From Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon, pp. 120-121:
"Just before the doodle bugs began to rain down on London, Connolly became friends with a writer whom even [Connolly's father] the major could admire -- Ernest Hemingway. Of all the writers Connolly knew, Hemingway might seem the least likely to find anything of value in Connolly's work or his life. When they first met in the late Twenties at Sylvia Beach's bookshop in Paris, they did not get on at all. But when Hemingway arrived in London in May 1944 as a war correspondent, Connolly quickly sought him out and volunteered to introduce him to literary friends at a party in Bedford Square. The party was a success, and the two men found themselves enjoying each other's company. It was an exciting time, just before the D-Day invasion, and perhaps the excitement of the moment made it easier for them to strike up a friendship; they drank together, and talked long into the night. Connolly invited Hemingway to write a 'Cuban Letter' for Horizon's 'Where Shall John Go?' but nothing came of the idea, even though Hemingway vaguely said that he would try. On another occasion Connolly took him to visit Emerald Cunard at the Dorchester. The burly, bearded Hemingway and the heavy-set, round-faced Connolly must have been a sight to behold as they entered the rarefied atmosphere of Lady Cunard's suite. According to one account, Hemingway did not try to ingratiate himself. When Lady Cunard asked him what he thought of Russia, he replied gruffly, 'There is the pro as well as the con about Russia. As with all these fucking countries.'
"Oddly enough, he became a great admirer of The Unquiet Grave. He read it when it first came out, and found its comments on angst fascinating. He also seems to have appreciated the difference between his personality and Connolly's. All the time that he was in London in May and June, he could not wait to jump into the thick of battle; yet he found Connolly's intellectual and emotional distance from the war intriguing and even admirable. In the late Forties he wrote what can only be called a fan letter, full of praise for The Unquiet Grave. It is touching in its way, and Connolly treasured it, coming as it did from a 'man of action.':
I always get involved in wars but I admired the way that you did not. It would be wrong for me not to fight but it was many times righter for you to do exactly as you did. I am no good at saying this sort of thing but I wanted you to know how strongly I felt it and to tell you how much the Palinurus book meant to me."
Posted by Alan Allport at May 6, 2004 04:59 AM(Hmmm. Whaddya think, "semi-carnally"? Sorry, maybe just a product of my San Francisco brain, but I can't resist asking...)
This is one of several items in Friends of Promise that talk about Connolly's basically refusing to be The Writer Engagé or A Man of Action or whatever, which sounds like it anyway would have been as sad and stupid as drafting Winnie-the-Pooh into the army. There's this other bit where Connolly appeared to approve -- or at least was accused of approving of -- Isherwood and Auden sitting out the war in the U.S. Which BTW -- since these things now have to be said for clarification -- didn't reduce Connolly's loyalty to Britain one bit.
Interesting also to see that Orwell offered Connolly several of his pieces from the essay collection Inside the Whale, which was published in March 1940. Connolly took him up on "Boys' Weeklies," but it seems like the "Inside the Whale" essay itself was just about the best case for Connolly's own response to the war.
Connolly struck one kind of good balance in a time when everyone was being told to do their part, prove their loyalty, show they had taken the right side, etc.: Horizon printed intensely political work but it didn't feel a duty to produce all politics, all the time.
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 6, 2004 12:33 PMHorizon printed intensely political work but it didn't feel a duty to produce all politics, all the time.
Sounds like a good model for us.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 6, 2004 02:04 PMI don't have time to double check this right now, but didn't Orwell meet Miller in Paris and have a similar discussion? IIRC Orwell was on his way to Spain.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at May 6, 2004 07:53 PMIt's in the "Inside the Whale" extracts that I linked to above. This is the crucial bit:
"...Good novels are not written by orthodoxy-sniffers, nor by people who are conscience-stricken about their own unorthodoxy. Good novels are written by people who are not frightened. This brings me back to Henry Miller...
...I first met Miller at the end of 1936, when I was passing through Paris on my way to Spain. What most intrigued me about him was to find that he felt no interest in the Spanish war whatever. He merely told me in forcible terms that to go to Spain at that moment was the act of an idiot. He could understand anyone going there from purely selfish motives, out of curiosity, for instance, but to mix oneself up in such things from a sense of obligation was sheer stupidity. In any case my ideas about combating Fascism, defending democracy, etc., etc., were all boloney. Our civilisation was destined to be swept away and replaced by something so different that we should scarcely regard it as human -- a prospect that did not bother him, he said. And some such outlook is
implicit throughout his work......."
Robbie wrote a nice bit of historical fiction about it in 2000.
BTW it's a pity Mr. Connolly never announced, "Your job is politics; my job is running a salon."
Ah, never mind...
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 6, 2004 08:33 PMRight. Thanks.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at May 6, 2004 10:42 PMI haven't read "the Palinurus book." Can anyone here tell us about it?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 7, 2004 09:20 AMI haven't read "the Palinurus book." Can anyone here tell us about it?
Since it's available in a cheap paperback reprint, I was going to suggest it as the next Reading Group book. (BTW Alan, my copy of Hollinger showed up this morning. I'll take a look at the first couple of chapters over the weekend).
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 7, 2004 09:28 AMSo you're saying we have to read the Hollinger first? No dessert without finishing our broccoli?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 7, 2004 04:51 PMHey, if you guys want to read The Unquiet Grave first, fine. Sounds like a fun book.
Posted by: Alan Hogue at May 7, 2004 04:55 PMCompromise: both?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 7, 2004 05:38 PMPeople are free to take part in this or not as they choose. End of subject, surely.
Posted by: Alan Allport at May 7, 2004 09:36 PMI ordered the Connolly book last night too. The guy who took the order at a local bookshop said The Unquiet Grave is assigned in a lot of academic classes. Anybody here happen to have studied it in school?
Posted by: Martha Bridegam at May 8, 2004 12:41 PM