Some silly things

Monday, December 31st., Hotel Belvedere, Mont Pelerin sur Vevey, Switzerland.

Dinner. Games. God save the Queen, and varied songs at the hotel. God save the Queen (or King) in various languages. Servants watching eagerly at nothing from behind a curtained window. I say 'at nothing', but the sight of a crowd of middle-class English people determined to enjoy themselves, and fuelled by over-indulgence in alcohol, may indeed be worth watching. I would rather have been watching than participating, but there you are; life is only occasionally what you make it.

I have never worked so hard as this year, and I have not earned less for several years. But I have done fewer sillier things than usual. It is a constant quandary for me, whether to focus on 'serious' writing which is professionally and intellectually rewarding, but unremunerative, or to write to make money. I have tried to do both. I will probably continue to do so because I do enjoy the rewards of financial success. Such as winter in this hotel. 

I wrote "Buried Alive", three quarters of "The Old Wives' Tale", "What the Public Wants", "The Human Machine", "Literary Taste: How to form it", about half a dozen short stories, including "A Matador in the Five Towns"; over sixty newspaper articles. Total words 423,500.

Looking back through my journals I see that it has become a habit to record the number of words written each year. I think this has been a record, but I have not been consistent in what I include, journal for example. Still my output is considerable by any standards. To think that if my working life extends to say forty years, at an average of 300,000 a year then I will have written 12 million words! That is a figure to conjure with indeed.

The turn of the year is a time to take stock and, for many, a time for new resolutions. I am not inclined to the latter, having seen so few actually carried through. I wrote in one of my self-help books this year that "the chief beauty about time is that you cannot waste it in advance. The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you, as perfect, as unspoiled, as if you had never wasted or misapplied a single moment in all your life. You can turn over a new leaf every hour if you choose." I still think that is good advice. I resolve to follow it!

At war

Wednesday, December 30th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

I always feel that December 30th. is a sort of 'nothing' day. Christmas is more or less a memory, and the new year is yet to be. I want to get on with taking stock of the year just gone, and crystallising some ideas about the one I am beginning. Usually it is a time when my thoughts turn to holidays, but of course that is not the case this time; Christmas at war, and where shall we be this time next year?

Great storm on Monday night. We lost five trees. A large elm blew across the road, broke telegraph wires, and broke through the vicarage fence, and blocked the road all night. While I was out at 10.30 p.m. inspecting I heard another tree crashing and fled. An old oak fell into the pond. General devastation. Started to feel sorry for myself and neighbours, and then recollected the troops in their trenches only 100 miles or so away. That sobered me up and made me see things in perspective! How easy it is to forget temporarily the great tragedy that is unfolding in France. I can't help feeling that however long this lasts, and whatever the outcome, the world will be very different. Am I glad that I am too old to be of use militarily? Undoubtedly yes, and yet .....
 

Gloomy

Wednesday, December 29th., Comarques, Thorpe-le-Soken.

I was much fatigued after Christmas having slept poorly throughout. And on Christmas day I gave my annual dinner at Claridge's - vast crowd; two lounges added to the restaurant; many family parties; extremely noisy with many crackers and much throwing of paper missiles. But still I managed to do some work on my novel in the afternoon of Boxing Day.

Yesterday we were in London and after dinner I went out to be polite to the members of the "Milestones" company. Eadie was very gloomy. He is of course fully aware that I was against his appointment to be producer of this revival and so we are never more than polite to each other. Stella Jessie, Ada Barton and two others were the gayest. Stella asked me whether I could tell her what old gentlemen with long beards did with their beards when they took a bath. Hardly great wit but I said that a long beard may cover a multitude of sins in the bath. She laughed. It was that sort of occasion.

The front-of-house-manager displayed the usual illogical optimism in face of a poor house. The night was awful and the audience thin and 'chilly' according to Eadie - hence his gloom. Perhaps that accounted for the atmosphere in the dressing-rooms. I think that Harben was the only realist in the assembly.


Today I lunched alone, dined at home, and wrote 2,100 words of my novel. Not bad words I think, but they did not come easily. 

I shall be glad when the 'holiday' period is over.

In translation

Friday, December 28th., Chiltern Court, London.

The weather continues grey and cold and damp but I find myself to be surprisingly cheerful. My digestion is better than it has been for some time and my neuralgia is much less troublesome. Now that we are settled here I feel more content though financially the place is a considerable burden. I have spent more than I ever expected to adapt the place to suit Dorothy, and I still think she does not like it, though she has ceased to make a fuss. I look back nostalgically to those halcyon days at Cadogan Square, after parting from Marguerite, when I had only myself to please.

Is it possible to effectively translate a work of fiction from one language to another? My instinctive response is negative. This question comes to mind because of a visit for tea today by S. K. and her husband. S. has lived in this country for 40 years, coming originally from Argentina, and I have known her for two decades. She is a person of lively, indeed sparkling, and challenging intelligence and, alongside her main employment, has worked as an interpreter (Spanish/English). More recently she has been developing an academic interest in translation and we have been exchanging views. It has seemed to me that the language in which something is conceived and written is so fundamental, indeed integral, to its effectiveness as a work of art that any translation, however good, must necessarily be a diminution. However, S. has gone some way to persuading me that I may be wrong. Thinking about it now it seems to me that a translation may be entirely successful if the translator is able to straddle not only the two languages, but also the two cultures (which may be chronologically separated as well as geographically). Is this possible? Well, S. thinks so and indeed has herself engaged in translation of an Argentinian author with apparent success. She knows a lot more about this than I do and I am prepared to be persuaded, though not without a fight.

Of course I have read and reviewed many books in translation myself and it occurs to me now that when I have found them to be good, or occasionally excellent, I have really had no idea how far, if at all, they capture the spririt of the original. I don't know why I haven't thought of this before, and I may work up an article on the subject. A good case in point is Feuchtwanger's "Jew Suss". I am largely credited with popularising that book in this country and I feel just a little embarrassed now to acknowledge that I never even thought of asking a native German speaker to give me an opinion on the authenticity of the translation I used. Of course, in a sense, the translation may become a work of art in its own right; it could even be an 'improvement' on the original. There is more to think about here than I had previously realised.

Getting together

Tuesday, December 27th., Cadogan Square, London.

Bad night. Enfeebled. Forty minutes talk with Dorothy about the fortunes of "Mr. Prohack". Then I walked in snowy Battersea Park, which cleared my head. Family gathering with a sort of running buffet this afternoon. Fortunately I managed a short sleep, or rather a doze, in my chair before evryone arrived so was able to enjoy it. Plenty of light-hearted banter interspersed with personal observations and some sentimental recollections. Noisy and tiring but good. Essential for family cohesion to have a get-together now and then, and what better time than Christmas.

Later I sat down to draft a letter to authors urging them to subscribe to the National Book Council. It is suggested that this appeal should be signed by Hardy, Shaw, Wells, me and two or three others. I shall send it tomorrow to Willie Maxwell for his consideration.

 

Hare and bilberries

Saturday, December 26th., Waterloo Road, Burslem.

Yesterday, Christmas Day, I was reading "Falk" in Conrad's "Typhoon", and then several stories by Wells. Also Merimee's famous "Mateo Falcone", which is nothing special except in the extraordinary cruelty of the plot. Conrad though is by himself as a creator of characters; I feel that they almost come alive off the page as I read. This book of short stories is a triumph.

I went to bed at 1.30 and was kept awake until 4.30 by a barking dog. Then at 7.15 my mother knocked on the wall. She was in the middle of a bilious crisis caused by overnight hare and bilberries. She stays in bed. hence the whole atmosphere of the house becomes special, and 'sick roomy', and I can't proceed with my novel today as I had meant. In any case I feel so tired that I could not have done justice to it. 

Various people came in during the day to extend Christmas wishes, gossip a little, eat and drink. All pleasant enough. I was asked by a boy of ten or so, son of one of the visitors, to play a game of chess. He only has a moderate grasp of the rules, but seemed genuinely interested in the game. If I had a spare chess set by me I would have given it to him. Good to encourage some cerebral activity in the young. I enjoyed the game.

Misunderstood

Saturday, December 25th., Cadogan Square, London.

This Xmas all right, though I did not have a good night before it. It was all organised by Dorothy, and she made it very successful. It was her first Christmas in charge of a household. I have no doubt that, if asked, she would say that it was success in spite of, rather than because of, me. I have acquired a reputation as a 'bah... humbug' sort of person, which I think is undeserved. It makes sense to me that there should be a festival mid-winter, to mark the turn of the seasons, but it is all the frenzied preparations and materiality which give me offence. I blame Dickens!

Another area in which I am misunderstood is in my tendency to question things. I don't like to take things for granted but when I pose a simple question it is often interpreted as my being negative. For example whilst we were out walking yesterday we saw an old lady standing by herself and seeming to be in need of help. I was on my way to offer assistance but a young man beat me to it. The lady thanked him but said she was quite all right, just taking a rest. It was suggested to me that this was an example of how kind people could be. I agreed but pointed out that even to offer help is not a selfless act, because the person offering gets a psychological reward; they feel themselves to be a good person. In my view there is no such thing as 'pure' altruism. I did not intend to minimise the action but was nevertheless condemned as a grumpy old detractor. Well, at least that is correct in part!

I have opened my presents. Some are consumable, which is good. Some are books, which is better. Some are puzzles, which suggests to me that there is a suspicion abroad that I am in need of mental stimulation to counteract the effects of ageing.