k ne w nothing about Patagonia. He and Varela to ok the strikers'  part  against the foreign land-sharks, dismissed Ritchie, ignoring the warnings  o f  Correa Falcon, and offered free pardons to all all w h o surren surrendered dered

their arm arms. s. Th e Re d C ou nc il wer e

suspicious but, in the best anarchist tradition, allowed themselves to be overruled. Soto came out of hiding and claimed a total victory over the army, private property and the State.  ' Y o u ' l l  see,' Ibon Noya told Varela. 'Once you go this  w i l l start up again.'  ' I f it starts  up again,'

the Colonel said, 'I'll come back and shoot them by dozens.' Noya  was right. Sot o was puffed up wi t h success and made the

Governor's  life  impossible. He tried to organise a strike in the Swift  freezer, but the new police chief  outw itt ed hi m and herded

the work ers back into the factory. factory. As win ter te r closed in, Soto went we nt to Buenos Aires to canvass for support at the eleventh Workers' Congress,  but the professionals bickered over the policies o f Lenin

and an d Zi no vi ev and igno red the Patagonian Patagonian delegate. Mean whi le the coastal coastal town s o f Patagonia we re co nvu lsed lse d wi th

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arson, arson,

 

T h e   Anarchists  o f  Patagonia sabotage sabota ge and at at lleas eastt one on e murder. mu rder. B y spring, Sot o was dre amin g o f a revolt  that  would spread up from Patagonia and engulf the country. He had  three lieutenants  — a Bakunini st e x-wai x- wai te r called Outerelo; a Syndicalist official,  Albino Arguelles; and a courteous

and silent gaucho called Facon Grande for the size o f his knife. Dr Borrero was conspicuous by his absence. The wreck  o f  La Verdad had silenced him and he saw the dangers  o f provoking the army a second time. Besides, he was having an affair with an estanciero's daughter and had taken advantage  o f  depressed land prices to buy a little place of his own. Then it was discovered  that  he had, all along,  been on the payroll of the Brauns and Menendezes; the

anarchist broadsheets spoke  o f Judas'  thirty pieces  o f  silver. T h e R e d C ou nc il began the the second phase phase  o f  the revolution on

their own, but were betrayed to the police and bundled  o f f to jail. Soto  should have taken the  hint,  but he still believed the

government was neutral, and sent 'evangelists  o f Bakunin'  round the sheep farm farmss giv g iv in g orders to raid and take hostages. O n the whole  the prisoners were well-treated, but a Mr Robbins of Torquay  cut his throat  in a fit of depression.

President  Yrigoyen  called Varela Vare la a sec ond time and told t old him hi m to to use whatever measures were necessary. The  Magellan  Magellan 

Times

comm ent ed: 'S o far the Argen tine tin e Cava lry has done no thi ng to justify  its presence, but we hope  that  Comma nda nte Varela is

preparing a campaign  that  w i l l  completely stamp out this revolt and  that  the bandits  w i l l receive a lesson they  w i l l not forget for a good  number  o f  years.'

This time Varela had indeed come 'not to pardon but to clean'.

(He used the words  limpiar  and  depurar.)  H e interpreted

hi hiss

instructions as tacit tacit permission permiss ion for a bloodb blo odbath ath,, but bu t since Con gre ss had just abolished the death penalty, he had to inflate Soto's Chilotes to 'military forces perfectly armed and better munit mun ition ion ed . . . 

enemies of the country in which they  l i v e ' .  Many, it was

claimed,  were salitreros from the  nitrate mines in northern  Chile; 123

 

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w h en three  Chi le an carabineers carabineers we re captured inside the frontier, frontier,

this was evidence  that  the Chil ean gove rnme nt lay behin d the revolt;  a

Russian

Menshevik

with

a

notebook

of  Cyrillic

characters chara cters plainly signified the red hand o f Mo s c o w . (Bayer categorically denies Chile's involvement, though members  o f  the Argentine  Frontier Commission assured me  that documents exist

to the contrary.) T h e  ill-armed strikers melted away before the troops. Varela

gunfight s and arsen arsenals als captured, but b ut the filed  reports o f stirring gunfights

Magellan Times   for once told the  truth:  'Various bands of rebels, finding  their cause lost, have hav e surrender surr endered ed and the bad ele ment men t

among them have been shot.' T h e  army's performance was one of outstanding cowardice. O n  five  occasions the soldiers got the peons to  surrender  b y

promising to respect their hves. Each time the killings began straight afterwards: they were shot into graves they dug them selves  or their corpses burned on bonfires  o f  thornscrub. Borrero

made an exaggerated estimate of 1,500 in his book  La  Patagonia

Trdgica,  but the number of the dead is uncertain.  Officially  the firing  squads did not exist. Soto's  megalomaniac dream finally collapsed at La Anita, the

prize Menendez estancia, ringed by snowy mountains, with a view  of the Moreno Glacier sliding through black forests into a

turquoise lake. Here, with five  hundred men, he held his hostages in the big green and white house with its art nouve.au  conservatory. W h e n he heard  o f the massacres on the plain, and  o f Captain  Vifias

Ibarra's column not far up the  valley, he k ne w his his numb er was up. His character became more frigid and austere, while his talk   o f  the dignity  o f man more  than e ver obscured any understanding  o f real

men. At nights he went  o f f to sleep alone, and the Chilotes, who required their leaders to share every detail of their hves, began to loathe him. At his last conference, the hardliners, led by two Germans, wanted to barricade the shearing shed with  w o o l  bales

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T h e   Anarchists  o f  Patagonia and fight to the last last man, but b ut Soto So to said said he was not no t d o g meat, he would  run for it and continue the revolution elsewhere. And the Chilotes  preferred to  trust  even the Argentine army  rather than Soto's  promises. Soto sent two peons to Vinas Ibarra to ask for terms. 'Terms for what?'  he asked and told them to make terms with Jesus  Christ.

Subsequently, he demanded an unconditional  surrender,  but said he would spare their  lives.  That Th at night nig ht Soto Sot o and a fe w others rode rod e out o ver the Cordiller Cord iller a and escaped into  Chile.  (He died at Punta Arenas  in the 1960s, 1960s, filled wi th remorse, remor se, the propri etor  o f a small

restaurant run on anarchist principles.) In the morning the soldiers freed  the hostages and herded the peons into the shearing shed. O n e  of the hostages, who had been a professional Indian killer,

said he wanted thirty-seven corpses for his thirty-seven stolen horses. The  three  hundred Chilot es thought they wo ul d be expelled  over the border into  Chile.  B ut at at seven in the the mor nin g

the door do or o f the shed ope ne d and a sergeant distributed distrib uted

picks to

a wor k- par ty.

T he

others others

ostentatiously heard

the m

marchi ng off and then the chi nk o f picks on stone. ' Th ey 'r e digging  graves,' they said. The door opened again at eleven and

the men me n we r e led out in groups for for the estancieros estancieros to pic k out the men they wa nt ed back at wo rk . It was just like sorting sheep. T h e  unwanted ones  —  mouths lowered and eyes distended  — were led offpast the sheep-dip and round a scrubby hill. From the

yard the others heard the crackle  o f shots and saw turkey buzzards soaring in from the mountains. About 120 men died  that day. One

o f   the executioners said, 'They went to their deaths with a passivity that  was truly astonishing.' T h e  British community was overjoyed. The  Magellan

Times

praised Varela's 'splendid courage, running about the firing line as thou th ough gh on parade parade . . . Patagonians should take their  hats  o f f  to the

tenth  Arge nti ne Caval ry, these these very gallan gallantt gentle gen tle men' . Ibon Noya's Patriotic League Leagu e was alread already y urging urg ing Varela's  appointment

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as Gov ern or. At a lunc heon , N oy a spoke  o f t  the he 'sw eet emoti on o f these moments' and of his 'satisfaction mixed with gratitude at being ri  rid d  the plague'. T h e colon el replied replied modestly   he had  of  that only  done his duty as a soldier, and the twenty British  present, being me n  o f fe  few w  Spanish Spanish wor ds, brok e into song: 'F or he's a joll y good  fellow

In Bue no s Aires Aire s it was a different different story. Th er e was no hero's hero 's welcome  for Varela, only

gr graffi ffiti reading: reading:

'SHOOT THE

C A N N I B A L   O F T H E  S O U T H '  Few left-wingers cared too muc h about Soto or the Chi lot es, but the army had, unwitt ingl y, killed a Syndicalist official and Congress was in  uproar.  Yrigoyen

appointed Varela director director  o f a cavalry school sch ool and ho pe d the cr cris isis is would  simmer down. But at dawn on 27 January  1923, as Varela Va rela was on his w a y to wo rk , he was approached approac hed by a a tall, tall, red-hair red- hair ed

man in a dark suit carrying a copy  o f th  the e  Deutsche  La  Plata  Zeitung and a bomb. As the bomb exploded, the assassin fired his  Colt twice and pierced Varela's jugul ar. 'I have reveng ed my brothers,'

he mumbled in bad Spanish as he  fell,  'I do not need to  l i v e . ' T h e  killer was Kurt Wilkens, a thirty-six-year-old German

wander er from Schle swi g-Hols g-H olstei tei n, w h o had had been a miner and anarchis anar chistt in the Uni te d State Statess until the immigra immi gratio tion n authorities expelled  him. In Buenos Aires he washed cars by day and read

great bo ok s by night. In his lodgings lodg ings police pol ice found framed phot os

o f   Tolstoy and Kropotkin, and copies of Goethe's  Werther  and Knut  Hamsun's  Hunger.  H e claimed to have made the b om b himself, but  there  were no traces and the police were sceptical. O n e  of the  mourner's  at Varel Va rela's a's funeral was an effeminate young  man who moped  round  the  coffin,  sobbing and swearing revenge. T h e murderer, w h o had recover ed, was put in the Pri son

trial'). ). Wilk en 's ne w warder o f  the Encausaderos  ('those awaiting trial' was  strangely nervous; he paced up and down in the hot sticky

night until hi hiss spell spell was ove r, then  he entered the  cell,  rubbed the barrel of his Mauser against the German's shoulder blades, asked 126

 

T h e   Anarchists  of   Patagonia him, ' Are yo u Wilkens?'  'Jawo 'Ja wohl, hl, ' came the answer, answ er, and he fired. fired. T h e young warder rushed to his superior and said, 'I have avenged

the death  o f m y  cousin, cousin, Co lo ne l Varela.' T h e warder, the same boy who behaved so strangely at Varela's funeral,  was Jorge Perez Milla n Tempe rl ey, las lastt seen seen at El C err ito and now permanently unhinged by the wound to his genitals. H o w  he became Wilken's warder was never explained, for the

inquiry smo othe d the issue issuess over . He got   o f f with a light sentence, sentenc e, eight  years, in  view  of his 'physical abnormality' and was soon

transferred transfe rred to a hospital for the criminal cr iminally ly insane. O n e  o f his  fellow  internees

was

a  Yugoslav  midget,

a

compulsive  talker who had once murdered his doctor. On Monday  afternoon, afternoon,

9 February February 1925, Tem per le y, in a black

mood, was writing a letter to the National President of the Argentine  Patrioti Patriotic c Lea gue, wh en  Lukic,  the  Yugoslav, poked his

head round the door  o f the cubicl e, shouted, 'Th is is is for  Wilkens ' and shot him. T h e  mechanics of vengeance had taken their final  turn.  The

question was: W h o gave g ave Luk ic the gun? Th e police eventually pinned this on another internee, Boris Vladimirovic, a Russian of some pedigree, a biologist,  artist  and revolutionary writer who had lived in Switzerland and known Lenin. After the 1905 revolution he took to drink and then went to Argentina to begin again on a cattle ranch in Santa Fe. But the old life  drew him back.

In  1 9 1 9  he bungled the robbery  o f a bureau de change in Buenos Aires to raise funds for an anarchist publication. A man was killed

and Vla dim iro vic got tw ent y-f ive years years in Ushuaia, Tierra del ld . Bu t the the cold, the clouds Fuego, the prison at the end  o f the wor ld. and black water drove him mad. He sang the songs of the Motherland, and for the sake of quiet, the Governor had him transferred transf erred to hospital in the capital. Th at Sunda Su nday y visiti vis iting ng day, tw two Russian friends brought him a revolver in a basket of fruit. The case  was wa s  hard  to prove, and  there  was no trial. But Boris

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Vladimirovic  disappeared for ever, paralysed, into the House of

the Dead. Last La st year, I met near Punt a Aren as an old Chi lo t e sheep shearer shearer w h o  had escaped the massacre and had known Antonio Soto. His handss we re kn ott ed wi th arthri hand arthritis tis,, and he sat sat wea ring ri ng a beret huddled over a wood stove. When I asked about the Revolution he said, 'The army had permission to  kill  eve ryb ody ' - as if one could hope for nothing else. But when he talked of Soto and the leaders, he shook, and, as  i f  surprised by the violence of his own voice,  shouted, 'T he y were not workers. Th ey never wor ke d a

day in their hves. hve s. Bark eepers eepe rs Hairdresse Hairdressers rs Acro bats bat s

Artistas ' 1976

128

 

THE R O A D TO THE I  ISLE SLES S

1

N o  biographer should embark on Robert Louis Stevenson

wit hout t aking stock  o f the effect  o f  Edinburgh on its inhabitants. For the gaunt  northern  capital demands from them, and usually gets,  a ve very ry spec specific ific mora morall com mit men t.

Ste Stevens venson on was an

Edinburgh phenomenon; his childhood in the city set up a repetitious see-saw o f attraction and loat loathing hing that almo almost st predet predeter er mined his death in the South Seas. Coddled in the sickroom by masterful women, he  turned  in boyish fantasy to all-male adventures in bright islands in the sun. Once installed in Samoa, in the style o off a la laird, ird, w wii t h his "fam "famil ily y and the solid furniture o f his father's house about him, he finally grew up and came to terms with  the 'precipitous city' he had once hated to the backbone. T h e  late late Jame amess P ope- Henn ess y's bo ok makes

reading. He ha hass pic ke ked d ove overr the a abunda bundant nt

interesting

documen tati on,

assembled at the  turn  of the century by people who  turned  the commemoration  o f  Stevenson into a literary industry, and he has selected  w e l ll,,  packing the story with telling detail and anecdote. H e  g i v e s a straightforward account  o f Stevenson's placid, cheerful mother,, from w h o m he inherited his we ak che mother chest; st; o f his his morose and pious father, father, the lligh ightho thouse use eng engine ineer; er; and o f his nurse, the fearsome A l is i s o n C unni ngha m, w h o whi ppe d his imaginatio imagination n i nto a frenzy of religious  torme to rment. nt. H e dwe dwell llss on his sex sexless less l ov e a aff ffai airr 1

  Robert  Louis  Stevenson, James Pope- Hennc ssy, Lon don: Jonathan Cape, 1974 .

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with the Madonna-like Mrs Sitwell,  and goes ove r the vicissitudes

o f   his his bizarre bizarre marriage marriage wi th the Ameri can Fanny Os bo ur ne . W e are given a vivid  glimpse  o f  artistic, expatriate bohemia at Grez  in the Forest of o f Fontainebl eau. W e also also get some thi ng o f the the essenti esse ntial al perversity o f Stevens Stev enson's on's character, o f his hysterical gaiety  in the face  o f fatal illness, and  o f  his  gift  o f making himself

irresistible to both sexes. A n d yet Pope-Henne ssy leaves the impression he was bored by

Stevenson,  both as a writer and as a man. The Stevenson family

and its entourage glide through the book, picturesque figures in a picturesque decor, but  there i  iss little to indicate w h y the y function functi on as the y do - until, that i  iss , they board the yacht  Casco and sail for the South Seas. A  Att this point they enter Pope-H ennes sy's o w n orbit of

interest,  and the  reader's interest  quickens in  turn.  He plainly enjoyed  visiting Samoa; and we enjoy his descriptions of its

luxuriance, its warmth and colour, and the pale, glistening bodies

o f   the natives. In an earlier book,  Verandah,  he wrote brilliantly about his grandfa grandfather ther's 's gover norship nors hip o f Mauritius. H e should

perhaps have expa nded the last last sevent sev ent y-odd y-o dd pages pages  o f this one, and used the Stevensons as a peg to illustrate the pleasures and delusions  o f Europeans who setde in a tropical island paradise. Pope-Hennessy did not set out to write a critical biography of Stevenson  or to  treat his books as more  than so many incidents in

his career. This is a pity, especially with so autobiographical a writer. Stevenson was profoundly self-centred and had a morbid concern for his public image. He liked to   think  he was free with information about himself. In fact he kept tight rein on the confessional;  but, consciously or not, he was always dropping

broad  hints  in his stories. Pope-Hennessy's decision to concen

trate  on the  life  and not the works is, however, excusable. Stevenson  was a talented talent ed story st ory-te -teller ller but he was ne ve r firstfirst-rat rate. e.

His grasp  o f charact  character er was limited to a few stock types; ove rdr awn and larger than life. He was unduly concerned with the niceties of

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The Road   to the  Isles style, advising yo u n g writers to bo w their heads heads before the id ol of

technique, but in his own case the result tends to be limp and ineffectual.  H e was also also unable unable to writ e clearly about abo ut the present and drifted off of f int o imagi im aginar nary y fancy dress dress occasi occ asions ons.. H e is at his

most enjoyable when writing for children, when he does not complicate  the plot with tangential moral postures. But  that  is

hardly the mark  o f  a first-rate first-rate wri te ter. r. N o r  can one think  o f his life a  ass a first-rate first-rate perfor per forman mance. ce. H e was

a careful man who lacked the open-hearted audacity  o f  a Wil de . H e was often often on the ver ge of some splendid and dangerous dangero us act, but caution got the better of him. His vaunted revolt against Victorian  propriety and his descent into  low-life  were half

hearted and tempered by fear  o f sca  scandal. ndal. He was wa s also somet so met hin g of of a prig. He cultivated a reputation for wom ani si ng (witho ut mu ch evidence),  y et he was always ready to we w e i g h in against against joyless  lust.

A   vein  o f self-satisfied meanness overlaid his generosity; his hand outs usually pr ov ok ed resentment.

His denial o f faith faith was

calculated to pain his Calvinist father, yet  Travels  with a  Donkey  tails

o f f   into an anti -Cat holi c, pro-Protestant tract tract.. He harped on o n the need for the simple life, alone or out in the open with the woman on e  loves,  only to cumber  himself with himself with  the hefty trappings  o f  the middle class. He yearned for adventure, for a  'pure  dispassionate adventure adventu re such as as befell the great explorers' explore rs'.. Bu t he  hadn't  the stomach for it; on the whole, he travelled in a world made safe for aesthetes. He longed for a Great Man Friend, a fellow-adventurer like  Que eque g in  Moby  Dick;  in practice his chosen chos en playmate was

Fanny's son, Lloyd  Osbour ne, for for w h o m he wrote  Treasure  Island. He claimed to suffer under the stultifying drowsiness  o f Victorian peace ('Shall we never shed blood? This prospect is too grey')   — and spent much  o f his time playing with toy soldiers. W h e n he died at Vailima in Samoa in  1894, the British Empire was   at its height. Stevenson, the champion of native causes, was

hailed in some s ome circles as a latter-day saint. saint. Steve S teve nson, nson , the writ er o f

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boyish ta  tale less (in a wo rl d run b y ove rg ro wn boys),  was acclaimed accl aimed as as

though he were one of the great novelists  o f  all  time. British and American  readers  pored admiringly over each perfect sentence. T h e  first edition of  Treasure  Island  acquired tremendous value

among collectors.  Th e you ng Ameri can bibliomane Harry Elkins Widener said he never travelled without his copy; it went down with  him on the  Titanic.  W h y such an obviou obv iouss second-rater came

to enjoy so inflated a  reputation would make a very worthwhile subject,, but again, subject again, PopePo pe-Hen Hen nes sy does not no t get us us ver y far. far. H enry en ry James, Jam es, wri ti ng to commiserate commiser ate wi th Fanny, Fanny , was close to the mark: 'The re have been - 1  think - for a man ma n  o f lett  letters, ers, fe w deaths  more romantically right.' Perhaps the Stevenson secret lay in the fact

that  he did (or appeared to do) the k ind in d of o f things the publ ic expects  from its heroes. And he managed to  attract a great deal of publicity  for them. Whether his acts were genuine or faked is

beside the point. The events  o f his life  and the circumstance  o f his death have a mythic wholeness common to figures of heroic legend  - a difficul difficultt chil ch il dhoo dh ood, d, an ove rbe ari ng foster-mothe foste r-mother, r, a revolt  from the authority  o f the father, father, a j ou rn ey to a fa farr countr cou ntry, y,

marriage to a stranger, a fight fight against mena me naci ci ng forces (in this case a tubercular chest), return and reconciliation with the father, public acclaim,  and  then  a second  departure  followed  by death in a

remote and mysterious situation. It is Stevenson's second-rateness  that  makes him interesting. His predicamen predic amentt is ve ry familiar familiar 

— 

narrow-minded  parents,  unwilling

the spoilt child of worthy, to  follow  in

the

family

business, longing to slough off civilisation in favour of healthy primitivism, yet tied to home by links of affection and cash, Stevenson  is is the forerunner forerunne r o f countless middle-class children chi ldren w h o  Utter the world's beaches, or comfort themselves with

anachronistic  pursuits  and worn-out religions.  Traveb  with  a

Donkey  

is the prot otyp e

o f the inc ompet ent  undergraduate

voyage.

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The Road   to the  Lies Edinbur gh is the key to to understa understanding nding

Stevenson. Po pe -

Hennessy seems to have gone  there  as a tourist on a literary pilgrimage;  he failed to take the measure of it, of it,   and missed some valuable  clues. clu es. Edin Ed in burg bu rgh h is a place of absolute contrast and

paradox. A sense of quality in men and things goes hand in hand with chaotic squalor. The rational squares and terraces  o f th the e New T o w n  confront the daunting skyline of the Old. Slums still abut

the houses o f the rich. ric h.  Wild  mountain scenery impinges on the o f the cit y. O n fine summe r days no wh er e is lighter ligh ter and heart  of more airy; for most  o f the year there are i cy blasts blasts or a cla mmy sea

fog,   the  haar  of the east coast of Scotland. Edinburgh is conte con tempt mptuou uou s o f the present. In no other city in the British Isl Isles es do you  feel  to the same extent the oppressive weight  o f  the past. Mary  Queen of Scots and John  K n o x  are a presence. The dead

seem more ahve than the  t he  living. T he re is a claustrophobic,  coffinlike  atmosphere  that  makes  Glasgow,  in comparison, seem a

paradise

of  life  and

laughter.

Moderate

health

is

virtually

unknown. Either people enjoy robust appetites, or they are ailing and require protection. Heady passions simmer below the surface. In wint er the city slumbers slumbers all all w e e k in blue-fac ed rectitude, onl y to explode on Saturday evenings in an orgy  o f drink and violence and sex. In some  quarters the pious must pick their wa y to church chu rch along  pavements spattered with vomit and broken bottles.

From his endless hours at the kirk Stevenson got the lecturing tone  that cre  creeps eps into his his wor k. Fr om his his house in Heri ot R o w , he gott  his careful good taste; from Edinburgh conversation, his go

infuriating archaisms and refined, euphemistic circumlocutions; from the city's parades and martial music, his suppressed milita rism rism;; from fro m its its bloodblo od-sta sta ined ine d legends le gends,, his fond fondne ness ss for the ghoulis ghou lish. h. Un de r the infl uence o f his training at at the Edi nbur nb urgh gh Bar, he makes his characters plead their cause, rather than state their case. Edinburgh, the historical stage-set, conditioned his rejection of Zola's  realism and inspired his own  rather  fey romancing. The

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model for Dr  Jekyll  and Mr  Hyde  was a symbol ic Edi nbu rgh character  o f the eighteenth century, Deacon Brodie, a respectable cabinet-maker who was a thief in off-hours and eventually got himself  hanged. Stevenson set  D r Jekyll  and Mr  Hyde  in London, but it was Chest erton w h o spotted spotted  that i  itt was an Edi nbu rgh rg h story, with  its pattern  o f light  and darkness, its rich mansion  giving  out

on to a slum, its Calvinistic antithesis   o f absolute good and  e v i l .  It does not say say mu ch for Stevenson's understanding or tolerance  that he should bestow his sympathies on  Dr Jekyll and damn Mr Hyde. From Edinburgh too came his compulsion to escape. Most of its citizens, at some time, are swept by the urge to get out. The y o u n g  Stevenson recorded how he watched with longing the

southbound  trains  leaving Waverley Station; and writing to his mother moth er in 1874, he warn ed her not to mind his prolo nge d absences:  'You must remember  that  I shall shall be a nomad, nom ad, more mo re or less,  until my days be done.' One side of Stevenson was the

perenniall bo perennia b o y wi t h the pack on his back , always happier to be be somewhere else, unable to face the complications of sex, and ready to work it  o f f on a bike. He belongs, in spirit, to a long line

o f   literary vagabonds; Whitman, Rimbaud and  Hart  Crane are other examples who come to mind. Stevenson undoubtedly derived  a g o o d deal deal o f his glorification glorif ication o f the o pen pe n road from from

Whitman, but he never achieved the vigour of the American's athletic outpourings. T h e  other side of Stevenson was the man with the staid,

conventional view  that he should marry and setde down. In a way his choice of a  wife  was ideal. Fanny Vandegrift Osbourne was

another  very v ery familia familiarr type — the t ough ou gh,, neuro n eurotic tic Ame ri can, ca n, separated from her  husband,  approaching middle age yet still pretty, with children, in Europe, in search of the   arts.  She was a girl from the Midwest, married to her childhood sweetheart, who

had grown from a beautiful boy into a philandering layabout. Fanny appears to have been very naive about her   husband's  love

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The Road   to the  Lies affairs  until they were thrust under he r nose. She then de vel ope d a

distaste for aggressive masculinity, and perhaps a distaste for sex in general. The tomboyish element in her character helped her survive  the Nevada mining camps to which Sam Osbourne dragged her, but the roodess shiftings  o f her first marriage instilled in her a rapacious appetite for property and an obsession with minut e social distinctions. distinctions. T h e death  o f her younger son in Paris in  1876 turned her into a guilt-ridden guilt- ridden w om a n wi th an urge to save save someone or something. The young Scottish exquisite, who was chronically ill, aw ok e her  S a l v a t i o n i s t  impulses.

Pope-Hennessy reads the Stevenson marriage as a straight   love story. In a sense he is right. There is every reason why the gauche, elfin  lad, with his 'odd intense  gaze',  should have been drawn to

an attracti attractive ve older wo ma n. Furthermor e, any  transatlantic  love affair  holds an extra fascination for both sides, combining the

charm of the exotic with an ease of communication. It is fairly certain  that Fanny and Louis Loui s bec ame lovers lov ers at Grez.  B u t there was nott goi no g oi ng to be much mu ch sex s ex in this this marriage, and I do not think thin k Pope-Hennessy has plumbed its complexity. Fanny was to be the dominant  partner.  In go od times, she was to be comp ani on, fellow-adv fello w-adventur entur er, siste sisterr and mother, but hardly hardly ever the lover . In In bad times times she she was to be the d evot ed, ir on- wil led sick-nurse,   filling the emotional gap left by  Alison Cunningham: indeed, she seems to have preferred the role  o f nurse  to all others. In  Catriona,  wh ic h Stevenson Stev enson wr ot e as as a sequel to  Kidnapped,

there  is one telling incident where the hero and heroine have to defend themselves. Catr iona laments laments  that she was not born a manchild  and able to wield a sword, because David Balfour (a law

student  like Stevenson) had never leamt to use one. Some critics have suggested that Stev  Stevenson enson was impote nt. Ther Th er e is even ev en talk talk of a 'lasting injury' to his manhood, acquired from an Edinburgh whore.  H e  himself was the first to say he did not want a family of

his own, while it was only at the end  o f his writing career  that  he

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bro ugh t

him self to

handle

female female charact characters ers..

To

intr oduce

wo me n , he on ce said, said, was 'po iso n bad wo rl d for the romance roma ncer'. r'. Th er e was in Steven son a girlishn girlishness ess,, always always kep t withi wit hi n the bounds o f Vic tori an prudery,  that  thrilled at tough, aggressive masculinity. The sailors of  Treasure  Island  are nut-brown and soiled  and scarred, and they foreshadow the Samoan house-boys soiled 

that, toge  together ther wit h Lloyd Osbourne, he selected for their beauty at nove ls are are als also o filled wi th handso me Vailima.  Th e novels

gre ying yi ng

bachelors who take a 'fancy to the lady'. In the  Weir  of   Hermiston fragment, the y o u n g tentative A rc hi e W e i r (a (a self-portrait self-portrait)) sa says ys 'his eyes eyes dwel lin g on those  o f  his goodbye  to Lo rd Glena lmond , 'his old friend like those  o f a lover on his mistress's'. Stevenson is well k n o w n to have had a father-fixation, and on ce spoke o f his his excitement and horror at the beauty  o f  his father stripped on the beach at North Berwick. This  carrying-on has naturally led one particular kind of critic This  to think the worst o f Lo ng  John  Silver's wooden leg. But Stevenson was innocently amused by his own girlishness. When the Italian  portrait-painter  Gugliemo Nerli came to Samoa and painted him, he wro te the f ollo ol lo win g scra scrap p of dog gere l:

O h   will  h e paint me the way I  like, as  bonny as  a girlie,

O r   will  he make me an ugly tyke, and  be ... to Mr  Nerli

Had he be en a homos exua l, or k no wn w hat it was to be on e, he would  surely not have written these arch and embarrassing lines. would 

Y e t  I do think we have to allow that part  o f  Fanny's attraction was her son  Lloyd;  and the fact  that,  on Louis's death,  Lloyd  all but died  o f grief, makes it clear that  their passionate friendship was far from one-sided. Louis  loved Fanny desperately. He got it into his head  that  he

136

 

The Road   to the  Isles would  marry her, and he did. He could not live  without her, and,

on receiving a hysterical telegram from her, he pursued her to San Francisco.  Th is was the critical critical mome mo me nt o f his his  life,  and I do not think Pope-Hennessy has understood it. After an appalling

journey on an emigrant ship and  train, Louis arrived in Californi Cal ifornia, a, battered, scabby, wh ee z i ng and probabl prob ably y near death. Fanny and Lloyd we lc om ed him wi th open arms, arms, but somethi ng was wr on g.

She Sh e was having a nervous brea kd own , brought on by her divorce,

and she dithered over a union with an invalid now as penniless as herself. In despair Louis went off on one of his lonely hikes, collapsed  and was saved from from death by b y an old rancher. ranch er. In the

winter of  1879—80 he li ved ve d alone in squalid lodgings lodg ings in Mo nt er ey and San Francisco, half-starving, wrecking his lungs from the sea-

f o g ,  and break ing himsel f wi th w or k . He refuse refused d offe offers rs of cash cash from his London friend Sidney Colvin, saying he saw this period as a test test of o f enduran endu rance. ce. Me an wh il e Fanny held hel d off; off; she liv ed in a cottage across the bay at Oakland and saw him perhaps twice a week.  She did not even invite him for Christmas. On 26

December  he wrote home: 'For four days I have spoken to no

one, but my landlady or landlord or the waiters in the  restaurant. This is not no t a gay w a y to pass pass Christmas Christma s and I must o w n the guts are

a litde knocked out  o f  me.' A n d  the guts  were kno cke d out  o f him. In the spring, Louis had

his first haemorrhage from the lungs, and Fanny decided to marry him. The two events were simultaneous and connected. Unkind witnesses said  that  Fanny thought she was marrying a corpse and ho pe d to profit profit as Stevenson's Stevens on's wi w i d o w . Thi s is is unfa unfair ir.. Bu t iitt iiss hard to escape escape the conclu co nclu sion  that Louis courte d death in San Francisco in order to qualify to be ill enough for Fanny to marry him. The marriage was based on the fact of his illness. Her well-being depe nde d on his be ing in g fl flat on his back, on havin h avin g hi m  well en ou gh to be dependent depend ent on her. Her protec tive stre streak, ak, like  that of  o f Alison  Cunningham, had a deadly side  that  wo ul d smother and

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unman  him. Sargent's brilliant  portrait  of the pair, painted at Bo ur ne mo ut h,

says says it all -

he, he , the pale, agitated

narcissis narcissist, t,

twiddling  his moustachios and gazing into the  mirror,  she, a dumpy, sedentary figure in oriental costume. The Stevensons were in some ways a ver y mod ern coup le. Bu t  Fanny  turned  him into a writer.  A l w a y s  claiming second

sight, she said she knew she was marrying a genius   ' i f he lives and works '  She used her flair for organisation to get him down to

work an  and d write mone y-m aki ng books. Had he remained  well  and single and lived in England, the chances are he would have struck, like his friend friend W . E. Henle Hen le y, a medi ocr e figure figure wit h such talent as  as

he had sucked dry in incestuous coteries. Fanny unscrupulously used the sickbed (his sheets were stained with ink and blood and gravy)  and a series of sanatoria to protect Stevenson from his

friends: and once they had moved to the South Seas, she could gloat  with satisfaction over the fact that she had, at last, wheedled

him out  o f  the orbit  o f  literary London. Here she miscalculated. The South Pacific suited his health far

better than she coul d have imagined. His lungs stopped bl eedi ng. He n ow put on wei ght and muscle. He to o became nut -br own and swam and did manual w or k . His oce an cruises, cruises, first first on the yacht  and  then  on rough copra schooners, toughened him and gave  him confidence as a man. But she could not take it. After a

rough passage to Hawaii, he wrote with evident pleasure: 'My wife  is no great shakes. She is is the on e w h o has has suffer suffered ed mos t.' A nd ,

when  they settled in Samoa and began building the house he

continued to emerge from the  c y c l e  of unmanning  prostration. He also mastered his fear of the opposite sex. At the time of his death he was creating, creat ing, for for the first first time, tim e, t w o

flesh-a flesh-andnd-blo blood od

w o m en  - Kirstie Kirst ie and Christi na Elliott Ellio tt in  Weir  of  Hermiston. Bu t  Louis's recovery drove Fanny frantic. She  turned V ailima

into emotional bedlam. She screamed and threw  tantrums.  They had to  give her laudanum and even hold her down. Since she had 138

 

The Road   to the  Isles lost absolute cont rol ov er her husband, she laun ched into schemes for extending the house from a modest hide-out into a grandiose

establishment. Her extravagance, combined with his Scottish fear o f   ruin, pressed him to earn more and more royalties. He reacted b y  cloistering himself wi th  his step-daughter, the beautiful  Belle

Strong,  who became his amanuensis and to whom he was evidently  attracted. He became morose and pined for Scotland

and then he cracked under the strain. The cerebral haemorrhage, which  killed him, left Fanny free to play the role of martyr's widow. It was a role which suited her talent for drama, which she

enjoyed,  and from which she knew how to profit. The legend of

' R L S ' was secure. 1974

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V A R I A T I O N S   O N A N  IDEE FIXE 1

Admirers  o f  King  Solomon's  Ring  an and d  Man  Meets  Dog  w i l l  be relieved  that  Konrad Lorenz has reverted to his earlier vein. His

last tw o book last bo ok s must have bee n a bitter disappointment, disappoint ment, even ev en to those who accepted  On  Aggression  as a w o r k o f oracular oracular

irror, r,  purported to significance.  O n e  o f them, entitled  Behind  the M irro be a 'search for a Natural History  o f Human  Knowledge', but was impenetrable to the non-academic reader. The other, 

Man's

Civilised

Eight   Deadly  easy en ou gh - a diatribe in the Deadly  Sins,  was easy

language  o f th  the e world- saver that dragged out the musty metaphors

o f   social  Darwinism and could have been written in the late 30s. Ove rpopul rpo pul ati on and the ruin o f the landsc landscape ape we re galloping cancers.  H e in vei ghe d again against st the the inertia inertia o f public op ini on; the

universal mania for the ne w; the lack o f courtship rituals that made for  stable marriages; and he feared  that  our civilisation would  fall to the less pampered peoples  o f  the East.

th e  Greylag  Goose,  ho we ve r, proves The Year   of   the prov es he has has not no t lost his light touch or ability to charm. He presents the book as the record

seasons spent studyin stud ying g his favourite favour ite bird b ird in the 'fairytale 'fairytale o f   four seasons surroundings' o f Lake A i m in Austria. Th e result result is extr emely pretty and  w i l l doubt  doubtless less beguile a wi de audience, pardy through thro ugh ' 

Tlie  Year  of  th e  Greylag  Goose,  Konra d Lorenz, N e w York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich,

1979-

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Variations  on an  Idee  Fixe

the colour photographs  o f Sybille and Klaus Kalas,  partly through Lorenz's  special gift o f get tin g unde r the skin o f other oth er creatures. T h e  mountains are beautiful; the air is crystalline, and the greylag itself is a marvellous bird  o f muted greys and whites, with a beak

the colour  o f  red coral and slightly paler feet. O n page afte afterr page pa ge exquisite images illustrate the flowers, the other animals of Lake

A i m ,  and

the

geese

themselves,

courting,

mating,

nesting,

hatching, fighting, swimming, moulting,  flying,  or feeding in the snow. O n the las lastt three spreads, a goos go ose e closes its eyelids eyel ids and dr drift iftss

into the deepest sleep. Lorenz  himself, in bathing shorts, sou'wester, or anorak,

appears as the venerable, white-bearded naturalist, the Nobel Prize  Winner who has never lost his capacity to marvel at the

wonders of nature.  When wild geese answer his  call,  he feels he has stepped back into a 'paradise  o f peaceful  coexist ence' wit h his his fellow  creatures. On the other hand, his knowledge  o f  evolution

has

earned

him

the

right

to

preach

sermons  that  w i l l  be

understood by anyone who takes the trouble to read between the lines.  In the postscript, he hopes  that  the book  ' w i l l  inspire overworked  people who are alienated by  nature  with a sense of

what is good and of their duty to protect and preserve  nature's living  things'.

Lorenz  grew up at Altenberg on the Danube, and still lives in

the fantastical neo-baroque mansion built by his father, a rich Viennese  surgeon. His love aff affair wi th greyl ag geese began w h en

he was a little little b o y wat chi ng them migrate d own -r iv iver er . B y the age

o f   six he had absorbed a popular account of Darwinism by Wilhelm Boelsche  (through whose chief work,  Vom Baz ill illus us  zum

Affenmenschen,  Hitler Hit ler fi first rst latched latch ed onto on to the idea  o f evolution).  H e decided to become a palaeontologist and, in the garden, played at being an iguanadon with the girl who became his w i f e . Later, as a y o u n g  scientist, he kept a  flock  o f greylags in and around aroun d the

house; and one of the funniest passages in  King  Solomon's 

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describess Lor enz describe en z Senior Sen ior entertaining entertain ing the geese to tea in his study, where they made messes on the Persian carpet. Frau Lorenz once asked a psychiatrist psychiatrist friend, friend, ' Wh at is this this mania of o f Ko nr nrad' ad' s for perv ersion ion,' ,' he sa said id.. 'Same as as any other.' othe r.' geese?'  'It's a pervers Lorenz  has always been at pains to preface his books with

scientific ic obje ctivity. At the  start  o f  On  Aggression,  he avowals  o f scientif promised to lead his readers 'by the route which I took myself... for  reason reasonss o f principle. I nductive  natural  science always  starts

without preconceptions and proceeds from this to the abstract laws they all all ob ey .' In the the ne w book, boo k, the observer is the lens  o f the

camera, 'the very symbol of objectivity'. Yet, though Lorenz claims  to have written the text around the photographs,  that

doesn't stop him repeating the ingrained prejudices he has been hammering out for more  than forty years, with the persistence of the  Vicar  o f  Bray. His professional colleagues prefer to distinguish two Lorenzes. O n e  is the 'Father o f Et holo ho lo gy ' (the (the bo ok ja ck et call callss him the

'Father o f the Gr eyl ag Gee se ') '),, w h o pioneer ed the study o f 'blocks'  o f genetically  inherited behaviour in the vertebrates and

contributed the valuable concept of 'imprinting'. The second Lorenz  is the blustering philosopher-poli philoso pher-poli tician, who w ho se argument

from animals to man rests on   rather  shaky foundations. Yet his theses are theses are so closely wo rk ed , and his career career is is so much muc h o f one piece,  that I find it impossible to divide the Lorenzes. His message is  that  all all human

behavio beh avio ur is biologically biolog ically

determined:  that  when we speak of  love,  hate, anger, grief, ambit ion, loyalty, loyalt y, friendship, friendship, and so forth, w e are are speaking on precisely  the same  level  as the ethologist who uses 'aggressivity',

'rank-order drive', 'male bonding', or 'territoriality' to describe the behaviour  o f other species. Once the 'drives', or appetites, of human beings are isolated, it w i l l be possible possible to propose a bi ol og y

o f   ethics  that  w i l l  supplant the half-truths o f rel igion ig ion or secular

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Variations  on an  Idee  Fixe

morality. W e are are not free free,, but bo un d by evolut iona ry law. T h e function  o f reason is not to free us from our instinct, but to protect us from from our ou r o w n sin sinss against against nature. 'Ani 'A ni mal s' , he writes write s in this this book,  'do not  need  a sense sense o f mora l responsibility, since under und er natural conditions their inclinations lead them to what is  right.' Man,  ho we ve r, is is a domestica domesticated ted  species, wh  whos os e innate schemes of

behaviour have been blunted by the process   o f becoming  human, and tend to get hopelessly brutalised in the conditions of the big modern city. N o w  it happens  that  the family life  of the greylag goose is an

ideal mirror for Lorenz to show up the flaws o f instinct in man. H e

quotes his fathe fatherr as saying: 'After 'Af ter the dog, do g, the greyla gre ylag g goose goo se is is the most suitable animal for association with human beings.' In fact, he nev n ever er tires tires o f quo ti ng his father father as a reservoir reservoi r o f sound, sound , ol dfashioned common sense; and it must have been most reassuring for both to find that greylag society should conf orm t o ideals ideals  o f  an

upper-middle-class family in the late Austro-Hungarian Empire. T h e  geese are monogamous. They fall in love and stay in  love. T h e y  have long courtship rituals  that  end in a kind of marriage

ceremony. The ganders work off their aggressive drives in fights

that establish a hierarchy  o f breedi ng. Defeated rival rivalss go  o f f  alone, get  depressed, and are liable to accidents. Sometimes a gander

seduces another gander's goos go ose e and a div or orce ce resul results. ts. If one on e partner dies the survivor goes into mourning. Low-ranking geese look  up to their elders and betters and stand around, as spectators,

w h en  the arist aristocr ocrats ats fight. T h e wh ol e goose goo se co lo ny drums up

militant enthusiasm when threatened by an outside menace. T h e  hereditary

principle

is

confirmed

in  that  well-born

goslings  shoo off a gr ow n- up c ommo ner , prov idin g they are are on

their own home ground. Sometimes two, and even three, ganders

w i l l   form a homosexual bond, though none  w i l l  consent to the passive  role. These blood-brothers are stronger  than  'any normal

H3

 

Reviews

pair in courag e and fighti fighting ng streng s trength', th', and 'always 'al ways oc cu py a hi gh rank in the social hierarchy'. It goes without saying  that  full —

blooded greylags are superior   morally mora lly and physically physic ally - to the farmyard geese, whose services are sometimes enlisted at Lake

A i m  to hatch a clutch  o f eggs:  'These creatures, rendered stupid by many years  o f  domestication, are incapable  o f  reliable incubation: they have lost the well-defined instinctive behaviour  patterns  a wild  goose exhibits.'

Lorenz shows no sign  o f  abandoning his view  o f the Big City as Lorenz shows a magnified barnyard  that favours the selection  o f genetic deviants, who se unscrupulous beh avi our is as repugnant as their  stunted appearance. W h e n I called on hi m a few few years ago, ag o, he said, 'Sinc 'Si nce eI have lived here at Altenberg, I have noticed a progressive cochonification  of the boys swimming in the Danube. How would Porkifi cation Fat Fat boys and fat men y o u   say that  in English? Porkification same in

domesticated

animals

...

The

Complete unselectivity

of

feeding habits ' faultt o f the food manufacturers. ' B u t  surely', I said,  'that's  the faul It's not genetic' 'I don't care  i f  it's cultural devolution, or genetic devolution, I know cultural devolution moves ten times faster  than  genetic devolution.  But a  culture behaves exactly like  a spec iesl' carry y o u any any furthe furtherr wi th th this is N o w   if y o u let Lor en z carry argument, argumen t, yo u migh t find find yoursel f drawn to the concl usio n  that the fines finestt specimens o f humanit huma nity, y, 'th e strong, manly manl y me n ' he is duty y to suppre suppress ss the inferiors - and  that always  ho pi ng for, have a dut

that,  briefly, is what the 'aggressive drive' is for. But those who were taken in by  On  Aggression  mig ht have had secon d thoughts thought s had they k n o w n large chunk s o f it closely resemble a paper, written writt en in i n 1942, wi th the Final Solu tion in ful fulll swin g, wh e n he

w a s   Professor of Psychology  at the University of Konigsberg  in East Prussia.

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'The  Innate  Forms of Possible Experience',   which has been 1

omitted  from the two volumes  o f his collected papers published publishe d in English, evoked  Gestalt  perception and the principles  o f  ethology to re comme co mme nd a 'self-conscious 'self-co nscious scientifical scientifically ly based race pol ic icy' y' to eliminate the  degenerates  who preyed on the healthy body of society lik e the profiteering profit eering gr owt h of o f a  malignant  cancer. T h e

arbiters  o f this  scheme were to be 'our best individuals'  (Fuhrer-

Individuen)   whose  intolerant  value judge ments wo ul d decide decide w h o was - or was not - stricken wi th decay. Lor enz rejected rejected Spengler's pessimistic

conclusion  that  nations  declined  through  a logic

inherent  in time. Appl ied bio log y wo ul d fo fore rest stal alll

Spengler's

'inevitable fate'. Then, as now, the greylag goose is pressed into the  argument.  A pure-blooded  gander  has 'a  more  sharply  contoured  head,

straighter posture, redder feet,  broader  shoulders', etc., whereas a barnyard  goose develops a stunted appearance,  not to  mention  a complete breakdown  o f  morals. Similiarly, he says, we  admire  in men me n  tight  hips, wide  shoulders  and an eagle-like  stare.   And we 2

recoil from the  features  of decay: 'Loss of muscle,  shortening  o f the extremities, growth  o f  fat and a quantitative  increase  o f  eating and copulation drives.' 'Not one  feature  of domestication do we

instinctively  approve of.' Again,  he  illustrated  the text with  photographs;  a fish from fr om the stream, a wil d greylag gander,  a w o l f  and a bust portrait  o f  Pericles - 

all all long-featur long-f eatured ed - are jux tapose tap ose d again against st a po p- ey ed goldfish, a

domesticated goos goose, e, an Ol d English Bull Bu ll do g (the (the  date is 1942) and 1

  'Die angeborcnen Formen moglichcr Erfahrung' in  Zeitsclmftfur 

Ticr}>sychologie,  Bd  5,

Heft 2, 194 3, p. 235 ffff. I n this wo r k Lo rc nz' s old father iiss qu ot ed i n a less less genial m oo d: 'From the stand-point of racial biology, the whole of medical practice is a disaster for mankind.'  This 'ideal form for our race' is illustrated with a photo of Arno Breker's epicene statue of

1

Dionysus, a favourite of Hitler and Spcer; the fact that savages had quite different canons of beauty merely proved their innate inability to acquire civilisation.

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a marble head of Socrates  —  all all o f wh ic h had the squashed-up features  o f genetic decay.

T h e   lesson  o f  this paper was that it was positively heroic to act with intoler ance: attemp attempts ts to discove r w h y yo u rejected rejected a person simply  obscured you r origina originall jud geme nt. A nd he exhort ed the

racial rac ial biologists to be quick: quic k: 'T he re is in indee dee d need to hurry ' though there were more  than two years left.

I   quote this passage  i f only  for the style: Just  as in the case of a surgeon who, in removing a growing cancer tumour, tumou r, draws wi th his his knife an arbitrary arbitrary and 'unfair' sharp line between what is to be removed and what is to be preserve d, and consci preserved, co nsciousl ousl y prefers prefers to remov rem ov e healthy tissu tissue e than  let diseased tissue remain, so must the  a  priori  value judg ju dgeme eme nt , w h e n it it comes to determine a frontier frontier,, decide on a point poi nt wher wh er e plus is transformed into in to minus . . . Th er e is a lot more mor e to the paper, i ncl uding ud ing a fanta fantasti stic c rigmarole rigmaro le

that  attempted to resolve resolv e the headach h eadache e o f every eve ry racial racial biol ogist. ogis t. W h y   should shou ld the gene ge ne for for beauty go g o sauntering of f in a different different direction from the gene for goodness? How was it  that  a perfect Te ut on soul had nested nested in the bo dy  o f the Fiihrer? — to say say not hin g racist stss had to accom acc ommo moda date te the o f   the fact  that  b y 1942 the raci Japanese?

O f   course, one could dismiss all this as a temporary,  i f  lethalfy ingenious,  aberration aberration,, had Lor enz not cont inu ed to churn out ou t

many  o f the same ideas, the same metaphors, sometimes even the same passages — doctored here and there for postwar sensibilities — from  1950 to the present day. For example, when he discusses the 'social fighting reaction' in  On  Aggression,  he regrets the misuse o f

this primaeval drive by demagogues and hopes  that  'our moral responsibility may gain control over it'. In a paper written in

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Variations  on an  Idee  Fixe

1950   he says  that  any one on e is pleased to find a substitute, or 1

'd um my ', as a target for his pen t-up t- up aggression, adding addi ng  that 'w it ho ut this this pur ely phys iol ogical ogi cal basis basis all all of the the past cases cases o f demagogically  directed mass cruelty, such as witchcraft trials or anti-Semitic persecution', would not have been possible. But in 1942  he had only an an exhort ation ati on to t o offe offer: r: 'I accuse any y o u n g man w h o   has has not no t expe ri rien enced ced this this reaction react ion on politically polit ically significant

occasions  of emotional emotional weakness '

In 1942 he never named the Jews. He could, arguably, have be en referring to to the Euthanasia Euthanasia Program Pro gram me wh w h i ch did away wi th about  70,000  Gentile degenerates before the Nazis set to work elsewhere.  But then Lorenz usually appeals to general principle,

not to the sordid detail  o f  a particular problem. Going  through Daniel Gasman's brilliant and disturbing book

The   Scientific Origins  of  National  Socialism,  one on e is struck, struck , also, b y h o w   fe w  o f  Lorenz's ideas on human behaviour rest on 'inductive

natural science' but how many of them repeat the tenets of Monism,   the m ov em en t created by the the biologist Ernst Ernst Ha eck el 2

to interpret Da rwin rw inis is m for social social purposes and to comba co mba t socialist socialist ideologies as contrary to nature's plan. The Monists were the first

to attempt a fusion  o f biology and social science sci ence,, and it was unde r the umbrella  o f  Monist  ideas  that  German academic circles were united unite d with wi th the most strident strident demands o f Ge rman rm an nationalism. T h e  point made by Gasman, wh i ch cannot be emphasised emphasised too strongly, is  that  the Nazis believed in the final solution as

'scientific'  and thus sanctioned by Natural  Law.

3

Alfred  North Whitehead once wrote: 'Nature is patient of

interpretation interpretatio n in tterms erms of o f laws  that  happen to interest us.' And '  'Part and Parcel Parcel in Animal and Hum an Societies', in Lorenz, Studies  in  Animal  and Human

Behaviour   (Harvard University Press,  Press,   1 0 7 1 ) ,  Vol. II, pp.  1 1 5 - 9 5 . "   ' Mo ni sm ', as as opp ose d to 'Du al ism ', signify signifying ing th e indivisibility of man from from the rest of nature  —  often very similar, in form and content, to the new  sociobiology. 1

  The  Scientific Origins  of  National  Socialism:  Social Danvinism  in Ernst  Haeckel  and the  German

Monist   League  (MacDonald, Lon don; N . Watson, N.Y .,  1 9 7 1 ) .

H7

 

Reviews

Lorenz's  career career is is surely a wa rning rn ing to anyone w h o presumes to

writ e an objec tive 'bi ogr ammer ' o r 'etholog ical paradigm' paradig m' for for the huma n species. For it shows jus t ho h o w far far the 'facts' of o f our evolutionary past can be stretched or  patterned  to conform with the wilder flights flights   o f  prejudice. In a historical cont ext , Lorenzia Loren zian n et holo ho logy gy fa fall llss int o

the

category  of what  Lovejoy  and Boas called 'Animalitarianism' — 'Animalitarianism' —

'the te nde ncy to represent the beas beasts ts - on one grou gr ound nd or anoth another— er— as creatures more admirable, more normal, or more fortunate   than  is  a flawed, aberrant being, the human species." That man  himself is 

that his Fall occurred even before he became human, is a constant theme in Western thought from the fourth century century   B C  onward, especially among societies which have lost their nerve. For  For  i f  the

concept  o f  the Good Savage encouraged reformers  reformers  o f  a levell ing

temper to hope for a simpler and more equable   life,  the Myth of the Happier Beast damned hopes for for a better wo rl d, enge nder ed in man a disgus disgustt for for himse lf and his wo rk s, absolved absolv ed hi m from from responsibili respons ibility ty for his actions, action s, and led hi m, in his his desperate search fo forr   remedies, to fall into a collective moral anaesthe anaesthesia sia and b o w his neck  to tyranny. 1979

'  Arthur O. Lovejoy and George  Boas,  Primitivism  and  Related  Ideas  in  Antiquity  (rcpr. Octagon  Books,  Books,  1 9 6 5 ) ,  ,  p p. p.   1 9 - 2 2 .

148

 

V

A R T A N D THE IMAGE-BREAKER

 

A M O N G   THE THE R U I N S

On the island  o f Capri there lived three narcissists who each built a house on the ed ge o f a cl clif iff. f. T h e y we re  A x e l  Munthe, Baron Jacques Adelsward-Fersen and Curzio Malaparte. All three  were writers o f the self-dramatising variety. varie ty. All Al l had a strong dose dos e of Nordic sensibility. And all sought to expand their personalities in architecture. Their houses were  thus  ac acts ts o f self-love self-l ove -

'd 'drea ream m

houses' where they hoped to  l i v e ,  love,  and work wonders of creation, but which, despite idyllic settings, were infected by a morbid atmosphere akin to  that  that  o f Bocklin's  bland  of   the th e  Dead. Capri is, of course, the 'Isle of Goats'. At the time of the Emperor Tiberius it was still a Greek enclave, and the illusion persisted into modern times  that  the Great (goat-footed) God Pan was  not entirely dead,  that  Ca pr i was still a pagan paga n paradise in a

Catholic sea, where the wine was excellent, the sun always shone, and the bo ys and gir girls ls we re pretty and available. availabl e. Fr om the mi d nine teent h century cent ury on, a rush  o f  romantically minded  northerners descended on Capri  —  to buy, build or  rent  a villa. There were German artists, English middle-class eccentrics, American lesbians and Russian 'god builders'. Kaiser Wilhelm II came; so, at one ti time me or another, did D . H. Law ren ce, Ri l k e , Field Marshal Rommel, Edda Ciano, Gracie Fields and Lord Alfred Douglas (who sat it out in a villa whil e Oscar Wi ld e was in

Reading  Gaol). O r  there  was No rm an

Dou gla s -

scholar, scholar, hedonist,

and

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Art and the Image-breaker

absolutely no relation  o f Alfred's  — who, having lost his own  villa in a financial tumble, preferred the convenience  o f rented  rooms. Or Fritz Krupp, the 'Cannon  King',  who built himself a cliffside garconniere  —  only to commit suicide when his homosexuality was noised about by a Naples newspaper. newspaper. O r Max i m Gor ky , wh o

wrote  Mother  on Capri. Or Go rk y' s go od frie friend nd Lenin, a popular popular fisher fis herma man n k n o wn locally as Signo r Drindri n. B u t  the key to Capri's history is the Emperor Tiberius. He owned twelve villas on the island, some in the hills, others  by the sea. At his cliff-top palace,  V i l l a Jovis, he built a lightho lig htho use from which  he could flash commands relayed to all  quarters  of the

empire. Tib eri us' character character is an academic battleground. Was Wa s he  —  as Norman Douglas believed - the shy, frugal, scholarly, mobhating and art-loving ascetic who  startled  his his Gre ek philosopher phil osopher friends by asking what songs the Sirens usually sang, and who found he could cope with government only by retiring to his airy pavilions, to be alone with his thoughts and his books? Or was he - 

as described by Suetonius Sueto nius - the hid eous old pederast, pederast, w ho se left

was so strong he 'cou 'c ou ld pok e a finger throug h a sound , hand  was freshly plucked apple, or into the skull  o f  a bo y or yo un g man'? D i d  he collect sexual athletes from all over the empire? Did he swim in grottoes with wi th corrupted corrupt ed children? Di d he play games games wi th

his victims before having them chucked from the Salto di Tiberio, a  thousand  feet into the sea? Given  the tenuous borderline between extremes  o f  asceticism

and o f sensuality sensuality,, the ' g o o d ' Tiberi Tib erius us is is probably prob ably the same as the 'bad'. B ut it was the second, Suetonian Suetoni an Tiberius Tiberi us wh o inspired inspired the Marquis de Sade, an early tourist on the island, to write a couple of sizzling  debauches for the characters Justine  and Juliette,  and who

also also pr ov ok ed Bar on Jacques Jacques Adelsward-Fe Adel sward-Fersen, rsen, a y ou n g aesthete aesthete awash with dreams  o f  futur future e orgies, to build bui ld his  V i l l a  Lysis  (or La Gloriette) on a tongue  o f  land below the emperor's  V i l l a Jovis.

152

 

Among   the  Ruins 'It is is one o f my many crimes,' crimes,' wrote No rm an Dougl as in

Looking

Back,   'that  I induced this apple of discord to establish

himself on Capri. N o : that is putting it too strongly. The fact is he himself  turned  up on the island one day and met me almost immediately. He was about twenty-three years old.' Fersen's  life  has been dealt with in two novels, Compton Mackenzie's  Vestal  Fire  and Roger Peyrefitte's  L'Exile 

de  Capri  -

the result  o f which has been  that the 'real' Fersen has vanished into a lilac mist.  Vestal  Fire is a straightforward  roman a clef  (it must have seemed see med quite risk risky y wh e n it came out) wh i c h charts charts the incest i ncestuous uous comin com ings gs and go ing s o f an expatriate island co lo ny treated to the irruption o f an absurd absurd Fren ch co unt, Ro R o b e rt Marsac, and his Italian boyfriend,  Carlo.  Peyrefitte's book, on the other hand, confuses famous historical figures with imaginary situations and is maddening to read. Fersen apparently belonged to the same family as 'le beau Fersen', the Swedish aristocrat and presumed lover of MarieAntoinette whose attempt  to rescue the royal family ended in the fiasco  at Varennes. A cadet branch of the Fersens setded in the

France o f Na po l eo n III and founded a steel steel mill near Lu x e m  bo ur g. Jacques's father died die d at sea. sea. Jacques was wa s the only on ly son, and was  thus  a very rich young man.

He gr ew up in Paris Paris o f the 1890 1890ss and seems to have m od el le d himself on Ro be rt de Mon tes qui ou (who also also was the mode l for Dess  Esseintes and Baron de Charlus). He had, according to De

No rm an Dou glas, gl as, a 'childish fres freshne hness ss'' and blu e  eyes,  and was first vo lu me o f verse was circulated circul ated in in always  overt ailo red. His first respectable

homes,

despite

its

morbid

tone

and

the

poet's

penchant for pink roses, or pink in general ('Et nous serons des morts sous des vetements roses'), an affectation derived, at a guess, from Montesquiou's  Les  Hortensias  Bleus. His troubles began with the publication  ofHymnaire 

d'Adonis  —

Paganismes   — d la Facon  de  M.  le Marquis  de Sade.  He was, however,

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Art  and the Image-breaker

about to forswear these frivolities and marry a Mile de Maupeou when,  without warning, the police  arrested  him for the corrup

tion  o f  schoolboys  in his  apartment  on the Avenue de Friedland. This episode is the subject  o f Fersen Fersen's 's o wn semi-autobiogra ph ical farra  farrago go o f 1905,  Lord  Lyllian,  ou Messes Noires,  which Norman

Douglas describes describes as havi ng a 'musty, 'musty, D ori an- Gra yis h flavour' and which is not without unconscious  humour.

Tried,  sentenced, and  then  released, Fersen fled to Italy, where

he met two American ladies, the Wolcott-Perry 'sisters', who invited him to  their  villa  on Capri. He  then  decided, as an act of defiance,  to build his his o w n dream house; and wh e n No rm an Douglas  showed him the site  under  Monte Tiberio, Fersen said, ' O n e  could write poetry here.' He refused to be  deterred  even when warned that the house wo ul d get no mor e  than tw  t w o hours o  off

sunshine suns hine a day day in winter . Wh il e the buil ding we nt up he travelled to  Ceylon,  where he picked up an opium habit. Then he picked up a newspaper boy in Rome, whom he installed on Capri as his secretary. T h e  boy 's name was N i n o Cesari ni, and he had had to put up wi th a lot. Fersen had 'some loveable streaks', according to Douglas: he was  not 'disingenuous or false, but theatrical'. He was also vain,

empty-headed and stingy. He mounted exotic festivities and quarrelled with all his guests. He forbade Nino to flirt with girls yett  persisted in parading him  round  the island as if he were an ye ancient bronze  A p o l l o .  He took him to China, where they bought a collection o f some three hundred opium pipes. He took hi m to  Sicily to be photo grap hed by Bar on vo n Gl oe de n. Final Finally ly— —

i f  the story is  true  —  he staged a mock  human  sacrifice in the Mithraic grotto  o f Matromania, with Nino as victim, and both of them were booted  o f f  the island. W h e n  war broke out in  1 9 1 4 ,  N i n o had had to be detoxifi ed from from

opium and went  o f f to fight in the Apennines Apenn ines , wh il e Fersen stayed stayed

154

 

Among  the Ruins

in the south  o f France. Eventu all ally y he was al lo wed back ba ck to the  Villa

L ysis;   but he had quarrelled with the Wolcott-Perrys, who shut their doors on him, and in addition to opium, he took to cocaine. After  the war Nino came back to care for his master, who, despite an illusion of perennial youth, was by this time very ill. 'This house  o f  mine', Fersen said, 'has the flavour  o f  death.' O n e stormy night in No v em b er 1923, ' Co u n t Jack' (as Fersen Fersen was was k n o wn o n the island), island), dress dressed ed in robes  o f rose-c olou red silk silk,, lolle d back on the cushions  o f  hi hiss subter subterran ranean ean op iu m den. Ni n o, w h o had gone to the kitchen,  returned  to find him semi-conscious. ' H o w  w  many grams?' he shouted. 'How many grams?'  'Five,' murm mu rmur ured ed Fersen, un cl en ch in g his fist fist as he slipped away - at least least was the the ver sion printed in the Naples Napl es daily //  Mattino. that  was Fersen's family stripped the  villa,  used it for the odd picnic, and then sold it to a Levan tine businessman businessman.. 'T he re it stan stands, ds,'' wr ot e No rm an Doug Do ug la s in 1933, 1933 , 'li ke a castle castle in a tale, all emp ty and forlorn, and embowered or  rather  smothered in a tangle of trees . . .  because

he grew so fond of his pines and ilexes and mimosas

that  he would not allow the smallest twig  o f  them to be touc hed. ' A n d  there  it stands, or half-stands, in its dark, 'holy' wood,

again for sale — this alien 'French'  folly, wh ic h a Capriote wit once called the 'visiting 'visit ing card  o f a courtesan', wi t h its its cracke cracked d stucco and

splintering jalousies, silent but for the miaowing of cats, the powe rboa ts in the sea sea crowing  o f cock erel s, and the d rone o f powerboa crowing  below.

I found altars in the overgrown garden, and a  temple  de  I'amour.

( A   relic o f impossible yearnings? yearnings? O f  Versailles  and the queen?) The concrete  urns had come adrift  o f  their rusty armatures and lay in litde pieces in the grass. And in the colonnade under the salon, the villa's villa 's guardian guardi an had ha d laid out ou t carob pods to dry, and had tied up her sad beige dog. She was a lithe young woman, jealous  o f  her estate. She had a

155

 

Art and the Image-break Image-breaker er

green t humb. In oli ve- oil cans cans she gre w geraniums, geraniums, pel argo  niums, and canna  lilies,  which flowered with an almost super

natural  brilliance on the steps below the portico. The house was in sh adow. A black cat kept crossing my path, as i f  to warn me not to trespass. There were cats everywhere, puffy-faced cats, and the smell o f cat piss. A n d  there  were banks  o f  blue hydrangeas  —

le less  hortensias  bleus  o f  Montesquiou. I found the salon's colour scheme had been white and blue and gold.  But the  roof  had caved in and heaps  o f  rubble now covered

the chambre chinoise, with its  yellow  tiles and phony Chinese inscriptions, where Fersen once arranged his pipes in lacquered racks. ou tside, e, the g ol d mosaic still still clun cl un g to the flute fluted d col umn s, Y e t   outsid and, ov er the peristyle, I coul d sstil tilll read, in black marble letters, AM O RI  E T DO L O RI S A C R U M - 

'Sacred to Love  and Sorrow'. And the

white marble  stair, balustraded w i t h vi ne leaves and purple grapes, still led to Nino's nusery-like bedroom  —  althoug alt houg h Jacques's Jacques's had tumbled down. He was said to be the 'most fascinating man in Europe', but it is

hard,  in retrospect,

to like lik e  A x e l  Munthe

or

his

pretentious

museum-sanctuary, the  V i l l a  San Michele. Born  in 1857 Born  1857 in the Swedis h prov inc e o f Smaland, Smaland, Mu nt he came from a family o f bishops and burgomasters burgomast ers wh i c h had moved to Scandinavia from Flanders. He studied medicine at Uppsala University and, at the age  o f eighte  eighteen, en, travelled to Italy to recover from a haemorrhaging lung. Happening to spend a day in the town  o f Anacapri, Anaca pri, he saw an abandone aband oned d chapel chap el and beside it a garden garde n whos e owner , Mastro Mastro Vi nc en zo , had  unearthed  the mosaic floors of a Roman  villa  and a lot o f ancient ancie nt

marble

fragments  —  the  roba  di  Timberio,  or 'things 'things of Tibe Ti beri rius us ', as they we re called by local loc al peasants. peasants. Mu nt he recogn rec ogn ised ise d the site site as on e of

156

 

Among  the Ruins

Tiberius' twelve and conceived,  there  and then if one believes bel ieves him, a mission to own it. Mastro Vi nc en zo' s house ,' he wro te i n ' W h y   should I not buy Mastro Th Thee   Story  of   San Michele,  'and jo i n the chapel and the house w it h garlands  o f vines and avenues  o f  cypresses cypresses and columns colum ns support sup port ing whi te loggias, peo ple d wi th marble statu statues es  o f  gods and bronzes of emperors.' Munthe did not go back to Sweden but continued his studies in Montpe llie r and then in Pari Paris. s. At twe nt y- tw o he was the youn gest doctor doc tor o f medi cin e in France. France. He had charm, intelli int elligence gence and and a most plausible bedside beds ide manner, mann er, and he was soo n the  partner  in a fashionable practice. He believed in making the rich pay for the po or . H e too poor t oo k a special interest in nervou ner vou s disea diseases ses and their possible cure by hypnosis. He was the close friend friend o f Prince E ug en Bernardotte, Bernardotte ,

the

Swedish  king's youngest son, who was then leading the  life  o f

artistic

bohemia

in

Paris.

He

knew

Strindberg.

He

knew

Maupassant (and ev en cruised on his yach t): in fact fact,, muc h o f  The

Story   of   San Michele 

—  with

its high  life,  l o w  life,  and whiffs  o f  the

supernatural  —  reminds on e o f Maupassant's late style. In 1884 Munthe  interrupted  a jo ur ne y through Lapland Lapland to wo rk in the poor districts  o f  Naples during a cholera epidemic. In 1889 he left Paris, bought the land at San Michele, and, to pay for the  villa,  set up anoth an other er practi practice, ce, in Keats Ke ats ' hou se, o ff the Piazza di Spagna Spagna in Ro m e. There

he

prospered.

Dr

Weir

Mitchell

sent

him

ailing

millionairesses from the United States. From Vienna, Professor sent him hi m neuropaths ' o f bo th sexes sexes and o f no sex '. Krafft-Ebing  sent Krafft-Ebing  His fee feess we re colossal, his celebrated 'cu res' res ' perhaps perhaps due less less to conventional medicine than to changes  o f climate and scenery. He royal ty as he col c ollec lected ted antiquities. His principal patient collected  royalty

w a s   Qu ee n Victoria of Sweden,  whom he cajoled into living far longer  than  she apparently intended. The Czarina craved his

157

 

Art and the Image-breake Image-breaker r

attentions, attention s, for herself and the haemophiliac Cza rev itch it ch (to the extent o f almost kid nappi ng Mu nt he aboard the imperial imperial yacht), yacht ), and when he refused her, she  fell  into the  arms  o f  Rasputin. There were times when the  villa  on Capri must have seemed like  a sanatorium for ailing queens and empresses; the Empress

Elisabeth  o f A  Austria ustria was was dyin g to bu y it. Later, Later, wh e n the supply o f royalty began to dry up,  their  successors continued to  call.

' A s   for San Michele itself,' Munthe wrote, ironically and in English,  to  Hermann Goering in August 1937, 'I should be glad to English,  lend it to yo u if ever yo u can get away from yo ur tremendo us cares. The place is small. It was built by me on the principle  that the soul needs more room  than  the body, and it may not be comfortable enough for you.' He was his own architect: the style he chose was SaracenRom an esq ue. Th e house was was whi te and and light light — a 'sanctuary to the sun' - and done up in the 'Renaissance'  manner  most popular

around  the  turn  o f the century. ( Ro bert be rt o Pane, the the architectural architectural historian o f Capr Ca pri, i, has described describ ed it as as  U rn  falso  presuntuoso  quanto

iusultante' .)   Th er e was indeed a loggia peopl ed with  statues  genuine and fake — o f gods and emperors, empe rors, and fragments fragments  o f  ancient marble, some salvaged from the imperial  villa, we re stuck into the walls like nuts  in nougat.

He laid out gardens with pergolas, terraces and cypress walks. An d  as to the Chapel of San Michele itself, which used to  stand

hermita ge, he had it transformed transformed int o a ki nd like  a lon ely , cliff-top hermitage,

o f   pasha's pavilion from which he could gaze up to the Castle of Barbarossa, down over the  cliffs  to Marina Grande, or across the bay to Tiberius'  Villa  Jovis - and  that  execrated blot on the landscape, Fersen's  Villa Lysis.

A t   San Michele the  view is everything: in Pasadena or Beverly Hills Munthe's creation wouldn't get more  than a passing glance. is still still on e o f the bes t- lo ved ve d houses in the w or ld , and afte afterr Y e t   it is best -seller ler an and d has fifty-five  years  The  Story  of   S a n  Michele  is still a best-sel

158

 

Among  the Ruins

been translated into some  fifty languages (its Korean translator had

turned  up shordy before my visit). Munthe was a  natural  storyteller who, before hypnotising others, had taken great pains to hypnotise himself. He spun tales of buried treasu treasure; re; o f madness; madness; o f mi xe d- up coffi coffins; ns; o f wo rd ly clerics,  cold counte countesses sses and and good-h goo d-heart eart ed whore wh ore s; o f the nun he

nearly seduced during the cholera epidemic. What, however, made the book irresistible, particularly to its English readers, was Munthe's passionate identification with birds and animals. He rescued a baboon from its half-crazed American owner. He almost killed  in a duel a sadistic French viscount who had kicked

Munthe's dog so severely the animal had to be shot. He declared wa r on the butcher  o f Anacapri, w  wh h o wou l d net migrant migrant birds birds and blind them with red-hot needles to make them sing. And finally,

he succeeded in persuading Mussolini to  turn the whole  o f  Capri into a bird sanctuary. From a literary point  o f view,  the book's best stories deal with his his years in Paris Paris and Ro R o m e and are told wit h a clinical, w o r l d weary  detachment; they are reminiscent of (besides Maupassant)

another doctor  turned  writer, W. Somerset Maugham. Like Maugham,  too, his reminiscences always seem to wind up on a

self-congratulatory (or, later, self-pitying) note; and the book in general bears out Oscar Wilde's warning   o f the pitfalls  o f the firstperson narrative, particularly when the  narrator  is a compulsive mythomaniac. Mun th e was besotted by Tiberius. Ac cor di ng to Levente Erdeos,  the director  o f the San Michele Foundation on Capri, 'He

had a kind of disease, to me, more or less obsessed by the late emperor. He could look down from his loggia and think  that  he, also,  was the ruler of the world.' Tiberius had owned twelve

houses on o n the island; island; Mu nt he had to have tw el ve . Tiberi Tib erius us was a collector  o f stat  statues ues;; Munt Mu nt he had to have statu statues es too t oo.. Bu t instead of

159

 

Image-breaker r Art  and the Image-breake Art 

admitting these came from ordinary antique dealers in Naples and elsewhere, he preferred to  veil  his 'discoveries' in mystery. He liked to insinuate  that  the bron ze co py o f the Lysippan Hermes Herm es (whi (w hich ch sit sitss at the end  o f  the loggia and was given to him b y  the city  o f Naples for his help with the cholera) was not, in fact,

a co py but the original, whi ch had been deliberately spir spirited ited ou t of the museum by one  o f  his his adoring well-wis hers. Another time he 'felt'  that  a face face was wat ch in g him hi m from the sea-bed; and when he trained his telescope on a pale speck offshore, it turned  out to be the marble Medusa head now set into the wall behind his desk. Or  there  was the huge basalt Horus largest I have ever seen,' he wro te , 'br oug ht from the falcon  - 'the largest land of the Pharaohs by some Roman collector, maybe by Tiberius Tibe rius hims elf . Y e t th this is object, so far as as I cou ld ju dg e, was a

standard  fake from the Cairo bazaar.

B y   the 1920 1920ss Mu nt he had beco be co me a British subject. He had worked with the British Red Cross in Flanders during the First World  War. And in 1943, fearing perhaps  that  the World 

Germans Germa ns

would invade Italy, he left for Stockholm (on the same plane as as a journalist to the Fi nn oCurzio Malaparte, w h o was travelling as Soviet  front). He did not come back. His friend  King  Gustav V

roya l palace; and there, dreami dre aming ng gave him a suite  o f roo ms in the royal Sou th,, he died, on 11 February 1949. He had been bee n anxious anxi ous o f   the South that  San Mi ch el e should remain a mo nu ment me nt to hims himself elf,, and bequeathed it to the Swedish state. A memorial plaque reads: 'To the Everlasting Memory  o f  D r  A x e l  Munthe. His life  - A  radiant symbol  o f  perfect perfect human ity .' T h e place place is thr onge d w it h touris tourists, ts, and kept as clean as a clinic. Nowadays  not many islanders remember the old doctor, who Nowadays  would stroll around town in the shabby clothes  that  marked him out as a signore.  I did, however, pick up the following: From a grande dame:   ' He was wa s insatiable. W e used to call hi m 7  77 7

160

 

Among  the Ruins

Caprone 

—  " T h e 

B i l l y  Goat " A nd not just for for  that He smelled

something terrible.' From a Neapolitan prince: 'It was a bad crossing. How would y o u   say  that  in E English? nglish? A bad bad mixture He popul ated half o f Anacapri,  and they all had red hair and horse faces. Sometimes y o u 'd  hear the children shouting, "Horse  face "  "Horse  face "  -

and you knew they were shouting at one  o f  Munthe's bastards.' From the omniscient young historian who works in the town hall  o f Anacapri:  'Era  bisessuale.'

T h e   pr o- Mun th e faction, on the other hand, hand, reveres his his memory in hushed tones and piously enumerates his benefactions. In Anacapri I met one  o f these self-confessed 'Munthesians', who dashed about the garden  of San  Mic hel e, pointin g out this this or  that 'typically  Munthesi an detail' and the graves graves o f the Q u e e n o f Sweden's dogs. He was quite upset that I had made a few inquiries elsewhere. ' Th e y  k n o w noth ing ,' he said said crossly. crossly. ' T h e y are are jeal ous of of

Munthe. They are jealous  o f the man and his his achieveme nts. Y o u must ask me. I know everything.'

' W a s   he a cold co ld fish?' fish?' I asked. ' A   fish?' ' A   cold person?' 'He was hot and cold. He was all things.' 'In what way does he interest  you?' 'He was interesting.'

' B u t  how?' 'H e was a pionee r  o f ecology. H e we nt to Mussolin i to stop stop the people killing birds.' 'What else?' 'He was the creator  o f  beauty.' 'Where?'

'He created this spot.'

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Art and the Image-breaker

 Malaparte e was a very ve ry strange strange write wr iter, r, a and nd his villa, whi ch he Curzio Malapart built in the years 1938-40 on the lonely headland of Capo Massullo, is one  o f  the strangest habitations in the Western world. A   'Homeric' ship gone aground? A modern altar to Poseidon?

A   hous ho use e o f the future - or of the prehisto preh istoric ric past? past? A surrealis surrealistt house? A Fascist house? Or a 'Tiberian' refuge from a world gone mad? Is it the house of the dandy and professional joker, the was k n o w n to his friends friends  —  or  o f  the melancholy Arcitaliano,  as he was Germ an romantic romantic w h o lay masked underneath? T h e 'pure' house

o f   an ascetic? Or the anxious private  theatre  of o f an insatiable Malapart e asked his architect, architect , Casanova? Wh at w e do k no w is that Malaparte Casanova?  Adalberto Libera, to build him a 'casa  come me' -  a 'ho use like me '  'casa come be  'triste,  dura,  severa',  as 'sad,  hard  and severe' as he which wo uld be hoped  himself  hoped  himself  to be. He had his notepaper headed, in thick black letters, 

CASA

C O M E   M E  — and

in deed , d o w n to the last last petit

bourgeois detail, the house is a biography  o f  its owner. 1898, was baptised Ku rt Suckert Suc kert.. His Curzio Malaparte, b orn in 1898, father, fath er, Er wi n Suck ert, ert , was an irritable irritable small-time small-ti me textile manu fac Sa xon y w h o had settled settled in Prato, near Floren ce, and turer  from Saxon married a Florentine woman. Early phot os o f Ku rt sh ow a sleek, beautiful, beautiful,

black-hai blac k-hai red

conf ront ing the camera wi th the iron ic and disdainful disdainful young  man confront young  demeanour of certain  portraits  by Bronzino. By 1913 he was already frequenting the Red Coats cafe in Florence, where intellectual hotheads clamoured for action, any kind  o f action, in a Europe so satiated with peace that it had come to think  that peace was  immoral. When war broke out, he enlisted in the Legione

Garibaldina and distinguished himself under fire: like Hemingway (wh o was a year his his ju ni or ), on the Austrian Austri an front; front; then the n at  Bligny, near Rheims, where nearly ten thousand Italians were killed and he himself got a gas-damaged lung. Fascist ist.. He jo in ed the After  the war he bec ame a journalist and a Fasc march

on

Rome

and

sign ed the first first Manifest Mani festo o

o f Fascis Fascistt

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Among  the Ruins

Intellectuals. Antonio Gramsci, co-founder of the Italian  C o m  munist Party, knew him at this time and delivered a harsh verdict on his frantic  arrivismo,  immeasurable vanity, and chameleon-like snobbery: 'To have success [he] would do any kind  o f  mischief.' In 1925 Sucke rt read a nin etee nth- cent ury

pamphlet titled, in

part,  I  Malaparte  e i Bonaparte  and changed his name. Malaparte fancied fancied himself  a 'man  o f action'  rather  in the mould  himself a

o f  T.E.  Lawrence or Andre Malraux. He shared their flair for selfadvertisement and their mythomania; yet when it came to the crunch, the role he chose was not  that  of participant but  that  o f literary voyeur. He was  astute  enough to see, from the  start,  the cruel absurdities absurdities  o f  Mussolini's movement; and with his corrosive sens sense e of hu mo ur he cou ld never res resis istt the the temptation to mo c k men in power. The first  hint  of trouble came wh en he m oc k ed Mussolini's  taste  in ties. The Duce called him to his  office  in the Palazzo  Chigi  to apologi apol ogise. se. Th e n , crossing the cold col d marble floor floor

after the interview, Malaparte  turned  and said: 'Permit me to say one last word in my defence.' ' G o  ahead,' said Mussolini, raising his  eyes.'

'Even  today you're wearing a horrible tie.'

Malaparte loved princesses and peasants; he hated homosexuals and his his o wn hu mdr um back grou nd. H e was was a sharp  dresser. (With o ne  o f his old friends, the Principe di Sirignano, I had a discussion as to wheth whe th er he used to anoint his hair wi t h brilliantine

or

Vaseline  or  la gomina  gomina   argentina.)  He could mesmerise any room

with his stories; and the highly placed Fascists who were his protectors wer e secretly secretly deligh ted to hear the Duc e jeere je ere d at. at. In

l i ,  the chairman  o f Fiat and no friend 1929  Senator Giovanni A g n e l li o f   the regime, appointed him editor-in-chief of Agnelli's  news paper,  La  Stampa. For two years, until his forcible dismissal, Malaparte used it as a sniping post. He had developed a theory  that  the wars and revolutions  o f  the

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Art  and the Image-breaker

twenti twe ntieth eth century, cent ury, far far fro from m be in g the products product s o f the contr a dictions inherent in bourgeois capitalism, were compounded from from the disgust and en vy o f the bourge bou rgeois oisie ie for for itse itself. lf. T h e Russian Re vo lu ti on was a European ph eno men on. Lenin was not some new Asiatic Chingis Khan but 'a timid and fanatical' bourge bou rgeois ois functionary, a small small man,  part  German like himself. He carried his thesis to its conclusion in a small, brilliant book, the  Technique  du  Coup  d'Etat,  wh ic h he published in Paris Paris in  1931, after the Fascists forced him to leave La  Stampa.  The final chapter, written two years before the Nazis took power in Germany, carried the arresting title 'Une Femme: Hitler':

That fat and boastful Austrian ... with  hard  mistrustful  eyes, cyni cal plans, plans, coul d  well  have, like all fixed  ambitions and cynical Austrians, a certain  taste  for the heroes  o f Ancient  Rome ...

His hero, Julius Caesar in  Lederhosen  ... Hitler is a caricature  o f Mussolini  ... T h e  spirit  o f Hitler is prof oundl y f eminine; his his intelli gence,

his his am ambitions, bitions, e ven his his wi ll po we r have not hing hin g virile about them ... Dictatorshi Dictat orshi p . . . is the most comp lete let e form o f envy en vy in all it itss aspects, political, moral, intellectual ... Hitler, Hit ler, the the dictat dictator; or; the the wom an wh o m Germ any de se rv es ... None of this endeared him to the Duce, and, in Malaparte's asked for my head and got it.' O n returning, o w n  w ord s, 'Hitle r asked courageously or misguid mis guidedly edly,, from Paris Paris in 1933, he was accused

o f   anti-Fascist activities abroad, arrested, beaten up, put in the Regina  Coeli  jail, and, like some disgraced senator of imperial R o m e ,  sentenced to  five  years' exile on the island  o f Lipari.

Here, guarded by  carabinieri,  he read Homer and Plato in the original,  while the waves crashed onto the grey volcanic beach

outside his house. Pictures show him in immaculate white plus

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Among  the Ruins

fours fou rs but no socks, puc ke ri ng his his face face like lik e a midd le-aged le- aged matador and caressing his favourite  terrier:

I   had no o ne but the dogs to tal talk k to. A t night I we nt out ou t ont o the terrace of my sad house by the sea. I leaned over the balust bal ustrad rade e and called out Eo lo , the brothe r o f my o w n d og Febo.  I called Vulcano,  and  A p o l lo l o ,  and Stromboli ... All the

dogs  had ancient names ... the dogs  o f m y  fishermen friends. I

stayed for hours on my terrace, howling at the dogs who howled  back at at me . . .

Malaparte makes a lot of capital out of the five-year sentence: sk y, for so small an island and so restles restlesss ' T o o   mu ch sea, to o mu c h sky,   truth a spirit.' The   was that after about a year his friend Galeazzo Ciano,  Mussolini's son -in -la w, managed to have hi m trans transfe ferre rred d

to Ischia and then to Forte del Marmi, where he lived in a  villa with  Fe bo, bo , entertained, entertained , had the use  o f a ministerial  Alfa-Romeo,

and wrote satirical articles under the pseudonym Candido. For all Mussolini's faults, he was not vindictive, or without a sense  o f  the

absurd. Secredy he seems to have liked Malaparte   —  but bu t was obliged  to defer to the Germans.

Once  the  'exile' was over, Malaparte bought his own house in

Forte dei Marmi , the the  Villa Hilde brand, wh ic h had bee n built for a Ger man sculptor and frescoed frescoed by Bo ck li n. He then founded found ed

Prospettive,   a cultural re vi ew wi th a bias bias towar to war d surrealism surrealism,, and published Pound, Andre Breton, Alberto Moravia, Mario Praz,

D e   Ch ir ic o and Paul Eluard. He went to Africa  as a wa r corr espondent espon dent during dur ing the Ethiopi Eth iopi an campaign. O n the wh ol e, his dispatc dispatches hes we re not unfavourable unfavourable to Mussolini.  He had also written a collection of autobiographical

fantasies with such titles as 'A Woman Like Me', 'A Dog Like

M e ' ,   ' A Land Like M e ' , ' A Sain Saintt Like M e ' . An d in a somewhat mysterious mysteri ous ma nner he had laid his his hands o n a sizeable sizeable sum o f

165

 

Art and the Image-breaker

mon ey . He bo ug ht C a po Massullo from a Cap riot ri ote e fisherman, fisherman, saying  that  he wanted to keep rabbits there; instead he commis sioned Libera to build the 'house like me'. Casa  Come Me, with its stupendous  views  o f  sea and sky and rock, roc k, was in inten ten ded to sat satis isfy fy his 'melan 'me lan cho lic li c yearn ye arn in g for space' and at the same time to reproduce, on his own grandiose terms, the conditions  o f  his exile exi le on Lipari. Lipari . It was to be the monaste mona steryrybunker  o f the man w h o had faced the dictators dictators alone - a  casamatta, a 'blockhouse' or 'madhouse', depending on which way you read

that  word in Italian; a house of the machine age  that  would nevertheless preserve the most ancient values value s o f the Med iterr it err a nean. An d unlike the ' Apo ll on ia n' temples temples o f clas classic sical al Gre ece, ec e, with their forests  o f columns and 'roofs set down from above', this building was to rise, like a Minoan sanctuary, from the sea itself. Th e walls walls wer e the col our o f bull's blo od, the wi nd ow s were like the windows  o f a liner, and there  was a wedg e-sh aped ramp o f

st step epss wh i c h slanted, like li ke a sacred way,  up to the terrace roof. Here, every  morning, Malaparte would perform a ritual  o f  gymnastics,

alone, alon e, while the wom en w h o were in love wit h him wou ld watc h from the  cliffs  above. Inside the house, on the upper floor, was the vast whitewashed atrium-saloon, it itss stone n o o n strewn wi th chamois skins, skins, its its lo ng suede sofas with loose linen covers, and its wave-edged 'Minoan' tables resting on concrete columns. There were huge, wooden, Peri cle Fazzini; and thr ough ou gh the 'fascistic'  sculptures o f nudes by Pericle plate-glass fireback of the fireplace his guests could watch the sea behind the flames. Beyond  were the writer's own  quarters  and the 'Room of the

Favou rite ', each wi th its its bat hro om o f vei ned grey gre y marble fit for for the murder  o f  Agamemnon. Malaparte seems to have treated sex as somethi some thing ng solemn sol emn and and sacrame sacramental; ntal; in the the R o o m o f the Favourite the double bed is stationed against a plain, panelled wall and looks like the altar  o f  a Cistercian monastery. The study too,

1 66

 

Among  the Ruins

despite its faience stove, its painting  o f  Ethiopian women, and its wi th the lyre  o f Orpheus, has a liturgical flavour. floor tiles painted with It was in this room, in September 1943, that  Malaparte finished Kaputt,  '[my] horribly gay and grueso me boo k ' , wh i ch made his his reputation outside Italy. O n Mussolin i's declaration declaration of war, Ci an o advised advised hi hiss friend friend to get into uniform. uni form. So , as captain captain o f the Fifth Fifth Alpi Al pine ne Re gi me nt , Malaparte went first to watch the Italian invasion  o f Greece,  then to report for the  Corriere della  Sera  on the Russia Rus sian n front. front.

He

managed manag ed to charm char m or flatter flatter his wa y into hi high gh Na zi circles. At ist er Frank, the Cracow,  on the Vistula, he dined with Reich smin ister butcher butc her o f Polan d, wh o assu assure red d him hi m  that  he, Frank, was to be Poland's Orph eus, w h o wou l d 'wi n thes these e people ov er by the the arts, rts, poet ry and music '. Malaparte Malaparte also also wo rm ed his wa y into the War saw sa w ghetto ghet to and reported, som ewh at evasively, wha t he had seen. He foll owe d the Panzer divisions divisions into the Ukra ine and witnes wit nessed sed the senseless senseless atrocities atrocit ies there. the re. His articles, syndicated through Sweden to the rest of the world, hinted from the outset  that  Germany was doomed. The Gestapo pressed for his removal, or worse; but Mussohni, already squirming under the shadow  o f  Hitler, allowed him instead to go to Finland to report on the Finno-Soviet war. In the summer of

1 9 4 3 ,   on hearing o f the Duce 's  fall,  Malaparte  flew  from Stockholm to Italy. By the time the Americans arrived in Naples, he was sitting calmly in Casa Come Me, writing. In  Kaputt  Malaparte ch ose to to present an aesthete's  view  o f Germa Ge rma n- oc cu pi pied ed Eur ope , describ ing it as some vast vast and sinis sinister ter fresco  o f  the dance of death. The result, to say the least, is disturbing. His angle  o f vision  is always obl ique, ique , always equiv ocal ; the tone is surreali surrealist st - or, like the Nazis Naz is themselves, themse lves, kitsch. Th er e are moments when the imagery of Dali seems, at last, to have found fou nd a real-life subject, such as as a scene in whi wh i c h Malaparte shared

167

 

Image-breaker r Art  and the Image-breake Art 

a sauna sauna wi t h Himrnler, Himrnle r, or this this visit to the  Poglavnik  (military governor)  o f  Croa Cr oati tia, a, after after a push pus h by b y the partisans: 'The Croatian people,' said Ante Pavelic, 'wish to be ruled wi th goodnes s and just ice. A n d I am here here to provid e the m.' While  h e

spo ke,

I gazed gaze d at a wi ck er basket on

the

Poglavnik's desk. The lid was raised and the basket seemed to be

filled wi t h

mussels, mussels,

or

shelled shelle d oysters -

as th they ey

are

occasionally  displayed in the windows  o f  Fortnum and Mason occasionally  in Piccadilly in Lo nd on . Casertano, Caserta no, an Ital Italia ian n diplo mat, l oo ke d at me and winked, 'Would you like a nice oyster stew?' 'Are  they Dalmatian oysters?' I asked the Poglavnik.

Ante Pavelic removed the lid from the basket and revealed the mussels, that slimy jelly-like mass, and he said smiling, with

that  tired tired go od -nat -n at ured ur ed smile o f his, 'It is is a present f rom my loyal  ustashis.  Forty pounds o f human  eyes.'

N o w ,  to my mind,

the combi nat ion

o f 'forty pou nd s'

and

'Fort num and Mas on ' is is bot h nauseating nauseating and and bogus; and how ev er weird  Kaputt  may seem on firs firstt reading, it surely wo rk s neithe nei therr as novel nor as memoir. The same goes for  Kaputt's  sequel,  The  Skin,

a book written in a similarly self-inflationary vein, and one which tells  o f his career as a liaison officer be tw ee n the Italian Italian army and its its new-f ne w-f ou nd Ameri Ame ri can alhe alhes. s. T h e set set pieces, th this is time around , are are sa sadis distic tic 'sou thern baro ba ro que '.

T he   Skin  was an international best-seller  —  except among the Neapolitans and Capriotes, who, feeling themselves to have been calumniated by a collaborator, made Malaparte's  life  on the island extremely uncomfortable.

H e jo in ed

th the e

Comm un is t

Party, Party,

became disillusioned, and decided to emigrate to France. There he fared no better. He loathed the intellectual climate of Paris during the reign  o f Camus and Sartre. He wrote a play about Proust, and another about Karl Marx in London; both were

168

 

Among  the Ruins

booed  o f f  the stage. He returned to Italy to make a successful film. People remember him at literary gatherings in Rome, in a  w e l l cut br o wn tw ee d jac ke t, with wi th a silent, silent, boy ish girl girl on his arm. H e fat and plann ed to ride a bi cycl cy cle e from from N e w  Y o r k  to started  to get fat Los Angeles.  Finally, in 1956, he wen t to the Sovie t Un i o n and

China, where he wrote sober reportage, suggesting that  he could have become a new kind  o f  writer, not necessarily at the centre of things. On Sunday, the eleventh  o f November , he he  fell ill with fever in Peking. The doctor who  attended  him said, 'You have caught a gentle little Chinese microbe which has given you ... a gentle little litt le Chi nese ne se fever. No t h i n g serious.' It It was an incurable cancer

o f   the lung. On his deathbed he converted to Catholicism and received   the final absolution. received ' H o w  w  he prayed ' said the Principe di Sirignano. 'He prayed to Christ... to the Madonna  o f  Pompeii... to Lenin ... But he died in agony ' He left Casa Come Me -  perhaps  out o f malice towards the Capriotes  —  for the use of artists  from the People's Republic of China.  His family contested the  w i l l ,  got the house back, and has China.  recently set up a Malaparte foundation, whose function was not wa s fu full ll  o f art exactly  clear to me. On the day  o f my visit the hou se was

students  from Munich. I also met a local man who said  that  Malaparte had been a big boss  o f  the Communist Party. 'Can't you see it?' he said, looking down the  cliff  at the rectangular  roof  and its curving concrete windbreak. 'He built the house in the shape  o f  a hammer and sickle.'

1984

169

 

THE M O R A L IIT T Y  OF THINGS

This  morning we have assembled to bow before the graven image.  But an Old Testament prophet, were he present, would

have thundere thundered, d, 'Fingers Of f

Th o u ssha halt lt not lus lustt af afte terr things.'

T h e  patriarchs  o f Ancient Israel lived in black tents. Their wealth was  in herds; they moved up and down their tribal lands on

seasonal migrations; and they were famous for their resistance to art objects objects.. Th e y wo ul d have stormed into art galleries as they stormed into the shrines  o f B a a l , and slashed every image in sight.

A n d   this, not because they couldn't pack them in their saddle bags,  but on moral grounds. For they believed  that  pictures

separated sepa rated ma man n from G o d . T h e adora adoration tion o f images was a si sin n of settlement; the worship of the Golden  C a l f  had satisfied the emotional weaklings who sighed for the fleshpots   o f Egypt.  And prophets lik like e Isai Isaiah ah and Jeremiah recalled the time w h e n their people were a race of hardy individualists, who did not need to comfort themselves wi th images. For tthi hiss reas reason on they de denou nou nc nced ed the Temple which God's Children had  turned  into a sculpture gallery,  and recommended a policy of vandalism and a return  to

the tents.

A n d   do we not all long to throw down our altars and rid ourselves  o f  our possessio possessions? ns? D o we n not ot gaze col coldly dly at our clutter and say, 'If these objects express my personality, then I hate my personality.' For what, on the face of it,  enhances  life  less than  a work  o f  art?  One tires of it. One cannot eat it. It makes an

170

 

T h e   Morality  of   Things uncomfortable bedfellow. One guards it, and feels obliged to afterr it has has ceased to amuse. W e sacrifice sacrifice our freedo fre edo m enjoy it l on g afte enjoy it

o f   action to become its privileged guardian, and we end its imprison impri soned ed slave. A l l civilisations are are by their v er y nature  'thingoriented' and the main problem  o f their stability has has been to devise devi se new equations between the urge to amass things and the urge to be rid  o f  them. Bu t things have a way  o f  insinuating themselves into all human lives. So me people  attract more things  than  others, but no people,

however mobile, is  thingless.  A chimpanzee uses sticks and stones as tools, but he does not keep possessions. Man does. And the things to which he becomes most attached do not serve any useful function. Instead they are symbols or emotional anchors. The question I should like to ask (without necessarily being able to answer it) is, ' W h y are are man's real real treasur treasures es useless?' useless?' For if if w e underst ood this, this, w e mig ht also also  understand  the convoluted rituals

o f   the art market. Peopl e wh o k n ow and really really lov e things things - peopl e, w e say, say, wh o have taste — commonly rant aga  agains instt the philistine w h o buys a wo rk

o f   art with as much emotion as he would eat an egg. They accuse him of collecting in order to buy an intellectual respectability with wi th ou t hav ing to suff suffer er for for it, or of mak in g peo ple admire hi m throu th rou gh the refracted refracted mirror mi rror o f his things. Bu t Freu d and the psychoanalysts have had far nastier innuendoes to make about the compulsive art collector. The  true  collector, they imply, is a voyeur  in  life, pr otecte ote cted d by a stuff stuffing ing  o f  possessions from those he

would  like to  love,  possessed  o f  the tenderest emotions for things would  and glacial gl acial emo ti tion onss for peo ple. pl e. H e is the clas classic sic cold co ld fish. fish. He taps taps the vitality  o f former ages to compensate for the impotence  o f  the present. And he protects his things with defensive fury from the human wo lves wh o  threaten  th em. (W e shal shalll recall Karl Mar x' s insight  that  the destruction o f brick bric k and  mortar  causes more dismay to the bourgeois  than  the widespread spilling of human

171

 

Art and the Image-breaker

blo od. ) In oth er wo rds , the the collector coll ector evol ves a moral system from which  h e squeezes ou t peopl pe opl e. W e can cal calll it the the morality o f

things. The acquisition of an object in  itself  becomes a Grail Quest  — the chase, the recognition  o f  the quarry, the decision to purchase, the sacrifice and fear of financial ruin, the Dark Cloud of ('IIs it a fake?'), the wrapping, wrappi ng, the jo ur ne y h ome , the U n k n o w in g  g  (' ecstasy o f undressing the pack age, the object obje ct  o f the quest un veil ed, the night one didn't go to bed with anyone, but kept  v i g i l , gazing, stroking, adoring the new fetish  —  the companion, the lover, but very  shortly  the  bore,  to be ki ck ed out or sold off wh il e another

more desirable thing supplants  itself in ou r affections. I have hav e often noticed  that  in the really great collections the best objects congregate like a host  o f  guardian angels around the bed, and the be d  itself  is pitifully narro narrow. w. T h e  true  collector houses a corps of inanimate lovers to shore up the wreckage  o f life. In a self-analysis

o f   surgical precision, Signor Mario Praz, in his  House  of  Life, explains  that  people

are

never

reliable.

Instead

one

should

surround  oneself  with things, for they never let you down. The art collection, then, is a desperate stratagem against a failure, a personal ritual to cure loneliness. The art market is the publ ic aspect o f this private reli r eligio gio n, and, wi th its apparent irrationality, seems to defy any known rule of commerce. It reduces businessmen into credulous believers, and makes the peasant with his pot of gold at the end of the rainbow seem hard-hea ded. Con si der de r an important international art art positively  hard-headed. positively  auction auct ion.. Is it not some seasonal, seasonal, liturgical liturgi cal drama? drama? A n uninitiated uninit iated observer might imagine he was attending an arcane ceremony of mystic  love.  He would find an altar and a pulpit, the missals of his acolytes acol ytes,, the sacrament proffered, service,  the execu tan t priest, his the slippery path  along which many tread but few are chosen, the complex relationship between the priest-lover and his suitors, or be tw ee n the seducer and seduced, seduce d, the nervou s anticipation, the

172

 

T h e   Morality  of   Things esoteric numerology, the ascensionalism of the price, the cre scendo,  the moment  o f  breathlessness, and  ( B A N G )  the climax W e  are told to the point of exhaustion  that art collecting is a phe no men on o f the decadent decadent.. An d in moments o f  puritan

reaction people  give  it up. In any case  there  comes a moment when  the sacrifices reach the point of diminishing  returns. Moreover, the aesthete is often fatally attracted to the violent; and,

on the principle  that  rapists  are usually invited, positively wants the wrecker to shatter his private universe, hoping, once he is free free himself. o f   things, to be free Something of  this  kind seems to be happening in America wh er e w e wa tc h the

discomfort

o f the

President

and

the

discomfort  o f  the Museum for the same set  o f reasons. Ever since the priest bureaucracies  o f  Ancient  Egypt and Mesopotamia, the upper classes have put precious objects into depositaries. The extent  o f the  t he  treasure proves symbolically th  the e powe r  o f the Tribe, City  or State. For power is always manifested by the capacity of

authorit auth ority y to hold wealth. Th e Americ an Mu se um became a

paraphrase  of the State itself, with its ceremonial unveihngs, presentations  o f wealth  heavily guarded, its technical experts and providers provid ers o f cash, it itss court o f pri vil ege d visitors and the not -s -so o privileged  public for whose education the Museum ostensibly exists.  But education, as defined by a former director of the

Metropolitan in New  Y o r k , is the 'art  o f casti  casting ng fals false e pearls befor bef ore e real swine'. It frequently aims to teach people the   full  extent of

their ignorance. For many years the American Museum publicly demonstrated the the powe r  o f mon ey ; it became bec ame more mo re splendid s plendid as as the cities cities became becam e mor e squalid. T o some eyes the recen recentt embellishmen embelli shmentt of o f the Metropolitan appeared to defy the poverty programme of the City's  administration, but bu t the old cry, ' W e can't eat stones,' was

deflected and ignored. The new wing  o f th  the e  Cleveland Muse um,

designed desi gned by Marc Ma rcel el Breue Br eue r, is not so mu ch an exhi bition bit ion space as a

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fortified bunker. It is  o f some psychological interest  that  the more exquisite exquisi te the Orient Orie ntal al objects it houses, the further further they th ey are are buri b uried ed und erg rou nd in black bla ck stone crypts, wh il e in the park outside, outsi de, trees trees and children gasp for air, and streams and ponds are  oily black and perhaps inflammable. Such observable disparities  turned  people against art, particu larly valuable art. The  artists started  it by creating creat ing unsaleable unsaleable nothings. N o w they have have bee n joi ne d by a chorus  o f  critics,  critics,  who onc e ju mp ed on the art art wa go n and find find it con ven ien t to j um p of off. f.

A   famous New  Y o r k  critic declared the other day  that,  in his experience, people who are attracted to art are  —  it goes without unabl e to tell the difference be t we en right saying  —  psychopaths,  unable and wrong. W h y  psychopath? Because, in some opinions, the work  o f art is a source  o f  pleasure and power, the object  o f fetishistic adorati ado ration, on, which  serves serves in a traumatised traumatised indivi ind ividua duall as as a substitute substitute for s ki nn-to to -

skin contact wi t h the mother mot her , on ce denied, deni ed, lik e the kisses kisses of Proust's mother, in early childhood. Art objects, leather gear, rubber goods, boots, frillies, or the vibrating saddle, all compen sa sate te for havi ha vi ng lost 'mama 'ma ma en chemise chemi se toute tout e nu e' . T h e wo r d 'fetish' derives from a Port uguese ugu ese expres expressio sion,^ n,^eh' eh'p'o p'o;; it carries implications  o f  be in g a thi ng magical or enchanted, wit h an additional additional me meani ani ng o f somethi some thing ng embellished or fal false se,, like firstt emp lo ye d by a very ve ry acute maquillage.   T h e term 'fetishism' was firs Fren chman chma n called the President de Brasses in  1 7 6 0 , wh o described 'the cult, perhaps not less ancient  than  the cult  o f  stars,  o f  certain earthly material objects called fetishes by Black Africans. I shall call this cult fetishism. Even  i f  in its original context it pertains to the beliefs  o f Blacks,  I intend to use it for any nation whose sacred

objects are animals or inanimate things endowed with some divine virtue.' He added  that  the things varied from a statue  to a tree, a co w, a li lion' on' s tail, a stone, a shell, or the se sea a itse itself. lf. Ea ch was

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T h e   Morality  of   Things less than God, but possessed  o f some spirit that made it worthy of

adoration. T h e  President Presiden t de Brosses was a figure  o f the Enlighten ment. H e frowned  on this this childish adoration adorati on o f fetishes. fetishes. A n d he failed, failed, of

course, cours e, to not ice in his ow n colon co lonial ial civilisation a mania for profits profits

that  carried fetishism one step further in infantility. Other writers on fetishis fetishism m incl uded Augus Au gus te Comt Co mt e, for for w h o m it it was a religious phase phas e thr ough oug h w h i c h all all races races had to pass; pass; for He ge l it was a condition in wh ic h the poor   Blacks wer e stuck; for Kar l Ma rx 'the fetishism of the commodity' was inseparable from bourgeois capitalism but would evaporate into communistic harmony once the working masses had possessed themselves  o f  the things  o f  the rich. And finally we come to Freud who said  that  the fetishistic attachment to things things was root ed in the psyc hop atholo ath olo gy o f the individual, was, in  effect,  a perve rsion, rsi on, and as as a perversio perve rsion n c ould ou ld

be cured. Freud said said something ver y original and very prof ound about fetishism. fetish ism. If w e coul co ul d fathom fatho m the depths o f it itss profundity, profund ity, w e might either discover it to be meaningless or to answer all our economic  woes and moral dilemmas. He said, 'The fetish is a

substitute for the phallus of the mother which the child does not want to relinquish.' And he also said, 'These substitutes can meaningfully  be compared to the fetiches in which the savage

incarnates his god.' Thus he implied that the savage's adoration of sticks, stones, cows or the sea follows exactly the same psychologic

al  process as as attachment attachmen t to Meissen Meiss en figures, kelims or moto mo torr bikes. Even i f I understood unders tood it better, I cannot hope h ope to exp ou nd the

convolutions  of Freud's complexes and his contention  that  all

fetishism has at root a horror  o f  the sexual organs  o f  the opposite sex. But we should note in passing that  he does raise a fascinating

insight into w h y , from the ancient Siberian shaman shaman to the the mode mo dern rn

artist,  the creator is likely  to have sex problems; and why men, w h o  notoriously have greater difficulties in their relations with

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their mothers, have produced more and greater artists  than women.  And when he remarks on the fetishist's heightened sensitivity  to touch , w e are are forcibly reminded remin ded o f M r Ber enson's enso n's 'tactile values'.

Instead  o f immer  immersi sing ng ourselves ourselv es in Freud, F reud, I suggest w e accept accep t as fact  that  a hum an infant infant requires the immediate immediat e and constant

presence of its mother and her breast for at least the first fifteen months of its  life.  If this presence is withdrawn and the child pa wn ed off o ff wi th substitut substitutes es for the mother mot her,, the results results  w i l l  not necessarily be fatal, but  w i l l  produce a different sort of character. T h e  Har lows lo ws,, a team tea m of o f animal behaviourists, behaviouris ts, studied rhesus rhesus monkeys  and found  that  i f their c linging ling ing reflexes reflexes we re directed solely  towards inanimate objects, such as a mechanical mother, they gre g re w up drastical drastically ly disturbed in their   sociability - with draw n,

morose, perverted, and hopelessly selfish. And Dr John Bowlby o f the Tavistock Clinic found a similar  pattern  in children left by their mothers.  I f a very young child, whose bonds  o f  attachment to its mother were firmly cemented, was taken from her, it would cry inc onsola ons olably bly at first first and pas passs int o sullen despair, but then t hen,, quite

suddenly, it would brighten up and take an intelligent interest in its surround surr oundings ings - and in particular particu lar in  things,  teddy bears, rattles, sweets,  or any sort o f amusement. amuseme nt. This Th is lively  upsurge of interest always   causes relief to the guardians of the child, because it has apparently rec ove re red d from from the absence of the mother mot her . In fact fact Bowlby  maintains  that  irreparable irreparable damage has has bee n done do ne , for

when the mother returns, although the child greets her cheerfully,

it does so wit h a glazed aloofness, aloofness, as the provid pro vider er  o f more things to keep it amused.  I f t  this his is is so, the child chi ld that plays happily wi th its toys toys is meat for fetishistic activity later, and the prototype  o f  the thing-

fixed  citizen  of today. The playpen  w i l l  be civilisation's cage in microcosm. Bu t why the intensity  o f the bond? bond ? W h y must all all small small childr en stick c  close lose by their mothers? W h y must they rapidly co me unstuck unst uck

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T h e   Morality  of   Things from them  i f  they are to mature?  I f  one examines this question in terms  o f living in a city or even a mud hut, one does not arrive at the answer. Instead I w o u l d ask y o u to accept that all  all our emoti ons have a function in nature, but before they begin to make sense, we must first cross-reference them with the original habitat of early man. I also ask you to take it   that  our species evolved in a temperate climate ( whic wh ic h is w h y w e are hairle hairless); ss);  that  we were hunters o f game animals animals and gatherers gatherers o f vegetabl vege tabl e foo d;  that seasonal seas onal challenge chall enge forced on us annual migrations (whi (w hich ch is w h y w e  ha ve the lo ng striding striding wa lk un k no wn to our primate primate cousins cousins

and why we symbolise  life  as a lon g jou rne y) ;  that  our hands developed to make our essential equipment  — the slings and spears, axes  and baskets without which we should be lost;  that ideally a

man should own no possessions but those he can conveniendy carry; that the basic unit  o f huma n sociability sociability was  not the hun tin g band, but the group united in defence against the zoological monstrosities with which we shared the bush (for this alone  w i l l explain  wh w h y children are are expert palaeozoologists in their night nig ht

mares, and why the prime object   o f o  our ur hate is always alway s a beast or or a bestialised man); and finally that  this archaic  life,  for all its danger was wa s the the G old en A g e for which we preserve an instinctive nostalgia

and to which we would mentally  return.  Today Serengeti is innocuous compared to the dangers it contained in the Early Pleistocene, bu  butt  i f a mot her he r le left ft her child alone there, I doub do ubtt  i f she would  find it alive twenty minutes later. In the context of the

savannahs we shall shall understand the function functio n  o f  the child's African  savannahs clinging: that the mother's breast is not simply the source  o f  food,

but something to hang on to; that wh e n a squalling infant infant has to b e walked back to happiness it demands to be on its mother's left side

as she herself walked on her daily migration;  that  the desperate screams for hel p are protests against aban ab ando donme nme nt (for (for w h e n a mother  leaves her child she murders it); and  that whe n it it gives  her a co ol reception receptio n later, later, it is is simply exacti ng revenge rev enge . W e  w i l l also

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future e dangers facing hi m, a b o y understand  w h y , in the ligh t o f futur must learn to break away from the mother and  stand,  to use a cliche,  on his own two feet. Is the w o r k o f art art really a B u t  w h y the attach ment to things? Is

compensation against abandonment? The Freudian notion of fetishi fet ishism sm is is fin fine e if y o u favour a No th in g But philosop phil osop hy. B ut it does n't really get us ve ry far far.. It may help fathom fath om s ome  o f  the more obsessiv obse ssive e coll ecting ect ing manias. manias. Bu t the acquisition  o f symbolic things cannot

really

be

a

perversion,

because

everybody

does

it,

deprivation  trauma  or no. And  i f  the behaviour  o f  their so-called 'pr imi tive' ti ve' descendants descendant s is any thin th ing g to go by , the earliest earliest me n spent mu ch o f their time bargaining, bartering, bartering, gi vi ving ng and recei vin g things wh i c h we re formally usel useless ess wi th the same enthusiasm and irrationality as the modern art collector. ti on system. system. Bu t unlike Art,  lik e languag e, is a com mun ica tion language it overrides linguistic and cultural barriers. Show an Eskimo a Ve laz que z and he  w i l l  ignore it at first. But he can also learn to master its finer points far quicker  than  he can the sonnets sonnet s

o f   Gongora. 'Art', as Chesterton once said, 'is the signature of man.'' Mo re ov er , an art man. art style is the signature o f a particular man and a window on to the age in which he made it. When I studied prehistoric archaeology we were encouraged to examine exami ne the objects of the pas past, t, to measure them t hem,, compare comp are them to others, and date them. But when one speculated on the character and the beliefs of their makers, such inferences were frown ed o n as as speculative, emotiona emot iona l and and unscientific. U nh app ily il y prehistori c religi rel igion on is irrecov irr ecov erab le. It is for for  the prehistorian, prehistoric for  him a no n-p rob le lem, m, not merit ing his his attention. Bu t the position is not so desperate. Thanks to Rorschach and other tests we are beginning to be able to determine the character, or psychic life,  o f a man by the things he makes or even likes. The art object is what psychologists psycholog ists call call a cog niti ni tive ve map, wh i c h reveals reveals mor e about the

 than  he would ever care to reveal. artist than artist

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T h e   Morality  o f  Things I have harped on the connection between art and sex. And the

first thing to remember  is that the sexes have hav e very ver y differen differentt  ways of seeing  things. Societies simpler  than  our own have always made the distinction between male and female property, between   his

and   her things things;; the Married Wo me n ' s Property A ct wo ul d have been a non sequitur. Certainly in other periods it is usually possible poss ible to decide whic wh ic h sex made what. Al on e the twentie twen tie th century wo ul d reveal reveal a pattern  o f  total mixed-upness.

A t   this point let us also recall that  early man did not know the existence  o f a  neuter,  inert thing. For him everything in the

universe was mysteriously alive and sending messages. Stones and trees have often spoken to mystics like Mohammed or to depressive depress ivess like Gerard de Nerv N erv al. A n d  i f the universe was alive it wass also sexed. The subconscious appears to contain a mechanism wa for  dividing the world of our experience into sexed opposites,

male and female, corresponding to the Chinese Yin and   Y a n g . Mounta ins, ins , rocks and promontor ies are are likel y to be male; male; caves, crevasses  and bays female. Th e sky raining thunderbolts

and

covering th  the e  earth i  iss always male. Th e Earth is always the Moth Mo th er . O n e  cannot with certainty predict the sex of, say, the sun. For Louis  XIV the Sun was male and symbolised potency, light over

darkness, order over chaos, power and glory. For the Rwala Bedouin  o f Arabia the sun is a mean and destructive old hag, who forces the handsome hands ome mo on to sleep sleep wi th her onc e a month, mon th, and so

exhausts him  that  he needs another month to recover. The point to notice is that eve ryt hin g is sexed one wa w a y or the other; and the archaic languages preserve this. Hebrew contains no  neuter,  and the French have preserved 'la chose'. T h e  sexi s exi ng o f things applies applies equally equal ly to man-mad man -mad e objects. objects . A Scottish  psychologist examined some admirably normal school

children and found  that boys have a taste for soft rounded objects, while  the girls favour linear ones, developing a marked  taste  for

the   hard and cylindrical as they reach puberty. puberty . A n d  i f  one applies

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this insight to art styles, one would hope to be able to identify the periods in which the women were sexually secure, finding correspondences in the the exuberant heterosexuality o f a Rub en s and the curves of a Neo li thi c figurine. Co nv er se ly in a mandominated society (where women are denigrated or denied), we should expect a linear purity in art. And we find it in the rigid verticals  o f the Gr ee k Do ri c Or der , the Islami Islamic c minaret, Ciste rcian

architecture, or the art  o f  the Shakers. grou nd, but apparently w e can can go further. further. It seems that Tricky  ground, abstra abs tract ct designs, preferably preferably symmetrical symmetrica l wi th plenty ple nty  o f ope  open n space, are the artistic expression of anarchic societies in which social differences,  i f they exist, ar are e tacitly ign ore d. An A n d i f y o u don't place

one man over another, you don't seem to place one species over another. Acc ord ingl in gl y, one fi find ndss  that  people who do not elevate themselves above the rest  o f nature incline to an abstract art.  I f this is so, it is rather surprising  that  the people who have been called

the 'Nature-Folk' should deny nature in their art; and it w i l l cause terrible headaches for  interpreters  of Palaeolithic cave painting. However,  it w i l l very conveniently explain the nomad's horror of

the image, and and w h y bouts  o f iconoclasm are the peculiar feature of all mi  millenar llenarian ian or level ling move ment s.

T h e  reverse proposition also seems to hold  true.  Devotion to images  increases within a hierarchy where everyone knows his place  on the ladder and where man elevates himself  above  other  himself above species.  Certai nly we can trace trace an af affi fini nity ty be tw ee n the L io n Ki ngs

o f   Assyria,  G o d Al mi gh ty as Pantokrator in a Byza nti ne apse, apse, or Lenin and Ma rx rais raised ed to superhuman proportions in R e d Square.

A l l  of these images mesmerise their beholders into submission to highe r authority. Researcher Res earcher s have also also claimed that a tendency tend ency to view human figures in profile betokens a shifting, oblique view o f

life,   and  o f  course one can go on like this indefinitely. I w i l l now ask you to accept that a wor k  o f art is a metaphorical

affirmation  o f  territory, and an expression  o f the people who  live

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T h e   Morality  of   Things there. An African ancestor statue, not less than  a Gainsborough, announces the legitimacy of a man, family or tribe in their own particul part icular ar place. N o w w e have all heard the not ion   that  art collecting  is territory formation. The collector patterns his spot as a dog do g marks a roun ro und d o f lamp-posts. lamp-pos ts. A n d w e shal shalll speculate  that man's fixation with things, which Freud branded as a perversion, is  simply simply his his means means o f mark ing a place in w hi ch to  l i v e .  Things

appear to be vital to us; to be without them is to be lost or deranged. T h e  late Professor Winnicott had another name for the fetish.

He called it a 'transitional object'. For our children, this object might be a teddy bear, the corner   o f a sheet, or a piece  o f  wood. Winn ico tt maintaine maintained d  that the child must be al low ed to play wi th things; otherwise it  w i l l  never form its own personal space and break away aw ay from the mothe mo the r to orientate itself i tself to the outside world.

I f  the practice pract ice  o f the 'primit ives' is is anything anyth ing to go by, Wi nn ic ot t is  right. Mother s o f Bus hme n children  give  them the whole

inventory of the land in which they   w i l l  grow up. The child fingers, sniffs and bites shells, flowers, animals, stones or fungi. As

he learns to speak he  patterns  his discoveries into a sequence of metaphorical associations, comparing like and like, and thus forms an ideal territory territ ory in his mind. min d. It is significant that the people who speak the most complex languages in the world are the best oriented to their territory. Charles Darwin nearly took the de l Fue go for a sub-hu sub -human man species; yet ye t Yaghan  Indians  o f  Tierra del one on e  o f their boys could speak as many words as Shakespeare ever wrote.  Bu t they we re never nev er allow ed by their their mothers to hoard

things, merely to handle them and let them go. Gypsies, I would add, do not have toys. T h e scene  o f our childhood explorations resides in our minds as

a lost paradise paradise wh w h ic h w e are are always tryi ng to recapture. Proust's Proust 's

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description of the Jardin  du Pre-Ca Pre -Ca tal an at Illier Illierss is the cons co ns um um  mate example in literature. But the savage never outgrows his infantile paradise unless he is forcibly expelled from it. And I suspect that all the time and effort we spend in making or wanting new things (which we have ritualised as the Myth of Progress) merely compensates for the ideal territory from which we have estranged ourselves. Only at our roots can we hope for a renewal. T h e  Australian Australian Abor igi nes w o u l d wander wan der afield afield thr oughou oug houtt the year but  b ut  return  at seasonal intervals to their sacred places to make

contact cont act wi th their ancestral ancestral roots, roots , established established in the 'dr eamt ime'. ime '. A n d  I once met a man who did the same.

I  had felt estranged from my friends and enjoyed the company

o f  a man who was very old and very wise in Islamic teaching. He was  als  also o the the c ommer omm erci cial al attache  o f a Mi Midd ddle le Eastern Eastern embassy. O n e evening there came to his flat in Victoria an Englishman  o f  about

expression o f perfect perfect compo sur e. N o wr ink le fifty-five  with  an expression lined him. He seemed s eemed to be lo ng to that nearly extinc t species - the happy man. He was not withdrawn or   half o  out ut  o f  this world, but very mu ch in it. Y e t he lived a life w hi ch wo ul d reduce most most  o f us

to nervous breakdowns. He was the representative   o f a manufact

urer  of typewriters and every three  months he visited nearly all the

countries

of  Africa  by

plane.

He

had

no

relatives

or

attachments. He lived from a suitcase, and the suitcase was sufficently  small to fit under the seat of an aeroplane so  that  he could carry it as hand  baggage.  When he passed through London

he renewed the lot, the suitcase and the clothes. He appeared to posse po ssess ss noth no thin ing g else, but w h e n I pressed hi m he admitted to owning a box which he didn't want to discuss. I would make fun

o f  him, he said. I promised not to laugh at the box, and he told me he kept in the  office  safe a solicitor's solicitor 's black tin deed d eed b o x . Inside Inside it were  his  things.  Back in London four times a year he would sleep

in the  office  bunk room which the company reserved for its travelling salesm  salesmen. en. For F or half an hou r he wo ul d lo ck the door , take

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T h e   Morality  of   Things the things from the box and spread them on the bunk. They were the assorted assorted bric-a-brac bric-a- brac o f English Engl ish middle-class  life  —  the teddy bear, the photo pho togr graph aph o f his father father kil led in the First Wa r , his medal, the letter from the  King,  some of his mother's trinkets, a swimming  trophy trop hy and a presentation ashtray ashtray.. Bu t each time he

brought from  Africa  one new thing, and he threw out one old thing that had lost it itss mea nin g. 'I kn k n o w it sounds silly,' he said, 'but they are are my roots.' roots .' H e is is the onl o nly y man I have eve r met w h o sol ved the tricky equation be tw ee n things and free freedo dom m. T h e b o x was  the hub hu b  o f  his migration orbit, the territorial  fixed  point at which he could renew his identity. And without it he would have become literally  deranged.

I f   things  are territorial markers, we should remind ourselves of the function  o f territory in species species other oth er  than our ow n . A territory territory is the tract  o f land an an animal and its its grou gr oup p needs to feed and br breed eed

in. A m o n g bab oons, oon s, dominant domin ant males defend their front frontie iers rs until they  give  way to a more powerful newcomer. Their instinctive fighting  apparatus  serves two distinct functions: one to protect females  and the children from  wild  beasts; the other to maintain

fitn fitnes esss in the Dar wini wi ni an sense, sense, by prevent prev ent in ing g inferior males males from from breeding and contributing their inferiority to the gene pool. For an animal without territory may become sterile. N o w  man is certainly equipped to  kill  other animals for food

and defend def end hi msel f against against dangerous beasts. O u r adrenal system alone confirms this. But instead  o f beating his neighbouring rivals into submission, he maintained fitness by the Incest Taboo. He distinguished distinguis hed his o w n gro up from from outsiders, the in-g in -gro roup up from from the out-group. The out-group  lived  in the territory which provid pro vided ed his his w o m e n , and and they alone we re sexually permitted to him. He had to define a frontier between  h is and  h er  territory. territory. A n d he did so by fighting fight ing for for it, not w it h fi fists sts,, but w it h things. He made ritual  exchanges  o f useless gifts that we re no less less aggressive aggressive than  an armed  scuffle.  These things (necessarily sexed) were, like our

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Art  and the Image-breaker

works  o f  art, art, statements o f territorial integ i ntegrit rity, y, and w e r e used for

the moral purpose  o f diplomacy. W e all all k no w  that  gift -giving -giv ing is aggressive,  and can observe it in the custom whereby heads of state, sta te, w h o cordially cordiall y loathe loath e each other, nevertheless neverth eless present each ea ch

other with idiotic ornaments. W e  frequendy read blustering letters on the erosion  o f Britain's

ar artt treasures treasures..

T h e sale sale o f a V el azqu az quez ez to the

Met ropol ro pol it itan an

generates more heat in the press   than  the sale of some vast industrial industr ial co mple mp le x to overseas investors. For some

irrational irrational

reason, the sale o f a V elazquez elazquez is the loss o f a symbol, wh il e the sale sale

o f   a company obeys normal economic pressures. Imagine the upheaval  i f  the Metropolitan bought the Crown Jewels. America would  have hav e absorbed Britain and destroyed dest royed our territorial territorial integrit inte grity. y. But i f w e lent lent the C r o w n Jewels and and bor ro we d the

Declaration  o f I ndepe ndenc e, albeit a bad deal, it w o u l d be seen as as a reciprocal act act of go od wi ll be tw ee n t wo rival, but friendly, friendly, nations. It is is precisely such tit-for-tat dealing dealin g in symboli symb olic c things, on the basis  o f one-to-one parity, that makes peo ple friendly, or at least makes them feel that  they are not being taken advantage of. Property, to quote Proudhon, may be theft; but   i f w e  remove all property we remove the social cement which keeps people at peace.  When the delicate balance of ownership and exchange is

upset, ups et, men b egi n to fight. A n d  i f gift-giving  without due  return is aggressive,   it is not surprising  that  the dog bites the hand which

feeds  it. W e  often imagine all trade to b e a system o f regulating the  flow

necessities. O u r bank ba nk ing in g credits credits ar are e variations on a 'natural' o f   necessities. economy  o f barter in whi wh i ch I excha nge my eggs for yo ur turnips, turnips,

 beli eli eve this, this, we w i l l also so that w e bo th eat eggs and turnips.  I f w e b believe that the art art market marke t has imposed impo sed itself as  as a by- pro duc t  o f this

natural economy, and is mere surplus and frivolity. However, this does not prevent businessmen thinking  o f the money market as an irration irra tional al game. A n d i f w e  care care to lo ok at at the beha vio ur  o f savages,

184

 

T h e   Morality  of   Things w e  find no 'natural' economy, no primitive communism where

everything is shared, but a great  part  o f  life  taken up in  hardheaded hea ded deals deals and selfish selfish bargainin barga ining g in  useless  things.  For the trade o f territorial symbols precedes the exchange  o f  commodities. In the Trobriand Islands two villages traded with each other in yams, despite the fact they were both  well supplied with identical yams. The yams were chosen because they were pretty yams, not because they were better to eat. The point being,  that  i f  I invade yam s, I have hav e a territorial claim on y o u , and I y o u  w it h my pretty yams, must expect you to invade me with even prettier yams  i f w e  are going  to remain at peace.

It  w i l l  be an an ho no ur for me to recei re ceive ve a pretty prett y but useless useless thing th ing from you. But it  w i l l  be dangerous for me to hoard it and gloat  it. t.  I f I do , I w i l l attract the en vy I wish to avoid . A l sso o t  the he  thing over i over itself, is alive. It does not like being trapped and longs to return  to its roots (and having got there  to take  o f f again).  again).   Instead I w i l l pass the thing on to someone else over whom I wish to have a moral hold. Then one day he  w i l l  be forced to  give  me another anot her pretty thing and I w i l l pas  passs it it on to yo u . I k n o w that i f I am generous wi th my things, I w i l l attract more things from my friends  — only please taste This Th is is a  rather  different morality of G o d  th ey have g o o d taste things, and what we should, in an ideal world, be doing with our art collecti colle ctions ons.. Al l the same, it's nice to think thi nk  that something like the art market existed before the bankers.

1973

185

 

NOTES

I  HORREUR D U DOMI CIL E

T h e  title of this section is taken from one  o f  Chatwin's  favourite

quotations: 'La grande maladie de  l'horreur  du domicile', from Baudelaire's  Journaux  intimes.  The phrase recurs frequendy throughout his wo rk , be co min g a sort sort  o f  leitmotif, most notably in  The  Songlines.

'I  A l w aayy s  Wanted to Go to Patagonia - The Making  o f a Writer' was published in the  New  York  Times  Book  Review,  2 Au gus t 1983: 1983:

pp. 6, 34-6

' A   Place to Hang  Y o u r  Hat' is a description of one of Chatwin's principal princip al 'writer's chambers' — his pied-a-terre in Lond on — and an exploration exploratio n o f the author's paradoxical  attitude  to home. It was written for  House  &  Garden  to draw attention to the work  o f  the flat's  designer, the architect John  Pawson.

' A   T o w e r in Tuscany' evokes evokes anothe anotherr  o f  the 'writer's chambers': Gregor von Rezzori's mediaeval signalling tower, near Florence. Chatwin  liked to write 'away from home' while staying with

friends such as von Rezzori in Italy, Patrick Leigh Fermor in Greece,  or George Melly in Wales, in whose tower overlooking

the River Usk he was to write  part  o f  On the  Black

Hill.

187

 

Notes

T h e  title 'Gone to Timbuctoo' echoes the famous telegram of

resignation  that Chatwin i  iss sa  said id to have h ave sent to the  Sunday  Times  in

1 9 7 5   on leaving for Patagonia: 'Gone to Patagonia for Six Months'. The article was originally published in  Vogue,  in 1970. (See al  also so N . Murr ay  Bruce  Chatwin,  Seren Books, Bridgend, 1993,

pp. 38-9, for an account  o f this episode.)

II  STORIES

In his introduction to  What  Am I  Doing  Here,  Chatwin wrote: 'The  word "story" is intended to alert the reader to the fact that, however  closely clos ely the narrative may m ay fit fit the facts, facts, the fictional ficti onal

proces pro cesss has has been at wor k .' Th e fo ll owi ng selection of 'stories' 'stories' reveals  how fact and fiction fuse  under  Chatwin's pen to emerge

as a single seamless narrative narr ative.. 'Milk',  a tale of initiation clearly drawn from Chatwin's African

notebooks, was published in the  London

Magazine, 

Septe mber 1977 (and (and was later  reprinted  in  London

August -

Magazine

Stories,   in  1979). 'The  Attractions of France' was published posthumously by the Colophon  Pres Presss in 1993. T h e original orig inal typescript is undated  and was only discovered after the  author's  death. It is the fictionalised

account  o f a true-life episode taken from the notebooks. Chatwin was  an a vo w ed francophile; the tide reflec reflects ts his admiration admirat ion for

French literature  and culture. In 'The Estate of Maximilian Tod', Chatwin explores the psychology  o f the obsessive obsessive collector : an autobiographical theme

he was to return  to in 'The Morality  o f Things', before making it the central concern of his last novel,   Utz,  so some me ten years later. later.

188

 

Notes Significantly,  Tod  is the German word for 'death'. The story

appeared in the  Saturday  Night  Reader,  W. H.  A l l e n , in 1979. 'Bedouins'  is possibly the shortest and most succinct of the

author's

anecdotal

tales,

or

'miniatures'.

Chatwin

relates

a

different version of the same story in the 'Notebooks' section of pp..  2 1 1 - 1 2 . T h e   Songlines,  pp

in

' T H E N O M A D I C  ALTERNATIVE

This section brings brings toget her three se  sepa parate rate texts w hi ch explo re the

nature  o f  nomadism. Taken together, they are perhaps the closest one can com e to an an idea idea  o f  what the author's 'unpublishable' book on nomads may have looked  like,  had it seen the light of day. According  to a footnote attached to the  third  text, 'It's a nomad

nomad   World', the book was due to be published by  Jonathan Cape  in 197 1 97 1. Ch at wi n makes repeated allu allusio sions ns to the the man u

script scr ipt thr oughou oug houtt hi hiss wo r k , although alth ough he seems seems subsequently to have destroyed it. 'Letter to T o m Masch ler' . Thi s previously previo usly unpublished unpublish ed letter, letter, dating from 1968, was wri tte n in response to the editor's editor' s request for  a synopsis o f Chatwin's planned book on nomads. It resulted in a bo ok contract contract  with J  Cap ap e w h i c h was later transfer transferred red to  Jonatha onatha n C

the manuscript  o f  In  Patagonia,  once on ce the original project had been bee n abandone aban doned. d. Ch at wi n' s 'n 'nom omad ad letter' lett er' prefigures a ser serie iess o f texts texts on the same theme  that appeared in various periodicals in the early 1970s.

Untypically for the  author, the letter is typewritten and bears a

handwritten postscript:  'Sorry,  I  have  a  fiendish  typewriter.' 'T h e  Nom adi c Alternative' is Cha twi n's principal principal contribution contribution to

Animal  

Style  (Art  from  East  to  West),  the catalogue of an

189

 

Notes

archaeologi archa eological cal exhibition of nomad art-wor k w hi ch he helped organise in New  Y o r k  in 1970. Controversial in  nature,  the essay appears to have been deliberately relegated to the end of the catalogue. T h e 'Letter 'Lette r to T o m Maschl er' sugge suggests sts  that  it was to have been one of the main chapters  o f  Chatwin's nomad book. The final article in  this section, a summary summary  o f Chatwin's key ideas on the subject of nomadism, was originally published  under  the title: 'It's a nomad nomad nomad  N O M A D   world'

in

the

De ce mb er 1970 is issu sue e of  Vogue.  A footnote links the article to the

author's  ambitious book project: 'Bruce Chatwin, an insatiable wanderer himself, is now compiling a book on nomadism to be published by Jonathan  Cape in  1 9 7 1 . '

IV REVIEWS

Bruce Chatwin's reviews figure among the least known of his writings. The texts gathered together  here reveal a critic possessed

o f  strongly held views  at times bordering on the polemical. While the  author  displays a marked penchant for the play of'grand ideas' in his revi re vi ews , his narrative narrative techni tec hni que is also also  well  to the fore in texts like 'The Anarchists of Patagonia', which reads like a blueprint for the 'Revolution' chapter in  In  Patagonia.

' A b e l  the Nomad', a critical review  o f Wilfred  Thesiger's  Desert,

Marsh   and  Mountain  (Collin s, Lond on) , was published in  The London Review   of  Books,  22  No v e mb e r 1979, p. 9. 9. In In eulogistic terms, Chatwin reveals his  natural  affinity with the compulsive wanderer in Thesiger. The myth  o f  A b e l  and Cain is a recurrent wi n' s ceuvre, notably in  The  Viceroy  of Ouidah  and ' m o t i f  f  in Ch at win'

T h e   Songlines. 'The Anarchists of Patagonia' is a review of Osvaldo Bayer's

190

 

Notes three-volume  Los  Vengadores  de la  Patagonia

Trdgica  (Editorial

Galerna, Buenos  Aires).  It was published in  The  Times  Literary

Supplement,  31 De ce mbe r 1976, pp.  1635-6.  In keeping with his

belief in the indivisibility indivis ibility o f fact and fiction, fiction, Ch at wi n resorts to the

techniques  o f fictional narrative to relate an extravagant episode in Patagonian history. 'T h e  Road to the Isles' is a critical review of  James  Pop e -

Hennessy's biography of Robert Louis Stevenson, published in

T h e   Times  Literary Supplement,  25 Oc to be r 1974, pp.  1 1 9 5 - 6 . 'Variations  on an Idee  Fixe'  is a review of Konrad Lorenz's  The

Year   of   th thee  Greylag  Goose  (Harcourt  Brace Jo vanovich/a  Helen and Kurt  W o l f f  book),  published in the  New  York  Review  of Books,  6 December  1 9 7 9 , pp . 8—9. Later, C h a t w i n was to discuss discuss Lore Lo re nz's nz 's

behaviourist ideas at length in the 'Notebooks' section of   The

Songlines,   presentin prese nting g the m as as an antithe antithesis sis to his o w n theor y of nomadism.

V ART AND THE  IMAGE-BREAKER

Chatwin came closest to formulating a comprehensive  statement

o f   his aesthetics when writing about the fine  arts.  The following texts discuss the decadence  o f Western art, and in doing so mark a vigorous  counterpoint to the author's prev  previou iouss career as as art art expert expe rt

and collector. With  its  pantheon  of extravagant characters, finely wrought

descriptive descript ive passa passage gess and irreve i rreverent rent humour,  ' Am on g th the e Rui ns' is is a

character chara cteristic istically ally 'C ha tw in ia n'

tale tale o f moder n

decade nce,

originally  published in  Vanity  Fair,  A pr i l 1984, 198 4, pp. pp . 46— 46—60,  under

the fuller  Ruins'.

— and

more explicit 

— title: 

' S e l f - L o v e  Among the

191

 

Notes

' Th e Morality o f Thi ngs ', originally originally sub-titled sub-titled ' A Ta lk by Bruce Chatwin', is the typescript  o f a speech  that Chatwin gave at a Red Cross charitable charitable art auction auct ion in i n 197 1 973. 3. It was publishe publ ished d pos thu th u mously, in a limite limited d private private pre press ss edition, by Ro b er t Ri sk (Typographeum, New Hampshire) in  1 9 9 3 . The text explores the philosophical and psy cholo gical implications o f possessi possession, on, a subject Chatwin was to  return  to in narrative form in his last novel,  Utz.

192

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

PRINCIPAL

WORKS

Ca pe , 1977, 197 7, 204 204 pp. (Paperback In Patagonia,   London: Jonathan  Cape edition - Lon do n: Picador, 1979, 189 189 pp.)

The

Viceroy   of  Ouidah,  London:  Jonathan  Cape, 1980, 155 pp.

(Paperback edition - London: Picador, 1982, 126 pp.)

O n   the  Black Hill,  London:  Jonathan  Cape, 1982, 284 pp. (Paperback edition  —  London: Picador, 1983, 249 pp.)

Patagonia Revisited   (text (text by Bru ce Ch at wi n and Paul Ther ou x; illustrations by  Kyffin  Willi ams), Salisbur Salisbury: y: Mic hael ha el Russel, Russel ,

1985,   62 pp. (Reprinted by Jonathan  Cap e, Lo nd on , 1992, 62 pp.) (U.S. edition:  Nowhere  is a place: travels in Patagonia  [text by Bruc e Ch at wi n and Paul Th er ou x; photographs photographs byJefFG byJefFGnass; nass; introduction by P Paul aul The ro ux ], San San Francis Francisco: co:  Y o l l a B o l l y Press book, published by Sierra Club Books,  1992, 109 pp.) 293 pp. pp . (Paperback The Songlines,   London: Jonathan  Ca pe , 1987, 293 edition  —  Lo nd on : Picador, Picado r, 1988, 327 pp.)

Utz,   London: J  Jonatha onatha n  Ca pe , 1988 1988,, 154 pp. (Pape (Paperba rback ck e d i t i o n London: Picador, 1988, 154 pp.)

193

 

Bibliography What  Am I  Doing  Here,  London:  Jonathan  Cape, 1989, 367 pp.

(Paperback edition  — Lon do don: n: Pan Boo k s, 199 1990, 0, 36 367 7 pp.) pp.)

Photographs  an and d  Notebooks,  London: Jonathan  Cape, 1993, 160 pp.

L IMIT ED E DI T IO NS, CAT AL OGUE S AN D A NT HOL OGIE S

Animal   Style (Art from  East  to West)  (Bruce Chatwin with  Emma Bunker & Ann Farkas), New  Y o r k :  The Asia Society Inc.,

1970,   185 pp.

1

Great  American  Families  (Bruce Chat Ch at wi n & various  authors),  New 2

Y o r k ,   Times Books, 1978, 192 pp.

Cobra   Verde: Filmbuch  (Werner  Herzog). Fotografien von Beat Presser,  Tagebuch von Bruce Chatwin, Gesprache mit  Werner Herzog von StefF Gruber,  Geschicht Gesch icht e des Films und un d Dialo Dia loge ge vo n  Werner  Herz He rz og. og . Sch Schaffha affhausen usen::

Edit ion Stemmle Ste mmle,, 1987,

1 5 2   pp.

John   Pawson  (Bruce Chatwin & various  authors;  tr. fr. fr. Spanish Spani sh by E. Bonet), Spain: Gustavo  G i l i ,  1992, 94 pp.

3

T he   Morality  of  Things  - A  Talk  by  Bruce  Chatwin, 

Francestown,

N e w  Hampshire:  Typo gra pheu m, 199 1993, 3, 26 pp. pp .

4

  Distributed by New York Graphic Society.

1

Bruce Chatwin's contribution is entitled 'The Guggenheim Family': an article first printed in  Tlw Times Literary Supplement  under the title 'The Guggenheim Saga'. Other contributing authors include Gore Vidal, V.S. Pritchett and Edward Jay Epstein. Part Part of the sscr cries ies 'Monogra phs on Co ntem pora ry Design'. Bruce Chat win's contributio n is derived from an article he wrote for   House  &  Garden  in Jun e 1984, entitled 'A Place to Hang your Hat', included in the present volume.  The transcript of a talk delivered by the author for the British Red Cross Society before a

4

charity art auction held in London on  12 June 1973.

194

 

Bibliography T he   Attractions  of   France,  Lond on: C ol op ho n Pres Press, s, 1993, 17pp. 17p p. Prague,   edited

by  John  and

Kirsten

Miller,

San

Francisco:

Chronicle Books, 1994.'

PREFACES, POSTSCRIPTS, ARTICLES AND STORIES

'The Bust  o f  Sekhmet'. In  Ivory Hammer4: The  Year  at Sotheby's &

Parke-Bernet   1965—66,  Lon don : Longman, 1966, 1966, pp. 302- 3.

2

'The Nomadic Alternative'. In Emma Bunker, Bruce Chatwin & Ann Farkas,  Animal Style  (Art from  East  to  West),  New York: T h e Asia Society Soci ety Inc., 1970, pp.  1 7 5 - 1 8 3 . 'Mus eums '. In Ro be r t All en & Que nti n Guirdh am (e (eds ds), ),  The

London   Spy  —a discreet guide  to  the city's pleasures,  London: Blond, 1 9 7 1 ,  pp. 95-109.

3

'The Estate  o f Maximilian Tod'. In Emma  Tennant  (ed.),  Saturday

Night  Reader,  London : W . H. Allen, 1979, 1979, pp. 2 5 - 3 7 / 'Foreword'. In Lorenzo Ricciardi,  The  Voyage  of the  Mir-el-lah, London: Collins, 1980, p. 6.

'Introduction'.  In Robert Byron,  The  Road  to  Oxiana,  London: Pan Bo ok s, 1981. pp.  9—is 1

  A collect ion of previously pub lished literary works and excerpts by H avel , Ka Kafl flca ca,,

Chatwin, Jirasck, Bachmann, Skvorccky. The first article known to have been published by the author. '  Unsigned. 4

  Also printed in the American review  Triquarterly n° 46, Fall  1 9 7 9 ,  pp .  43—56. Reprinted in  Wliat Am I  Doing  Here  under the title 'A Lament for Afghanistan', pp.

286-93.

195

 

Bibliography 'Howard

Hodgkin'.

In

Michael

Compton,  Howard

Hodgkin's

Indian   Leaves,  L ond on: Tate T ate Gallery catalogue, 1982.

1

'Body and Eyes'. In Robe r t Mapplethorpe, t Mapplethorpe,  Lady:  Lisa  Lyon,  New

Y o r k :  Vik in g Press ress,, 19 1983 83,, pp. n - 1 5 .

2

'Introduction'.  In Osip  Mandelstam, Journey  to Armenia,  London: Redstone  Press, Pres s, 1989, 198 9, pp.4— pp.4—7.

'Introduction'.  In Sybil Bedford,  A  Visit  to Don  Otavio,  London: Folio Society, 1990, pp.n-12.

CONTRIBUTIONS TO PERIODICALS

'Gone to Timbuctoo'. In  Vogue,  July  1970, pp. 20, 22, 25.

1

'I 'It' t'ss a Noma d

Noma d

Noma d

N O M A D world' .

In In 

Vogue,

Dece mber 1970, 1970, pp. 1 24 -5 . 'T he Mechanics of No ma d Invasion Invasions'. s'. In  History Today, 22  May

1 9 7 2 ,  pp. pp .  329-37  + bibliograp bibli ography, hy, p. 382 82.* .* 'Surviving in Style'. In the  Sunday Times  magazine, 4 March 1973, pp. 42-545

'  Later

included in  WliatAm

Published lished to accompany an exhibition I Doing  Here, pp. 70- 8. Pub

held at the Tate Gallery in London from 22 September to 7 November 1982.   Rep rin ted from from the  Sunday

:

Times  magazine: published in the UK as 'An Eye and

Somebody'. In Robert Mapplethorpe,  Lady  Lisa  Lyon,  London: Blond & Briggs, 1983,

1 2 8   pp. Reprinted in the  Vogue Bedside  Book  (edited by Jonathan Ross), Londo n: Vermilion,

1 9 8 4 ,  256 pp. 4

  Reprinted as 'Nomad Invasions'. In  What Am I  Doing  Here,  pp .  3 2 9 - 3 7 .

'  Featuring

articles on Madeleine Vionnct (reprinted in  WliatAm

and Sonia Dclaunay.

I  Doing  Here,  pp. 86-93)

I96

 

Bibliography 'Moscow's Unofficial Art'. In the  Sunday  Times  magazine, May 6 1973,   PP- 36-541973,

1

'Postscript  to a  Thousand  Thousand  Pictures',  the  Sunday  Times  magazine, 26 August 1973, pp. 48 -5 1.

2

'Heavenly  Hone s' .  In the  Sunday  Times  magazine, 9  September 1973-PP-  5 6 - 6 1 .

3

'Fatal Journey  to Marseilles  Marseilles  — North  Africans in  France'.  In the

Sunday   Times  magazine, 6 January  1974, 1974, pp. 22 -4 5/ 'The Oracle'. In the  Sunday  Times  magazine, 17 Mar ch 1974, pp.

20-34-

5

'The Witness'. In the  Sunday  Times  magazine, 9 June  1974, pp.

52- V 'The Road to the Isles'. In  The  Times  Literary  Supplement,  no. 3790, 379 0, 25 25 Oc t ob er 1974, pp.   1 1 9 5 - 6 . 'Man the Aggressor'. In the  Sunday  Times  magazine, 1 December 1974,   pp 1974, pp.. 28 - 41 , 85— 85—7/ 1

  Reprinted in  Wlmt Am I Doing  Here  under the title 'George Costakis: The Story of an Art

Collector in the Soviet Union', pp.  1 5 3 - 1 6 9 . ~  Th e

postscript to a seri series es on th e history of art entid ed ' On e Million Years of Art ' w hi ch

Chatwin edited for the  Sunday Times  from  24  June to 26 August 1973. 1

4

  Reprinted in  Wlmt Am I  Doing  Here,  p p.  195—205.

  Reprinted in  Wlmt Am

I  Doing  Here  under the title 'The Very Sad Story of Salah

Bougrinc', pp.  2 4 1 - 6 8 .

'  Reprinted in  Wlmt Am I  Doing  Here  under the tide 'Andre Malraux', pp.  1 1 4 - 3 5 . ''  Cha twi n's co ntr ibut ion to a magazi ne feature abo ut occu pied Paris entitl ed 'Life 'Life goes on'.  It was later rew rit ten and repri nte d as 'An Aesthet e at War ', in the  New  York  Review of

Books,  5 March  1 9 8 1 ,  pp. 21-5. '  A profile of Konrad Lorenz, excerpts of which were later included in the 'From the Not ebooks '  '  section of  Tlie  Songlines.

197

 

Bibliography ' Th e Ridd le of th the e  Pampa'.  In the  Sunday Times  magazine magaz ine,, 26 Octo ber 1975, pp. 52-67. 'The

Guggenheim

1

Saga'. In

the  Sunday

Times  magazine,

23

No ve mb er 1975, pp. 34-67. 'The Anarchists of Patagonia'.  In  The Times Literary Supplement, no..  3903,  31 no 31 Dec emb er 1976, pp. 1635 -6. 'Milk'. In  London Magazine,  August-Septe mber 1977, pp.  40-8.

2

'Until My Blood Is  Pure'.  In  Bananas,  no.9,  Winter  1977, pp.

ro-11. 'Perils  o f  the  Israeli Settlement'.  In the  Spectator, 8 Apri l 1978, pp. 8-9.

'Western  Approach Appr oaches' es' . In the  Radio  Times,  22 June  1978, p. 70.

' A   Memo ry of Nadezhda  Mandelstam'  and 'An  Introduction  to Journey  to Armen ia' . In  Bananas,  n o . 1 1 ,  Summer  1978, p. 5."

1

'T he

Q uest

for the

W o l f Chil dren' .

magazine, 30 July  1978, pp.  1 0 - 1 3 .

1

  Reprinted in  WliatAm

In the  Sunday

Times

4

I  Doing  Here  under the title 'Maria Rcichc', pp.  9 4 - 1 1 3 .

A nine-page story later printed in  London London Magazine Magazine Stories.  Lond on: Lon don Magazine Editions, 1979. 1

  Respectively reprinted as 'Nadezhda Mandelstam: A Visit' in  WliatAm

I  Doing  Here,  pp.

Journ urney ey to Armenia,  London: Redstone Press, 83-5,  and 'I ntr oduc tio n' in Osip Mandelstam, Jo [989,  pp .  4-7-

  Reprinted in  Wliat Am I  Doing  Here  under the title 'Shamdcv: The Wolf-Boy', pp.

4

233-40.

198

 

Bibliography 'On the Road with Mrs Gandhi'. In the  Sunday  Times  magazine, 27 Augu st 1978, pp.   20-34.

1

'Bedouins'. In  London Magazine,  No ve mb er 1978, 1978, pp. 58-9. 'The  Estate  o f  Maximilian Tod'. In  Triquarterly n°$6,  Fall  1 9 7 9 ,  pp. H3-56.

' A b e l   the Nomad'. In the  New  York  Review  of  Books,  22 November 1 9 7 9 ,   P- 9'Variations on an  Idee  Fixe'. In the  New  York  Review  of   Books,  6 De ce mb er 1979, pp. 8-9

' A n   Aesthete at War'. In the  New  York  Review  of   Books,  5 Mar ch 1 9 8 1 ,  pp. pp .  2 1 - 5 .

2

' V o n   Rezzori'. In  Vogue,  Ma y 1981, 19 81, pp. 277, 2 77, 328. 'Donald Evans'. In the  New  York  Review of  Books,  14 Ma y 1981, 1981 , pp..  1 4 - 1 6 . pp 'On the Black Hill'. In  Harpers &  Queen,  Oct ob er 1982, 1982, pp. 164,

1 6 6 ,  168.

3

' A   Visit to Wiesen thal '. In the the  Observer  magazine, 7 November 1982,  p p . 5 1 , 5 3 .

' On Y et i Tracks'. In  Esquire,  1983.   Reprinted in  What Am I  Doing  Here,  pp .  316—40.

1

  Later incl uded in  What Am I Doing  Here unde r the tide 'Ernst Jiingcr: An Aesthete at War ',

:

PP -   2 9 7 - 3 I 5 Excerpts from the novel.

199

 

Bibliography 'Explorations  o f  the  Heart'.  In  Vogue, January  1983, 1983, pp. 22 0- 1.

1

'Body  Bui ldi ng Beautiful Beautiful - Lisa Lisa Lyons and Ro be rt Mappl Map pl ethorpe'.   In the  Sunday  Times  magazine, 17 Apr il 1983,

pp. 30-4. 'I Alwa ys Wan te d to Go to Patagonia Patagonia - T he Mak in g  o f  a Writer'. In the  New  York  Times  Book  Review,  2 August Augu st 1983, pp. 6, 34 34-6. -6.

' A   Coup'. In  Granta  no.10:  'Travel  Writing',  Cambridge:  Granta Publications Ltd, Lt d, 1984, 1984, pp. 1 07 -2 6.

'Self-Love 46-60.

2

  Among the Ruins'. In  Vanity

  April 1984, pp.

  Fair,

' A   Place to Hang your Hat'. In  House  &  Garden,  June  1984, pp. 140-3. 'Great Rivers  o f the World: the Volga'. In the  Observer  magazine,

June  1984, pp. 16—26/ 'Les  Apocalypses'. In  Lettre  Internationale, winter  84/85,  pp. 3-5.

'Where a Wayfarer  Halts  her Journey:  A We lc om in g Ho me fo forr Sally,  Duchess of Westminster '.

In  Architectural Digest,  June

1985,  pp. pp .  202-9.

'In China, Rock's Kingdom'. In the  New  York  Times  magazine, 16 March 1986, section 6, part  II, pp. 34-47, 104 -5,

 

i o

9-

4

  An excerpt from  On the Black  Hill.

1

  Reprinted in  Wlmt Am I  Doing  Here  und er the tide 'A Co up - A Story', pp.  15-35.

2

Reprinted as 'The Volga'. In  Great Rivers Rivers of  th e  World,  London: Hoddcr & Stoughton, 19S4. Also included in  Wliat Am I  Doing  Here,  pp . [ 70- 91.   Reprinted in  Wlmt Am  1 Doing  Here  as 'Rock's World', pp. 206-15.

4

200

 

Bibliography ' A   Tower in Tuscany'. In  House  &  Garden,  January  1987, pp. 78-85.

'Dreamtime'.  In  Granta  no. 21: 'The  Story-Teller', 

Cambridge:

Granta  Publications Ltd, Spring 1987, pp. 39-79.

1

'The Lizard Man'. In the  New  York  Review of  Books,  13 Augu st

1987,  pp. 47-8.

2

'I 'In n  Natasha's  Trunk'.  In the  New  York  Review

September  1987, pp.  1 7 - 1 8 .

of  Books, 

24

3

'The Albatross'. In  Granta  no. 24,  1988, pp.  1 1 - 1 3 . 'Chiloe'.  In  Granta  no. 24,  1988, 1988, pp. 166-7 16 6-7 0.

'When the Revolution Came Home'. In  House  & Garden, January 1988, pp. 122-5.

4

'On Location. Gone to Ghana: the making  o f  Werner  Herzog's Cobra Verde'. In  Interview,  Marc h 1988 1988,, pp. 82 -5 .

3

'Excerpts from the Songlines'. In  Aperture  no.11,  Sprin Spring g 1988, pp. 58-9. 'The Seventh Day - a story  by Bruce Chatwin'. In  London  Review

of   Books,  2 June  1988, p. 13. 1

  An excerpt from  TIte Songlines.

'  An excerpt from  Tlie  Songlines. '  A Rev ie w of Michael Igna Ignatie tiefFs fFs novel  TIte Russian Album  (Ne w York: Viking/Elisabeth Sifton Books,  1 9 8 7 ).

'  Reprinted in  What Am  1 Doing  Here under the tide 'Konstantin Melnikov: Architect', pp. 105-13. "   Reprinted as 'Werner Herzog in Ghana' in  Wliat Am  1 Doing  Here,  pp .  1 3 6 - 4 9 .

201

 

Bibliography 'The Songlines  Quartet'.  In the  New  York  Review of  Books,  19

January  1989, pp. 50-1.

1

'Songs  o f a Friend for Life'. In  The  Times,  20 January  1989, p. 16.

2

'The Bey', 'Mrs  Mandelstam', 'Konstantin  Melnikov: Architect',

Granta   no. 26:  'Travel',  Cambridge:  Granta  Publications Ltd, Spring Sprin g 1989, 1989, pp. 1 0 7 - 2 5 / 'The Duke  o f M — — ;  My Modi; The Bey'. In the  Daily  Telegraph (wee ken d section), section), 6 Ma y 1989, 1989, pp. 1- 2.

4

' Y o u r  Father's Eyes Ar e Blu e Aga in '. In the  Observer,  7 Ma y 1989, p. 45/ 'Brief Interludes'.  In  Vogue.  August 1989, 1989, pp. 326 -7/ '

'On

George

Ortiz'.

In

the  New 

York  Review

of  Books, 

28

September  1989, p. 62/ 'The

Road

to

Ouidah'.

In  Granta  no. 44,  Spring 1993, pp.

223-34/

  Excerpt from  What Am I Doing  Here.

1

  Reprinted in  What Am I  Doing  Here  un de r th e tide 'Kev in Volans' , pp . 63 63-9 -9..

1

  Excerpts from  What Am I  Doing  Here.

1

  Excerpts from  What Am I  Doing  Here.

4

Excerpt from  What Am I  Doing  Here. ''  Conta ins

th e following exc erpts from from  What Am I  Doing  Here:  'At Dinner with D.

Vrecland'; 'The Duke of of M  M — — ' ;  ;  'My Modi'. '  Excerpt

from  What Am I  Doing  Here.

A slightly abridged version of the chapter 'The Road to Ouidah' in   Photographs and

Notebooks.

202

 

Bibliography SELECT ED

IIN NT ERVIEWS

'Br uce Ch at wi n: from Patagonia Patagonia to the slave slave  trade'  (with Mary Blume).  In the  International  Herald  Tribune,  1980, p. 7.

'In search o f the giant sloth and other stones' st ones' (with

Mauree Mau ree n

C l e a v e ) .   In the  Observer  magazine, 31 Oc Octo to be r 1982, 1982, pp. 3 2- 3. 'Bruce Chatwin' (with Melvyn Bragg). In  Tlie  South  Bank 

Show,

London Weekend Television, 7 November 1982.

' A n   int erview ervi ew wi th Bru ce Ch at wi n' (with Mic hael ha el Igna Ignatie tieff ff). ). In

Granta   no. 21: 'The  Story-teller',  Cambri dge: Grant Granta a publica tions Ltd, Spring 1987, pp. 23-37. 'Heard Between the Songlines' (with Michael Davie). In the

Observer,  21 June  1987, p. 18. 'Songs  of the Earth' (with Lu cy Hughes-Hallet Hughes-Ha llett). t). In the  London

Evening   Standard,  24 June  1987, p. 33. 'B or n Und er a Wand eri ng Star' Star' (with Co l i n Thu bro n) . In the

Daily   Telegraph  (weekend section), 27 June  1987, p. 1. 'Bruce Chatwin' (with Michele Field). In  Publishers'  Weekly,  7 August  1987, pp. 430-1.

FILMOGRAPHY

Adaptations O n   the  Black  (director & scriptwriter), scriptwriter), Black  Hill,  b y An d re w Gri ev e (director British Film Institut e/Film Four  International,  1987.

203

 

Bibliography direct ed & Cobra   Verde  (adapted  from  The  Viceroy  of  Ouidah),  directed scripte scr ipted d by Wer ne r Herzo g, Wer ne r He rz og Filmproduktion ,

1990. Sluizer & script scripted ed by Hu gh Whi te mor e, Utz,   directed by Georg e Sluizer

V i v a   Pictures Ltd, 1992.

Documentaries 'N ac h Patagonien Patagonien (Zu Bruc e Chatwins Rei se in ein femes femes Land)' , directed by Jan Jan Schiitte, No v o sk o p Film Jan Schutte, Schut te, Z D F ,

1991.

'Songlines:  sur le less traces traces de de Br uc e Ch a t wi n en Australie', Australie ', directed direc ted b y   Barbara Dickenberger, Arte, 1993.

P R O F I L E S   A N D  C R I T I C A L S T U D I E S  OF  B R U C E C H A T W I N

Peter  L e v i ,  The  Light

Garden  of the  Angel

King

— Journeys  in

197 2, 287 pp . Afghanistan,  London:  Collins,  1972, Nicholas Murray,  Bruce Chatwin,  Bri dge nd (Wales): Seren  Books,

1993,  140 pp. pp . Claudine  Verley  (ed.),  B.  Chatwin,  Poitiers: Poitier s: les Cahiers Cahi ers forell, no . 4, November 1994, 166 pp. Alessandro Grassi and Neri Torrigiani (eds),  Bruce

Chatwin:

Searching for   the M iraculous iraculous,,  Turin : Grup po G F T , 1995, n. p.

204

 

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The editors would like to  thank  the fo foll ll owi ng individuals and institutions for their hel p in the preparation preparatio n  o f  this book: Pascal Pasc al Cariss, Cariss, Susanna Susannah h Cl app, Davi d Re es , Ro be rt Ri sk , Franc Francis is Wyndham, Cambridge University Library, Jonathan Cape Ltd, la Bibliotheque

nationale,

The

Bodleian

Library,

The

British

C o u n c i l ,  The British Library, Conde Nast Publications Inc., The Library  o f  Congress. grateful ul to Elizabeth Ch at wi n and Gill Gi llon on Ai tk en W e   are especially gratef for reading and and comme co mme nt in g on the manuscript. manuscript.

205

 

U . S .  $22.95 Canada  $29.99

It is commonly supposed  that  Bruce Chatwin wa s  an ingenuous latecomer to the profession of letters, a misa ppreh ensi on given apparent cre dence by  that  now famous  passage  in his lyri cal,  autobiographical "I "I Always Wa nt e d to G o

to Patagonia," in which we are told   that  this indefatigable traveler's literary career began in mids trid e, almost on a wh im , wi th a telegram anno unci ng his depar ture for for the

farthest-flung farthest-flung

corner of the globe: "Have gone to Patagonia."

fact  that  from the «3uch  a vi ew overloo ks the fact late  1960s  onward Chatwin was already fash ion ing

the

tools

of his

future

trade

in

the

columns of a variety of magazines and journals. A n d  that  he con tin ued to do so thr oug h every twist

and  turn  of his career, from art expert

to archaeologist, to jou rna lis t and author,

right

u p  until  his death death in 1989. The se pre viou sly neglected or unpublished unpublished   pieces  short sto rie s, pieces —short travel sketches,  essays,  articles, and criticism gathered together here for the first time, cover every per iod and aspect of the wri ter 's

career, career,

and roots

reflect and

the

abiding

rootlessness,

possession  and

themes exile

of

and

his the

work: exotic,

renuncia tion.

0996  

B R U C E 

C H AT WI N

w a s  b o r n  in

194 0.

He

worked at Sotheby's and  then  for the  Sunday Times  (London).

His first

book,

In  Patagonia,

became an instant  cl assi c.  It was followed by a series of books notable for  their  originality and style,  including  The  Songlm&s  an d  What

Am  I

Doin Do ing g Here Here.. He wa s , as Peter Pet er Le vi said sai d in

the th e

Inde Indepe pend nden ent, t, "t "the he best be st trave tra vell  writer  of his genera tion, and one of its deepest writers of any kind."

JACKET

J A C K E T 

D E S I G N 

Y   F

P H O T O G R A P H 

S 

ROUNDT REE

Y  

S N O W D E N

A  di vis ion o off Peng uin

VIKING

USA

375 Hudson Street, New York, N.Y. 10014

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P R A I S E 

for 

B R U C E 

C H A T W I N

" N o  ordinary bo ok ever ever issues issues from from Bru ce

Ch at wi n.

Each  bear s the i mpr int of a dazzl ingl y origina l mind. " -NEWSDAY

"His  best pieces read like small, perfectly shaped  fic

tions peopled  w i t h  startling characters." -TH E  

N

  YORK   W

TIMES

"The quintessential traveling tale-teller of his day" -H A RP E R S  

BAZAAR

"A  writer  of rare craft and powers of evocation. . . .

H i s  terse, hon ed, ironi c language was bu ilt to last." -CHICAGO

SUN-TIMES