This is the situation: I have day-to-day diaries ( just saying what happened in a few words) from 1942 to the present day, except for the 1946 diary, which is lost. I also have journals which begin in 1939
and cover the same period.[*] All have time gaps in them. But the biggest gaps occur in one particular area––there are no entries whatever for 1945, 1946 or 1947 (though my life from September 20, 1947 to March 1948 is covered in The Condor and the Cows). The 1948 journal has rather less than twenty entries, 1949 around fifteen, 1950 about the same number, 1951 about twelve, 1952 about
fourteen. (It’s interesting to notice what a small variation there is for these years––my journal keeping seems to follow a predictable wave-movement.) 1953 is perhaps the worst year of all, about eleven, and 1954 isn’t much better. Then the journal keeping picks up frequency and has remained fairly adequate ever since.
So this is my project: I am going to try to fill in these gaps from memory––up to the end of 1952 at least and maybe up to the end of 1954.
I shall write, to begin with, on the odd-numbered pages, leaving the even-numbered facing pages for after-thoughts and notes.
Because the “I” of this period is twenty years out of date, I shall write about him in the third person––working on Kathleen and Frank
[* Elsewhere, Isherwood also calls these journals “diaries,” and they are published under that title. Readers may find Isherwood’s references to them by date in his Diaries Volume One 1939– 1960, ed. Katherine Bucknell (London: Methuen, 1996; New York: HarperCollins, 1997), cited hereafter as D 1.]
4
Lost Years
has shown me how this helps me to overcome my inhibitions, avoid self-excuses and regard my past behavior more objectively.
The last entry in the 1944 journal makes it fairly obvious that Christopher has already decided to leave Vedanta Place (on Ivar Avenue, as it then still was––the name was changed only after the freeway was built). Christopher doesn’t admit this, but he emphasizes the importance of japam,[*] rather than the importance of being with Swami,[†] or of having daily access to the shrine, or of living in a religious community. You can make japam under any circumstances, no matter where or how you are living.
In the 1944 journal, Christopher says that he finished the revised draft of Prater Violet on October 15. In the 1944 day-to-day diary he says he finished revising Prater Violet on November 25––so this must have been a revision of the revised draft.1 Anyhow it must have been finished and sent off to the publishers before the end of that year.
In the journal, November 30, Christopher says, “The X. situation is beginning again.”
“X.” was Bill Harris.2 Denny Fouts[‡] met him first. He had been in the army but only for a short while and was now going to college.
1 In the 1944 journal, it says “the final polishing” of Prater Violet was finished on November 24.
2 Bill was the younger of two brothers––the sons of an engineer. Their father had worked in the USSR and had had to leave with his family at a few hours’
notice––the Russians accused the American and British engineers of trying to sabotage a dam which they had been hired to construct. Later, they moved to Australia, where Bill and his brother became expert swimmers. Bill’s brother was very attractive, an all-round athlete and a war hero in the U.S. Air Force.
Bill was the ugly brother (so he said); homely and fat up to the age of fifteen.
Then he made a “decision” to be beautiful. After the war, his brother married and became fat and prematurely middle-aged.
Bill was well aware of being feminine––his resemblance to Marlene Dietrich was often remarked on––but he refused to get himself exempted from military service by declaring that he was homosexual. He wanted to be a model soldier.
He worked very hard to keep his equipment clean. Then, after he’d been in the service for a week or two, he was bawled out at an inspection, and this discouraged him so much, after all his good intentions, that he burst into tears.
The inspecting officer, amazed at such sensitivity, sent him to the psychiatrist, which resulted in his getting an honorable discharge!
[* Repeating a sacred Hindu word; Isherwood used a rosary. For this and all Hindu terms, see Glossary.]
[† Isherwood’s religious teacher under whose guidance he had been living at the Vedanta Center and training as a monk. See glossary under Prabhavananda.]
[‡ A close friend since 1940; for Fouts and for others not fully introduced by Isherwood see Glossary.]
1943‒1944
5
The 1943 day-to-day diary, with the maddening vagueness common to all the early day-to-day diaries, records that, on August 21, Denny came down to Santa Monica to visit Christopher, who was staying for a few days at 206 Mabery Road, opposite the Viertels’ home, 165––accompanied by “little Bill” and “blond Bill.” I don’t
remember who “little Bill” was. I am almost certain that “blond Bill”
was Harris. His blond hair was then the most immediately striking feature of his beauty, especially when he had his clothes on and you couldn’t see his magnificent figure. Aside from this, Christopher used to be fond of describing his first glimpse of Bill Harris––how the erotic shock hit him “like an elephant gun” and made him “grunt”
with desire, and how, at the same time, he felt angry with Denny for bringing this beautiful temptation into his life, to torment him.1
Christopher first saw Harris through the window of the bathroom of 206, just as Harris was arriving with Denny in the car. This in itself fixes the date if my memory is accurate, because Christopher never stayed in that house again.
However, Bill Harris has nothing to do with the sex adventure referred to in the 1943 journal as having taken place on August 24.
Christopher had gone into the ocean and was swimming with his trunks off; he was wearing them around his neck, as he often did. A man came along the beach––which was almost deserted in those
wartime days––saw him, took his own trunks off, came into the water and started groping Christopher. What made the situation
“funny and silly” was that the man was deaf and dumb. They both laughed a lot. Christopher refused to have an orgasm but he had been excited, and he jacked off later, when he had returned to the house.
The other sexual encounters referred to in the 1943 journal were with a boy named Flint,2 whom Christopher met on the beach on September 20, and with Pete Martinez, a few days later.
It is odd that “X.” (Harris) isn’t referred to at all in the 1943
journal. It seems probable that Christopher saw very little of him after their first meeting on August 21. In the 1944 journal (March 13) Christopher writes, “A few days after this entry, I started to fall in love, with someone whom I’ll call X. . . .” etc. etc. The 1944
1 Christopher even accused Denny of deliberately trying to seduce him from his vocation by introducing him to Harris. According to Christopher, Denny didn’t want Christopher to become a monk because it made him, Denny, feel guilty.
2 [Not his real name.] Flint tried to do a blowjob under water and was quite indignant when he began to drown. He seemed to blame the Pacific Ocean, assuring Christopher with apparent seriousness that you could blow someone beneath the surface of the Atlantic while drawing air into your mouth through his cock!
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Lost Years
day-to-day diary doesn’t mention Bill Harris until April 5, when Christopher saw him in Santa Monica. (He had previously been
living out at Pomona or someplace in that area; perhaps he had now moved to the beach.) After this, the day-to-day diary mentions him from time to time––not often, because Christopher was sick quite a bit and in bed. They had sex for the first time while they were both staying at Denny’s apartment, 137 Entrada Drive. They were alone together there from June 26 to 29. Denny had gone off to San Francisco telling Bill to paint the living room before he returned.