The Bach of fiction

Sunday, March 7th., Victoria Grove, London.

To my mind Turgenev is the master. Having conceived his story his method is to strip away every picturesque inessential, austerely turn aside from artfulness, and present it in the simplest, most straightforward form. That is why he can tell in 60,000 words a history which George Eliot or Thomas Hardy would only have hinted at in 200,000. He is the Bach of fiction, whose severity and simplicity are mistaken for lack of imagination and baldness. I used to think that Bach was a lofty creature without a heart, but I have been told by people who know that he is in fact as emotional as any composer who ever lived. I am now beginning to see as much for myself.

I have not touched my novel this week. The demands of Woman and my new bicycle have been too imperious to be ignored, but I am also digesting the Turgenev method and will endeavour to imitate it when I restart my writing. I may not succeed but the intention will be there. I feel now that I could do a remarkably good short story (5 or 6,000 words) so much has my ability improved as I have been writing the novel. When "In the Shadow" is in the shadow I will have a go at one and will contrive to make it ten times as good as "A Letter Home" which was a sentimental early effort. I am getting pretty weary of "In the Shadow" and am positively anxious to start something new.

The sun was shining from a clear sky today, and there was genuine warmth to be felt though the air temperature remained cold. That always seems strange to me. But I feel a little unsettled and dissatisfied which is, I think, to do with these signs of Spring springing. I have a feeling that this may be a significant year for me.

Uplifted

Tuesday, December 4th., Cadogan Square, London.

Bad night. Somehow or other I have strained my back and it seems to be having some sort of sympathetic effect in my legs when I lie down. Must have pinched a nerve or something. So when I returned to bed at about three this morning I could not get comfortable enough to get back to sleep. Tossed and turned for an hour or so and then gave it up, and got up, and stayed up. Sat in my study (standing up periodically to stretch) browsing. I read my story "The Matador of the Five Towns". It is good, but not as good as "Simon Fugue" which is, I think, the best I have written. "Matador" hasn't quite got the balance or cohesiveness, though it is full of good things; perhaps I put too much in it? Interesting that I used the epithet 'matador' because I have been reading some of Hemingway's stories recently, and Jos Myatt is just the sort of taciturn, declining, complex sort of character that Hemingway might have put in a bull ring.

To liven myself up after my nap I walked by roundabout ways to the Garrick Club. En route I met and was stopped by four people, including one who didn't know me but thought he would like to be sure that I was I, and an old lady whom I had met once at Monte Carlo about seven years ago, just for a few minutes. Met Geoffrey Russell at the Club and he suggested I should go with him to Bach's B Minor Mass at St. Margaret's. I did. I ate oysters with him at the Reform hastily first. Church full. The whole thing marvellous. 

It seems that the Mass was not performed for many years after it was written and delivered, and Bach delivered it mainly as proof to his sovereign that he was fitted for post of capellmeister! Good performance. The effect was terrific; also uplifting, despite dowdiness of every woman in the congregation