Ghosts and Gargoyles
Memoirs of the Forties. By J. Maclaren-Ross. (Alan Ross, 25s.) Memoirs of the Forties. By J. Maclaren-Ross. (Alan Ross, 25s.)
SEVENTY-FOUR inches of egocentricity in a Teddy- bear coat, with a gold-topped walking-stick, a cigarette-holder almost as long, a cummerbund in the summer, a pink carnation in all seasons, Julian Maclaren-Ross is much missed; but not missed incessantly. He was a claiming man : 'Across the table sat John Davenport, whom I'd specially sought out as a companion most likely to soothe and help me cure an hysterical hangover brought on by drinking all the previous day and night. . . .' Again : All those queries I put to Davenport, who sat impassive as a Buddha but was unable to supply the answers. . . What he quite failed to realise was that one was often stupefied by boredom. Few of us are capable of listening to a foot-by-foot, appallingly accurate, account of an old German film, or to a lengthy pr6cis of a French novel one had tried to forget thirty years before. I re- member once groaning aloud, the protective Buddhistic calm utterly shattered. 'What's the matter?"Julian, you are such a bore sometimes.' An incredulous, haughty stare: 'You must be drunk.'
Against this absurd and often endearing nar- cissism one balanced his independence of mind, his great skill as a short-story writer and his perceptive critical faculty. He was a brilliant parodist. These qualities are not those usually associated with the self-absorbed. Those who dis- missed him as an omphaloscoptic ass were sharply disillusioned when they found that he missed nothing, during those inexorable monologues, of what was going on around him. Also, in spite of a didactic arrogance, he was essentially a tolerant and generous-minded man. His second
book of memoirs—only three-quarters of which were completed before his untimely death---gives an unrivalled picture of those almost mythical 'forties, when Palinurus was at the helm of Horizon, Stephen Spender in the Fire Service, and Nina Hamnett in the Fitzroy Tavern. His portraits of them, of Dylan Thomas, John Minton, Graham Greene, Arthur Calder-Mar- shall and many more are as illuminating as they are amusing. His memoir of Alun Lewis, here reprinted with a handful of his best stories, is something more. The tall drinker at the bar of the Gargoyle was a highly sensitive artist.
JOHN DAVENPORT
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