Censorship

Thursday, March 8th., Cadogan Square, London.

John Buchan came for tea yesterday. He was invited for 4.30 and arrived at 4.27. I expect he had been 'hanging about' nearby to be sure of his time; I would have been. He had a committee meeting nearby for 5.30, and at 5.15 he simply got up and left. He is a thoroughly organised man who I have known for decades and I admire him greatly.

We spoke about censorship, amongst other things. Am I in favour of censorship? Of course I am, and so is he. No country can exist without some form of censorship. I was asked the other day whether I would permit in Britain the unrestricted circulation of one of the most wonderful and original of modern novels, James Joyce's "Ulysses". My plain reply was that I would not. It simply would not do. A censorship there must be. But I maintain that any form of censorship does some harm; it must do. The question is whether it does more harm than good. I think that our present censorship does do more harm than good and ought, if anything, to be weakened, not strengthened. But not eliminated altogether.

In fact I am not in favour of any alteration to the law at the present time because it might, despite excellent motives, be too easily altered for the worse. We have to keep in mind that laws are enacted by politicians and often miss their targets. Best to leave the law alone and entrust liberty to its sane administration and to the tendency for all excessively drastic laws to fall into desuetude through their own inherent absurdity. As a fact the present law on censorship fell into partial desuetude from the moment it came into operation for the reason that to apply it strictly would have meant its instant death from ridicule.

I felt fatigued somehow after Buchan left. Not by him as he is most brisk and has a tonic effect generally. So I rested for a while and, feeling better, took up the play again and reeled it off with strange ease.

Found out

Friday, January 15th., Hotel Matignon, Paris.

The weather here is a great nuisance, as it is apparently in England. It has been very cold, and last week it snowed heavily. And we were only just emerging from flu! Today though is beautiful, but it won't 'stay put' I feel sure.

Still, we go to the theatre every night, and lunch and dine with friends, or they with us. I have seen five things including the big revue at the Casino de Paris, and I haven't yet seen one piece at which I was not most markedy bored. But the acting is marvellously better than London acting; it is superb. I have had the august visits of Andre Gide, James Joyce, and Valery Larbaud almost all at once. Joyce is nearly blind, and totally self-centred; a very strong personality indeed. I should hardly like to be his wife. He looks quite boyish, but has two adult children, one married; and still a strong Irish accent.

I am thinking of writing a story. I must do something to keep the wolf out of the hotel! The hotel is very good - and cheap. We like it better than ever before. I saw the outskirts of Joffre's funeral procession last Wednesday, and could write a diverting article thereon, but I am too idle. And now the hotel has found out at last who I am. I mean the management of the hotel has found out. Which is a pity because I have always come here disguised as E.A.B. But when celebrated persons arrive and ask for A. B. the cat is sooner or later bound to leap out of the bag. It has done.

Jo Davidson is nearly finished working on my bust, and he is going on to 'do' Gide. I shall thank god when it is finished.

Getting ready

Saturday, March 26th., Cadogan Square, London.

I don't think I will continue with "The Accident" until after my Greek cruise. I haven't got the ideas very clear yet for Part II, and there is no hurry. And I have heaps of other work to do. I might do two short stories beside all my articles by Good Friday. And I could return to the novel with a fresh mind on my return. I think it might make a radical difference to the end of the novel. I have speculated before that the context (psychological) in which one writes makes a difference to the 'tone' of the writing. This is now decided. 

I have been sleeping better lately. The other night I had 6 hours unbroken. Felt quite groggy when I woke up, but definitely beneficial. Last night was only fair, vitiated by over-smoking. However at the end I received from God, or somewhere, just over two and a half hours of unbroken sleep, and at 5.45 accordingly felt restored to health. So much so that before dressing I wrote a little opinion, at the request of the Sunday Express, about the pirating of Joyce's "Ulysses" by one Samuel Roth. Into this I contrived to insinuate the opinion that Joyce is a very important figure in the evolution of the novel.

Tomorrow I start for Greece, hoping for some warmth, some wine, and a complete change of scene.

Before the prize-fight

Tuesday, September 17th., Cadogan Square, London.

A lawyer friend of mine, back from a visit to New York, told me that he had recently been one of a crowd of 47,000 at a prize-fight in Madison Square Garden, where there was ordained an interval for prayer for the repose of the soul of Tex Rickard, the prize-fight organizer, whom everybody present knew to be a great and violent sinner. Jack Dempsey, and professional toast-master at a terrific salary, stood alone in the ring under a blinding glare of spot-lights, while the whole vast auditorium was darkened. Everybody had to stand with bare and bowed head. The professional toast-master prayed. A silence. Then the fighting proceeded.

I have been reflecting on how easy it is to make oneself a hostage to fortune; I am experiencing the embarrassing consequences of careless utterances myself. Earlier in my life I entered into a personal relationship, of a formal nature,  which soured and came to an unhappy conclusion. Obviously I determined never to repeat the mistake, and lost no opportunity to warn others of the danger to their well-being should they tread the same path. Now I find that, for practical reasons that cannot be denied, I must myself formalise another similar relationship. I am confident that this time there will be no souring and no consequent unhappiness, but I feel hypocritical and am contriving ways to keep the whole business secret so as to save my blushes.

I regard James Joyce as a rebel, though one who has done great stuff. In various writings I have referred to his 'unfinished work', and to the fragment of it entitled "Anna Livia Plurabelle". This fragment has been published by Crosby Gaige of New York, in a beautifully printed and produced volume as thin as a biscuit. Edition of 800 signed copies. A collector's morsel. A genuine curiosity. I am charmed to have it. But I cannot comprehend a page of it. For it is written in James Joyce's new language, invented by himself. here are a few words from one page: limpopo, sar, icis, seints, zezere, hamble, blackburry, dwyergray, meanam, meyne, draves, pharphar, uyar. It ought to be published with a Joyce-English dictionary. 

Someone (I read somewhere) said to Joyce: "I don't understand it." Joyce replied: "But you will." Joyce is an optimist. Human language cannot be successfully handled with such violence as he has here used to English. And "Anna Livia Plurabelle" will never be anything but the wild caprice of a wonderful creative artist who has lost his way.

The ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’ chapter of Finnegans Wake (pp. 196-216) is one of the best known and most popular in the book, and was almost certainly Joyce’s favourite. He paid a great deal of attention to the drafting and revising of this chapter, and it was published in its own right more often than any other complete chapter. ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’ opens with the large ‘O’ and following words arranged in a triangular shape, repeating the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet, ‘delta’ (Δ), which was also the shorthand siglum that Joyce used to indicate Anna Livia in his notes. This ‘O’ is the opening of the gossip of the two washerwomen, one on either side of the river, washing dirty linen as they gossip and exchange rumours about Anna Livia and HCE. Joyce sent a draft of this chapter to Harriet Weaver at the beginning of March 1924, and early in 1928 it was being revised again, this time in preparation for its first publication in book form by Crosby Gaige in New York on 20 October 1928. The following year, Joyce made a recording of the three last pages of this chapter for CK Ogden, the only recording of him reading from Finnegans Wake. The book Anna Livia Plurabelle was finally published in London by Faber & Faber in June 1930. Writing to Harriet Weaver in 1927 Joyce said that either ‘Anna Livia Plurabelle’ was something, or he was no judge of language. But it was Joyce’s language that critics often found bewildering. 

http://archive.org/details/JamesJoyceReadsannaLiviaPlurabelleFromFinnegansWake1929

Additionally for September 17th., see 'Sandals!' - http://earnoldbennett.blogspot.co.uk/2012/09/sandals.html

Tonight I will dream that I wore sandals and was ashamed.

Since seeing the house at Witley I have been quite depressed in anticipation of the time which must elapse before I can leave London permanently for the country. It is as though the next year or two in London will be unbearable.