AND ANOTHER THING
Paternal thoughts as another little book goes down the slipway
PAUL JOHNSON
Next week I publish a new book, my 29th I think. Books are landmarks in the life of a writer, but they leave variable Impressions on the memory. Some I cannot recall writing at all. But images of my first are vivid enough, one in particular. It is evening, early in January 1957, and I am putting the finishing touches to The Suez War, a political quickie written in ten days. The setting is the flat in Cadogan Place I share with Hugh Thomas, then in the For- eign Office. We rent this elegant apartment for the princely sum of £8 a week, which includes the services of a hard-working Ital- ian chambermaid, Maria. Scattered around are the evidences of self-indulgent bache- lorhood: a half-opened crate of cham- pagne, letters in scrawled feminine hands on scented writing-paper, a mantelpiece crowded with invitations and unpaid bills.
I am not only finishing my first book, I am courting, and in two months will be married. Marigold, a fragile slip of blonde beauty, curls up, quiet as a mouse, in a cor- ner of the drawing-room, enjoined to strict silence. Hugh slumps in an armchair, say- ing, over and over again, 'Eden has gone mad. We all think so.' Dominating the tableau is the gaunt, angry figure of Colonel George Wigg MP, immense, ele- phant ears flapping with excitement, eyes staring, vituperative phrases tumbling from his lips: 'No, sir, they will not get away with it this time ...I will have their guts for garters!' He has formed the habit of drop- ping in at our flat, knowing I am writing this book, to supply me with the latest tit- bits of arcane gossip, garnered from his plentiful sources in 'the War House', about the mismanagement of the doomed expedi- tion. Suddenly, his eye focuses on Marigold, whom he has not noticed before, and a bony, accusing finger points in her direction: 'Has that woman got security clearance?' Oh yes, Colonel,' I answer promptly, and give the secret sign meaning, Hush! Member of the SIS.' The colonel relaxes. 'That's all right then.' The book, calling for Eden's resignation, appeared a few days before he actually did resign. It made me quite a bit of money and was variously translated: La Guerra di Suez, Suezkriget, La Guerre de Suez and so on; there is even a Japanese version. Aneurin Bevan, from the kindness of his heart, wrote a preface to it, and the book was marvellously launched with a savage fea- ture article by Peregrine Worsthorne in the Daily Telegraph, describing it as the most disgracefully subversive document ever published. This had my publishers hopping about with joy: 'Good for a thousand copies at least!' Arnold Goodman, as he then was, had vetted the text for libel, declared it 'a breach of the Official Secrets Act from start to finish', and had warned, all his chins wobbling ominously, that it was 'thor- oughly unsafe to publish one jot or tittle of it as it stands'. The Worsthorne attack res- urrected all his fears and he declared mournfully to me, 'You will get us all arrested.' But nothing happened. The excitement gradually died down. Life returned to normal.
Even today, there is no disguising the tiny bat-squeak of excitement I get when the first advance copy of a new book arrives and I scan it anxiously for egregious errors. But I have long since learned to take publi- cation calmly. For 20 years or so I have avoided reviews, having learned by experi- ence that all notices, good, bad or indiffer- ent, somehow contrive to irritate. Not read- ing reviews of your books takes considerable self-discipline. Indeed, in one sense it is impossible since, if a particularly vicious, damaging or hurtful one appears, you can be perfectly certain that kind friends will draw it to your attention, if nec- essary by force. None the less, it is a sensi- ble practice and I strongly recommend it to all writers of books, tyros especially.
The publishers eventually send you huge batches of reviews, and after a considerable time, when the work is thoroughly afloat and is coming out in paperback or in a new edition, it is safe to glance through the pile on the off-chance of discovering correc- tions which ought to be incorporated. By then the power of the review to hurt is gone.
The new book is curiously like my first one: short, topical, a tract for the times. I have subtitled it 'A Latter-Day Pamphlet', in honour of Thomas Carlyle, a long- unfashionable writer whose day, I believe, is soon coming again, and whose angular integrity shines through all his works, even when he is being (to our eyes) ridiculous. Like Carlyle in his time, I have never before felt so concerned about the state of Britain. I believe this feeling is shared by a large number of people, high and low, of all parties and none, who love our country and are genuinely scared about what will hap- pen to it unless we do something quickly. It would be absurd to pretend there are com- plete, let alone easy, answers to our multi- tudes of problems, and I am not arrogant enough to believe that I have any miracle solution. But I have set out, as plainly as I can, what I think lies at the root of our trouble — a lack of real democracy in the way we do things — and I have made some practical proposals for putting it right. In this sense the book is a small work of piety, offered to the country I love in the earnest hope it will serve some purpose. Now it is out, I feel that I have 'done my bit', as they used to say during the war.
Therein, of course, lies the wonderful pleasure and privilege of being a writer. There are countless people around today, much more worthy than I am, who feel just as strongly about the plight of Britain and are bursting with frustration because there is no way they can unleash their emotions. It is the writer's good fortune that in the very act of describing a horrible experience, or ventilating a fear or expressing indigna- tion or offering a remedy — however slen- der the chance of its being adopted — he undergoes a catharsis, a metaphysical pur- gation which leaves him feeling exorcised or cured. Now that Wake Up Britain! is actually in being, a slim little hardback with a modest, jolly cover and exactly 200 pages, I feel better already. Anyone for tennis?
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