AND ANOTHER THING
Pugilism again — this time of the literary sort
PAUL JOHNSON
There is nothing I enjoy more than a lit- erary row, and for this reason alone I applaud Nicholas Mosley's marching out of the Booker prize jury, pursued by angry let- ters from Jeremy Treglowan and other luminaries. I also agree with him on the substance of his protest, that the' kind of people who dominate these juries tend to short-list gimmicky novels, which have to be read backwards, upside down etc. I find it hard to think of anything, even the Arts Council, which has done more harm to English literature than the Booker Prize. Some time ago I criticised it strongly in this journal and, as a result, the chairman of Booker-McConnell, which provides the money, came to see me to ask how I thought it could be improved. I told him the prize should be awarded not by those who belong to the literary world, but by a jury of people outside it — schoolteachers, librarians, ordinary readers. He was aghast: `Oh dear, I was thinking rather of some fine-tuning.' One has to remember that one of the attractions to businessmen who endow such awards is the opportunity to hobnob with literary celebrities (`As Selman was saying to me the other day . . . '). They are less keen on meeting librar- ians. Moreover, a jury of ordinary readers might be in serious danger of picking the best novel but would certainly not generate the publicity which Booker squabbles invariably provide.
At a publisher's lunch last month we were talking about the propensity of writ- ers, supposedly a sedentary lot, to engage in fights. I suggested an anthology, The Oxford Book of Literary Rows, and the pub- lisher's eyes immediately lit up: 'That would sell!' Was not Christopher Marlowe actual- ly killed in one of these tiffs? (By one Ingram Frizer, I believe; no doubt a theatre critic.) Not so long ago a bad review could lead to a duel. That was how poor John Scott, the brilliant editor of the •London Magazine, who published the best of Lamb and Hazlitt, met his end. A friend, given a lift by Byron in his carriage, recorded that he 'kept his pistols besides him and contin- ued silent for hours with the most ferocious expression possible on his countenance'. Another hasty review, I dare say. Byron nearly fought a duel with Tom Moore, and swore he would challenge Southey, then Poet Laureate, for saying he and Shelley formed 'a league of incest'. But nothing came of it. Hazlitt, a notoriously savage
reviewer, went in mortal fear of a chal- lenge, though the only violence to which he was actually subjected occurred when Charles Lamb's brother, John, knocked him down, 'following an argument about the colours of Holbein and Van Dyke'. It always amazes me that W.S. Landor, the most argumentative writer who ever lived — he figures as Boythorne in Bleak House — avoided a fatal encounter. Of course by the time Dickens had his famous Garrick Club row over his side-kick Edmund Yates, who had written a hostile profile of Thack- eray, duelling was out.
Acts of violence I would like to have wit- nessed include the episode which led to the expulsion of Evelyn Waugh from the Beef- steak, described as 'fighting with the ser- vants', or an even more bizarre row which brought about his departure from the Sav- ile Club: unable to find the porter, who had the key to a large glass case containing cigars, which stood in the hall, he simply smashed it open with his Malacca cane. But I was fortunately present, outside the Savile — we had all just debouched from a taxi when Maurice Richardson spread-eagled Henry Fairlie on the pavement (`Take that, you impudent whippersnapper!') for saying he 'belonged to the older generation'. The taxi-driver, evidently a sneaky fellow, reported the incident to the police, saying that 'an 'orrible fight' had broken out out- side the Savile Club. Happily the police, by a natural association of ideas, charged off to the Savage.
Maurice had been, at one time in a wan- dering life, a professional boxer, with a bro- ken nose to prove it. John Davenport, by contrast, had not fought professionally but was even stronger and much more aggres- sive. The most desperate battle he engaged in was in the company of the novelist Ger- ald Hanley, author of The Consul at Sunset.
They found themselves, one St Patrick's night, in a rather disreputable pub (since disappeared) near the Royal Court Theatre in Sloane Square. It was much frequented by the Irish and, following an unwise remark by John, casting aspersions on the morals of the Virgin Mary, the two men had to fight shoulder to shoulder to repel what Davenport called 'hordes of enraged Republicans'. But that, strictly speaking, was not a literary row.
Davenport's most famous act of aggres- sion was to seize the diminutive Lord Maugham, then Lord Chancellor, and put him on the Savile's mantelpiece. Maugham ceased to be Chancellor in September 1939, so the business must have occurred before the war, when Davenport was the English master at Stowe, laying the founda- tions of the prose styles of, among others, Colin Welch and Peregrine Worsthorne. What the row was about I do not know, for it is not recorded in R.F.V. Heuston's Lives of the Lord Chancellors, 1885-1940. It prob- ably had to do with the writings of Maugh- am's brother Somerset, of which (I recall) John did not approve. He had terrifyingly broad shoulders, powerful biceps and a barrel-chest, from which issued, oddly enough, a high, piping voice. His favourite term of abuse was 'short-arsed', and one has to imagine the scene when the outraged legal grandee (Put me down at once, I say!) was hoised up to the shelf, accompa- nied by the immortal words, 'Sit there where we can all see you, you short-arsed little pipsqueak!' John, alas, sometimes hit less deserving targets. John Raymond once remarked, with some complacency, 'I always say everyone gets the Davenport he deserves.' Alas, not long afterwards, he fell foul of the monster and received what he ruefully described as 'a severe biff on the boko'.
By a curious coincidence, immediately after the lunch at which we discussed such matters, two of those present, a novelist and a journalist, were talking about this and that on the pavement outside. The journalist's wife arrived to pick up her hus- band and spotted the novelist, with whom she had an unresolved little disagreement, concerning a roman a clef. The upshot was that our budding Tolstoy got his devastat- ing come-uppance there and then. I was not an eyewitness, so the account may be exaggerated. But one thing's for sure: it won't be the last literary row, thank God.
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