Books
Ivy and friends
Christopher Hawtree
Secrets of a Woman's Heart Hilary Spurling (Hodder and Stoughton £14.95)
`Tt is a pity that speech cannot be _Lprinted.' Such a remark, made by a character in the tenth of Ivy Compton- Burnett's 19 novels of dialogue, might take the reader by surprise. In an entertaining interview printed in Ivy and Stevie, Kay Dick commented, 'you get everything, don't you, in your dialogue, for which other people take pages of descriptive prose' and was told, 'Oh yes, I do'. Even the servants tend to be past masters of the subjunctive and conditional clauses:Such considerations cannot be lost on any biog- rapher while he tries to create characters that are not only plausible but interesting: some vintage remarks by Johnson and Sydney Smith are no doubt lost forever, but so, too, are the less memorable com- ments by which, in common with most, they were known from day to day. (One thinks of the sole meeting between Proust and Joyce which they spent in discussing their various ailments.) Explaining, as she had previously done to various publishers, that she could not write an autobiography, Ivy Compton-Burnett told Kay Dick, `I think there'd he so much I wouldn't want to reveal. I don't mean important things, but all sorts of hundreds of little things that everybody keeps to himself,' Biography provides only a version of a man, one that is almost inevitably refracted through more studied, written forms. Hilary Spurling's reconstruction of this life, completed with the publication of a long-awaited second volume, is remarkable for its presentation of a ch.a4racter and world that might be envied by all those biographers who stum- ble upon dusty trunkloads of archives in obscure attics.
When she died, Ivy Compton-Burnett left behind a mere 'shoebox half full of apointment diaries', and such was her attitude to letter-writing that there has been no need for her biographer to trail round the American 'research centers' on the track of vital clues. The first volume, Ivy When Young, succeeded in describing a late-Victorian and Edwardian world that was frequently surprising and even fright- ening in its account of strange alliances, dogmatic opinions and hideous endings. Only in the section dealing with her brother's time at King's did the familiar world of other recent biographies enter it; those years made a vivid contrast to the ones spent in various suburban villas — to the end of her life the word Hove aroused feelings of horror in Ivy Compton-Burnett. Of Dr Burnett's 12 surviving children Mrs Spurling wrote, `one died young of pneumonia; another was killed in the first war; three committed suicide. Two of his four sons made brief childless marriages, his eight daughters remained unmarried so that, though he himself had ardently be- lieved that "the true source of national greatness is large families of healthy chil- dren", his only legacy to posterity lies in the novels of his fourth daughter; an astonishing and sometimes fearful monu- ment to family life'. As somebody observes in A House and its Head, `things tend to become rooted in families'.
Although the biographical details of Ivy When Young did not necessarily `explain' the fiction, one of its great revelations was her enthusiasm for the second Samuel Butler. That such an unreadable writer should have provided the catalyst for her series of subtle, funny and even chilling novels is indeed mysterious. An entry in her copy of the Notebooks was scored with six lines in the margin: `The Family. I believe that more unhappiness comes from this source than from any other — I mean from the attempt to prolong family connec- tion unduly and to make people hang together artificially who would never naturally do so. The mischief among the lower classes is not so great, but among the middle and upper classes it is killing a large number daily. And the old people do not really like it much better than the young.' Certainly death is never far from her pages, but Ivy Compton-Burnett is free of the rant which characterises The Way of All Flesh. Except in her old age, when she blamed the Labour government for every- thing (even if it was not in power), Ivy Compton-Burnett rarely essayed any sort of political opinions, but in a 1962 inter- view with Michael Millgate did admit that her novels might be 'in a way a microcosm of a larger society'; that the forces that produce wars and revolutions are similar to those `that produce them on a small scale in ordinary life. The sweep of them on a great scale would lead to that sort of tragedy. I think the tremendous impetus that came from Germany arose from the presence of the forces inside millions of people — not only in Hitler.' (In her review of Elders and Betters Elizabeth Bowen said that when various families do meet in these novels they 'advance on each other's houses in groups, like bomber forma- tions'.) Legend has Ivy Compton-Burnett re- mote from the world for nearly 50 years after 1920, when she had recovered from severe illness and, as far as was possible,
from her brother's death. Dressed with the apparent severity of a governess, she stares down imperiously in the photographs by Cecil Beaton and John Vere Brown (bizarrely, the one used on the back cover here sports some computer bars across the left shoulder). A distinct sense of fun and, humour, however, emerges from Secrets 01 a Woman's Heart, one that surmounts problems with publishers and the occasion. al .difficulties of life with Margaret Jour- dain, the furniture expert, with whom she had set up a flat. `It is bad enough having to write for cash but to pay to write were MADNESS,' wrote Evelyn Waugh of the fashion in which Duckworth treated rich literary aspirants. Such, however, was the way in which Ivy Compton-Burnett began to publish. As with the early Dolores, which she soon came to scorn, Pastors and, Masters, first of these similarly-titled novels, was issued on such a basis by an obscure firm. It met with acclaim from the fashionable few, such as Raymond NO- timer, who urged its claims in, of all places, Vogue; it was treated with rather less favour by the friends of Margaret Jour, dain. The biography is given its shape by the relationship of the two. After her firs` flurry among the denizens of `literal London', Ivy Compton-Burnett seems to have retired very much under the shadow, of the domineering Margaret Jourdain an was left to wrestle with the various ow,: fishers who failed to promote her
adequately. 'Here's some more of Ivy
s twaddle,' Margaret Jourdain is said to have remarked when delivering a bundle 0' typescript. As the years went by and the second war started, Ivy ComPt°,11e Burnett's sales grew, and certainly by t".51 time of Margaret Jourdain's death in 19 she was by far the better known of the tWn. For the remaining 19 years of her life sit! enjoyed, despite the continuing iritranslt gence of Victor Gollancz, an eminence Ella,/ is here entertainingly described by Man' surviving friends and acquaintances. A large section of the book is taken n113, by a description of the Jourdain family whose members, such as the invalid mat', matician Philip who kept up a cornPle)`0 correspondence with Russell, apPent have provided Ivy Compton-Burnett wit even more material to digest than her nwrii. Other characters all come to life. Ernest Thesiger once complained to Someri.:s Maugham ('information from Frartc.,„1 King,' records note) that he never sent airs a play. `B-but, I am always writing p-Par for you, Ernest. The trouble is that some,. body called Gladys Cooper will insist p-playing them.' The biography is rich n rovi such stories; tangential as they might .see a to Ivy Compton-Burnett. they pdehe mosiac impression of a world which s e, regarded with affection and some be.„rntisnlf ment. As is well known, Leonard wo'cie turned down Brothers and Sisters in t late Twenties and claimed that she enl,,I not write (another of the great historic°, imponderables is what might have habl?s pened had he taken on Evelyn Wattg early The Balance); all publishers make mistakes, but few can have made as glo- rious a one as that of the American who bought rights to Daughters and Sons under Burnett, impression that it was by W. R. nurnett, author of gangster thrillers. 'Strong men at Norton's still blench at the thought.' Her relationship with Gollancz runs through the book. They almost never Met, this unlikely pair, except for a dread- ful lunch in the Sixties when she urged him to issue a collected edition. 'That would ruin you, and ruin me,' he said, and was left in need of two stiff brandies. Their last encounter, by chance, was in a hospital Where they agreed about the awful food; she, however, did not accept his idea of sending out to a good hotel for supplies 'but then, I'm not a socialist'. As Evelyn Waugh wrote in a review (oddly, for, pace Alan Watkins, we are all scholars of him nowadays, Mrs Spurting does not use his various accounts of her), 'there was no dizzy succession of reprints. Her renown spread in intimate, fastidious circles as each reader sought to communicate and share his delight'. (The end of that article is delightfully mischievous.) Having been forced to end as she began, by leaving an amount in her will to cover the cost of a limited, elegant edition, she would have been amazed had she been able to open the Daily Telegraph recently and find Gollancz announcing, 'today her nineteen mature novels are all in print'. Curiously described as the 'collector's edition', this blue- covered series frees her at last from the detective and thriller shelves in public libraries where the bright yellow of most Gollancz covers often sends her and Kings- ley Amis; despite a somewhat grey, litho-
graphic print, there is no doubt that this edition is better value than the grubbily- Produced paperbacks issued by a number of houses to coincide with the centenary of her birth.
.Perhaps the most vivid part of the biography are the quotations from the l)tagnificent series of letters which Eliza- it keth Taylor wrote to Robert Liddell about All meetings with Ivy Compton-Burnett. the skill that made her one of the century's bet novelists is evident here. My my reliictance to spoil the reader's later ; L cimuuta tielli(!yment precludes substantial
kin The description of a visit they ,aue to an empty matinee of Beckett's :'1VPy Days in 1962 is a masterpiece of °1nitably (Ivy Compton-Burnett kept up '0, with new writing, even if many
2,the books that arrived from Harrods met formally-dressed scorn.) In my mind's eye I see this fr_rillallY-dressed lady only yards away uaill one buried in a mound of sand. 'She from it keenly, through opera glasses, _,111. the third row of the empty stalls, and orn't know how that poor actress carried bunder the circumstances. . .' A note oeals that Robert Liddell has prepared a k, Elizabeth and Ivy, from them, and °01inely hopes that it will quickly appear; not Er is One eager, to read more about izabeth Taylor, but surely some pub-
fisher, alerted by his appearance here and in Barbara Pym's A Very Private Eye, will have the good sense to reissue Mr Liddell's own books. In a bid to be republished, Ivy Compton-Burnett described her novels, accurately and misleadingly, as potential bestsellers with their 'good plots, interest- ing characters and plenty of sex'. In 1930 Evelyn Waugh wrote to Harold Acton, '1 have just read Brothers and Sisters through twice and think it magnificently huMorous and well managed. Do try it again and tell me what you think'. Once read, she can be endlessly enjoyed in a way that many of the bestsellers she envied have failed to be. Had he lived to read it, Waugh might well have described Mrs Spurling's book in similar terms.
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