entirely to the fact that he had been ambushed by the critics and not cold-shouldered by the public. Nothing I could say would convince him that in the case of his Lawrence and Douglas books it was more his manner than his matter which caused so much offence, which had indeed damaged the public image of this fine poet and man of letters. No. He would not have it. It was âThe Cockney Commorra.â The late Wyndham Lewis also suffered from this âsecret enemyâ complexâperhaps we all do to various degrees?
His death came as a great blow to us; there was nothing to predict it in his magnificent physique and his robust good health. I am inclined to attribute it simply to the fact that he felt there was nothing more to live for; he despaired of regaining the lost ground. For the last few years he had been living up in the Cher as the guest of a firm friend, admirer, and fine writer, who had put his house at Aldingtonâs disposal. But most of the time he was alone, doing his own cooking. But he was proud as well as reticent and in all the long letters we got from him there is plenty of grumpiness but never a complaint. He went down with all guns firing, and his last letter which I received twenty-four hours before he died is full of rogue elephant fireworks; a specially grumpy performance deliberately calculated to make my wife exclaim: âAh, that wrong-headed old grumpy up there in the Cher.â I can hear his burst of laughter at the familiar phrase!
It was ironic that shortly before his death he was invited to spend his seventieth birthday in Russia and meet his Soviet readers. He went with a number of prepared grumpinesses and some specially tailored clothes designed to show that while he loved Russian literature and the Russian people he was Richard Aldington, Esq., British and Conservative to the core. But the warmth of his reception quite won his heart; readers from all over Russia slogged up to Moscow to shake his hand. I think in his heart of hearts he must have compared this reception to the grim silence of Londonânot one telegram of congratulations, not one line from the press!
Well, he is dead, this old British grumpy; subtract what you will on the account of wrong-headedness, of intemperateness of judgement, and so on. There remains a good deal which those who knew him will always remember with affection: great generosities, great quixotries, great gallantries. And when the smoke of battle has died down around his name, his books will win him back his true place among the important writers of our time.
Spirit of Place
Travel Writing
Letter in the Sofa
1957
IT WAS A YOUNG SAPPER MAJOR who found the love-letter while he was combing through the villa his unit had inherited from the Germans, on the look-out for booby-trapsâthough I must confess this seemed to me an unnecessary operation, for we had moved swiftly into the Island of Rhodes to find its starving garrison only too glad to welcome us.
The Germans were literally starving; there were two hundred deaths a day from sheer malnutrition among forces and civilians alike. The place was a shambles.
I still retain an image of destroyers drawn up in the harbor feeding out biscuits from the great broken boxes by searchlight, tossing them into the forest of waving hands in great packets.
Unit for unit, the incoming administration took over the offices and billets of the military garrison, and the sappers inherited a rather pleasant villa on the hill from some German sapper unit. While I was only a civilian, I had arranged to mess with them as my printing-press was near by.
It was odd that, just as I was calling on them to make my number, their major should hand me a love-letter in Italian. He had been groping in the bowels of the big, ugly Second Empire sofa which stood in the window, with its incomparable view over the sea and the Anatolian hills. I translated a few lines for him, and he grunted contemptuously.
âA
His death came as a great blow to us; there was nothing to predict it in his magnificent physique and his robust good health. I am inclined to attribute it simply to the fact that he felt there was nothing more to live for; he despaired of regaining the lost ground. For the last few years he had been living up in the Cher as the guest of a firm friend, admirer, and fine writer, who had put his house at Aldingtonâs disposal. But most of the time he was alone, doing his own cooking. But he was proud as well as reticent and in all the long letters we got from him there is plenty of grumpiness but never a complaint. He went down with all guns firing, and his last letter which I received twenty-four hours before he died is full of rogue elephant fireworks; a specially grumpy performance deliberately calculated to make my wife exclaim: âAh, that wrong-headed old grumpy up there in the Cher.â I can hear his burst of laughter at the familiar phrase!
It was ironic that shortly before his death he was invited to spend his seventieth birthday in Russia and meet his Soviet readers. He went with a number of prepared grumpinesses and some specially tailored clothes designed to show that while he loved Russian literature and the Russian people he was Richard Aldington, Esq., British and Conservative to the core. But the warmth of his reception quite won his heart; readers from all over Russia slogged up to Moscow to shake his hand. I think in his heart of hearts he must have compared this reception to the grim silence of Londonânot one telegram of congratulations, not one line from the press!
Well, he is dead, this old British grumpy; subtract what you will on the account of wrong-headedness, of intemperateness of judgement, and so on. There remains a good deal which those who knew him will always remember with affection: great generosities, great quixotries, great gallantries. And when the smoke of battle has died down around his name, his books will win him back his true place among the important writers of our time.
Spirit of Place
Travel Writing
Letter in the Sofa
1957
IT WAS A YOUNG SAPPER MAJOR who found the love-letter while he was combing through the villa his unit had inherited from the Germans, on the look-out for booby-trapsâthough I must confess this seemed to me an unnecessary operation, for we had moved swiftly into the Island of Rhodes to find its starving garrison only too glad to welcome us.
The Germans were literally starving; there were two hundred deaths a day from sheer malnutrition among forces and civilians alike. The place was a shambles.
I still retain an image of destroyers drawn up in the harbor feeding out biscuits from the great broken boxes by searchlight, tossing them into the forest of waving hands in great packets.
Unit for unit, the incoming administration took over the offices and billets of the military garrison, and the sappers inherited a rather pleasant villa on the hill from some German sapper unit. While I was only a civilian, I had arranged to mess with them as my printing-press was near by.
It was odd that, just as I was calling on them to make my number, their major should hand me a love-letter in Italian. He had been groping in the bowels of the big, ugly Second Empire sofa which stood in the window, with its incomparable view over the sea and the Anatolian hills. I translated a few lines for him, and he grunted contemptuously.
âA
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