A Writer's Diary (8 page)

Wednesday, September 6th

My proofs
^*
come every other day and I could depress myself adequately if I went into that. The thing now reads thin and pointless; the words scarcely dint the paper; and I expect to be told I've written a graceful fantasy, without much bearing upon real life. Can one tell? Anyhow, nature obligingly supplies me with the illusion that I am about to write something good; something rich and deep and fluent, and hard as nails, while bright as diamonds.

I finished
Ulysses
and think it a mis-fire. Genius it has, I think; but of the inferior water. The book is diffuse. It is brackish. It is pretentious. It is underbred, not only in the obvious sense, but in the literary sense. A first rate writer, I mean, respects writing too much to be tricky; startling; doing stunts. I'm reminded all the time of some callow board school boy, full of wits and powers, but so self-conscious and egotistical that he loses his head, becomes extravagant, mannered, uproarious, ill at ease, makes kindly people feel sorry for him and stern ones merely annoyed; and one hopes he'll grow out of it; but as Joyce is 40 this scarcely seems likely. I have not read it carefully; and only once; and it is very obscure; so no doubt I have scamped the virtue of it more than is fair. I feel that myriads of tiny bullets pepper one and spatter one; but one does not get one deadly wound straight in the face—as from Tolstoy, for instance; but it is entirely absurd to compare him with Tolstoy.

Thursday, September 7th

Having written this, L. put into my hands a very intelligent review of
Ulysses,
in the American
Nation;
which, for the first time, analyses the meaning; and certainly makes it very much more impressive than I judged. Still I think there is virtue and some lasting truth in first impressions; so I don't cancel mine. I must read some of the chapters again. Probably the final beauty of writing is never felt by contemporaries; but they ought, I think, to be bowled over; and this I was not. Then again, I had my back up on purpose; then again I was over stimulated by Tom's praises.

Thursday, September 26th

Wittering. Morgan came on Friday; Tom on Saturday. My talk with Tom deserves writing down, but won't get it for the light is fading; and we cannot write talk down either, as was agreed at Charleston the other day. There was a good deal of talk about
Ulysses.
Tom said, "He is a purely literary writer. He is founded upon Walter Pater with a dash of Newman." I said he was virile—a he-goat; but didn't expect Tom to agree. Tom did though; and said he left out many things that were important. The book would be a landmark, because it destroyed the whole of the nineteenth century. It left Joyce himself with nothing to write another book on. It showed up the futility of all the English styles. He thought some of the writing beautiful. But there was no "great conception"; that was not Joyce's intention. He thought that Joyce did completely what he meant to do. But he did not think that he gave a new insight into human nature—said nothing new like Tolstoy. Bloom told one nothing. Indeed, he said, this new method of giving the psychology proves to my mind that it doesn't work. It doesn't tell as much as some casual glance from outside often tells. I said I had found
Pendennis
more illuminating in this way. (The horses are now cropping near my window; the little owl calling, and so I write nonsense.) So we go on to'S. Sitwell, who merely explores his sensibility—one of the deadly crimes as Tom thinks: to Dostoievsky—the ruin of English literature, we agreed; Singe a fake; present state disastrous, because the form don't fit; to his mind not even promising well; he said that one must now be a very first rate poet to be a poet at all: When there were great poets, the little ones caught some of the glow, and were not worthless. Now there's no great poet. When was the last? I asked, and he said none that interested him since the time of Johnson. Browning he said was lazy: they are all lazy he said. And Macaulay spoilt English prose. We agreed that people are now afraid of the English language. He said it came of being bookish, but not reading books enough. One should read all styles thoroughly. He thought D. H. Lawrence came off occasionally, especially in
Aaron's Rod,
the last book; had great moments; but was a most incompetent writer. He could cling tight to his conviction though. (Light now fails—7:10 after a bad rainy day.)

Wednesday, October 4th

I am a little uppish, though, and self assertive, because Brace wrote to me yesterday, "We think
Jacob's Room
an extraordinarily distinguished and beautiful work. You have, of course, your own method, and it is not easy to foretell how many readers it will have; surely it will have enthusiastic ones, and we delight in publishing it," or words to that effect. As this is my first testimony from an impartial person I am pleased. For one thing it must make
some
impression, as a whole; and cannot be wholly frigid fireworks. We think of publishing on October 27th. I daresay Duckworth is a little cross with me. I snuff my freedom. It is I think true, soberly and not artificially for the public, that I shall go on unconcernedly whatever people say. At last, I like reading my own writing. It seems to me to fit me closer than it did before. I have done my task here better than I expected.
Mrs. Dalloway
and the Chaucer chapter are finished: I have read 5 books of the Odyssey;
Ulysses;
and now begin Proust. I also read Chaucer and the Pastons. So evidently my plan of the two books running side by side is practicable and certainly I enjoy my reading with a purpose. I am committed to only one
Supt.
article—on essays—and that at my own time; so I am free. I shall read Greek now steadily and begin
The Prime Minister
on Friday morning. I shall read the Trilogy and some Sophocles and Euripides and a Plato dialogue: also the lives of Bentley and Jebb. At forty I am beginning to learn the mechanism of my own brain—how to get the greatest amount of pleasure and work out of it. The secret is I think always so to contrive that work is pleasant.

Saturday
,
October 14th

I have had two letters, from Lytton and Carrington, about
Jacob's Room,
and written I don't know how many envelopes; and here we are on the verge of publication. I must sit for my portrait to
John o' London's
on Monday. Richmond writes to ask that date of publication may be put ahead, so that they may notice it on Thursday. My sensations? they remain calm. Yet how could Lytton have praised me more highly? prophesies immortality for it as poetry; is afraid of my romance; but the beauty of the writing, etc. Lytton praises me too highly for it to give me exquisite pleasure; or perhaps that nerve grows dulled. I want to be through the splash and swimming in calm water again. I want to be writing unobserved.
Mrs. Dalloway
has branched into a book; and I adumbrate here a study of insanity and suicide; the world seen by the sane and the insane side by side—something like that. Septimus Smith? is that a good name? and to be more close to the fact than
Jacob:
but I think
Jacob
was a necessary step, for me, in working free. And now I must use this benignant page for making out a scheme of work.

I must get on with my reading for the Greek chapter. I shall finish
The Prime Minister
in another week—say 21st. Then I must be ready to start my Essay article for
The Times:
say on the 23rd. That will take say till 2nd November. Therefore I must now concentrate on Essays: with some Aeschylus, and I think begin Zimmern, making rather a hasty end of Bentley, who is not really much to my purpose. I think that clears the matter up—though
how
to read Aeschylus I don't quite know: quickly, is my desire, but that, I see, is an illusion.

As for my views about the success of
Jacob,
what are they? I think we shall sell 500; it will then go slowly and reach 800 by June. It will be highly praised in some places for "beauty"; will be crabbed by people who want human character. The only review I am anxious about is the one in the
Supt:
not that it will be the most intelligent, but it will be the most read and I can't bear people to see me clowned in public. The
W.G.
^*
will be hostile; so, very likely, the
Nation.
But I am perfectly serious in saying that nothing budges me from my determination to go on, or alters my pleasure; so whatever happens, though the surface may be agitated, the centre is secure.

Tuesday, October 17th

As this is to be a chart of my progress I enter hastily here: one, a letter from Desmond who is halfway through, says "You have never written so well ... I marvel and am puzzled"—or words to that effect: two, Bunny
^*
rings up enthusiastic; says it is superb, far my best, has great vitality and importance: also he takes 36 copies, and says people already "clamour." This is not confirmed by the bookshops, visited by Ralph. I have sold under 50 today; but the libraries remain and Simpkin Marshall.

Sunday, October 29th

Miss Mary Butts being gone, and my head too stupid for reading, I may as well write here, for my amusement later perhaps. I mean I'm too riddled with talk and harassed with the usual worry of people who like and people who don't like
J.R.
to concentrate. There was
The Times
review on Thursday—long, a little tepid, I think—saying that one can't make characters in this way; flattering enough. Of course, I had a letter from Morgan in the opposite sense—the letter I've liked best of all. We have sold 650, I think; and have ordered a second edition. My sensations? as usual—mixed. I shall never write a book that is an entire success. This time the reviews are against me and the private people enthusiastic. Either I am a great writer or a nincompoop. "An elderly sensualist," the
Daily News
calls me.
Pall Mall
passes me over as negligible. I expect to be neglected and sneered at. And what will be the fate of our second thousand then? So far of course the success is much more than we expected. I think I am better pleased so far than I have ever been. Morgan, Lytton, Bunny, Violet, Logan,
^†
Philip,
^‡
have all written enthusiastically. But I want to be quit of all this. It hangs about me like Mary Butts' scent. I don't want to be totting up compliments, and comparing reviews. I want to think out
Mrs. Dalloway.
I want to foresee this book better than the others and get the utmost out of it. I expect I could have screwed
Jacob
up tighter, if I had foreseen; but I had to make my path as I went.

Monday, June 4th

I'm over peevish in private, partly in order to assert myself. I am a great deal interested suddenly in my book. I want to bring in the despicableness of people like Ott.
^*
I want to give the slipperiness of the soul. I have been too tolerant often. The truth is people scarcely care for each other. They have this insane instinct for life. But they never become attached to anything outside themselves. Puff
^†
said he loved his family and had nothing whatever to knock over. He disliked cold indecency. So did Lord David. This must be a phrase in their set. Puff said—I don't quite know what. I walked round the vegetable garden with him, passing Lytton flirting on a green seat; and round the field with Sackville West, who said he was better, and was writing a better novel, and round the lake with Menasseh (?) an Egyptian Jew, who said he liked his family and they were mad and talked like books; and he said that they quoted my writings (the Oxford youth) and wanted me to go and speak; and then there was Mrs. Asquith. I was impressed. She is stone white; with the brown veiled eyes of an aged falcon; and in them more depth and scrutiny than I expected; a character, with her friendliness and ease and decision. Oh if we could have had Shelley's poems; and not Shelley the man! she said. Shelley was quite intolerable, she pronounced; she is a rigid frigid puritan; and in spite of spending thousands on dress. She rides life, if you like; and has picked up a thing or two, which I should like to plunder and never shall. She led Lytton off and plucked his arm, and hurried—and thought "people" pursued her; yet was very affable with "people" when she had to be, and sat on the window sill talking to a black shabby embroideress, to whom Ott. is being kind. That's one of her horrors—she's always being kind in order to say to herself at night, then Ottoline invites the poor little embroideress to her party and so to round off her own picture of herself. To sneer like this has a physical discomfort in it. She told me I looked wonderfully well, which I disliked. Why? I wonder. Because I had had a headache perhaps, partly. But to be well and use strength to get more out of life is, surely, the greatest fun in the world. What I dislike is feeling that I'm always taking care, or being taken care of. Never mind—work, work. Lytton says we have still 20 years before us. Mrs. Asquith said she loved Scott.

Wednesday, June 13th

There was Lady Colefax in her hat with the green ribbons. Did I say that I lunched with her last week? That was Derby Day and it rained, and all the light was brown and cold and she went on talking, talking, in consecutive sentences like the shavings that come from planes, artificial, but unbroken. It was not a successful party, Clive and Lytton and me. For Clive's back; and he dined here with Leo Myers the other night; and then I went to Golders Green and sat with Mary Sheepshanks in her garden and beat up the waters of talk, as I do so courageously, so that life mayn't be wasted. The fresh breeze went brushing all the thick hedges which divide the gardens. Somehow, extraordinary emotions possessed me. I forget now what. Often now I have to control my excitement—as if I were pushing through a screen; or as if something beat fiercely close to me. What this portends I don't know. It is a general sense of the poetry of existence that overcomes me. Often it is connected with the sea and St. Ives. Going to 46 continues to excite. The sight of two coffins in the Underground luggage office I daresay constricts all my feelings. I have the sense of the flight of time; and this shores up my emotions.