"Anyone who picks up a Compton-Burnett finds it very hard not to put it down." — Ivy Compton-Burnett
"There is something bleached about Miss Compton-Burnett: like hair that has never had any colour in it." -- Virginia Woolf
"Ivy Compton-Burnett embodied a quite unmodified pre-1914 personality. Her jewellery managed never to look like jewellery but, on her, seemed hieratic insignia." -- Anthony Powell
'At first sight her work strikes you as clumsy and heavy-fisted; her figures, though solid, are not what is called "life-like", and she composes her books on highly defined and artificial designs. In fact, she is open to all the reproaches laid upon the founders of post-impressionism. And it is still as useless, I think, to put her work before the general public as it was to put that of Cézanne a quarter of a century ago.' -- Raymond Mortimer
'Ivy Compton-Burnett is a puzzle. She was born in 1884, within a year or so of Virginia Woolf, James Joyce and D.H. Lawrence, but her particular originality could hardly be further from the strenuous pioneering effort, the stylistic shock tactics and underlying romanticism of the giants of the Modern Movement. Her tone is cool, dry, sharp, irreverent and ironic. She was over forty when she made her debut in the 1920s alongside a much younger generation of novelists like Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell, with whom she had in some ways more in common than with her own contemporaries, whose imaginations had been formed and furnished before the First World War.
'(Her work's) wit, acidity and quiet cynicism were picked up at once in Vogue by the young Raymond Mortimer, who would be one of the first to recognise in the strange, condensed and abstracted forms of I. Compton-Burnett's early novels the closest it was possible to come to post-impressionism in fiction. For Mortimer and others like him between the wars, she represented the last word in bold and daring innovation. ... If the young were enthusiastic, the literary establishment responded with understandable caution to works that seemed to embody all the more unwholesome, frivolous and unsettling tendencies of decadent modern youth. I. Compton-Burnett's second novel, which became something of an intellectual rallying point for bright young things in 1929, had been turned down in manuscript by Leonard Woolf at the Hogarth Press ("She can't even write," he said), and her growing reputation in avant-garde circles over the next decade continued to give his wife Virginia sleepless nights.
'From the beginning lvy's mystery strengthened her appeal. Nobody knew who she was or where she came from, and the few who met her were deeply disconcerted to find a nondescript, retiring, resolutely uncommunicative character who dressed and behaved more like a Victorian governess than a radical iconoclast. ... By the time she died in 1969 she had become a legend, a public image so forbidding and remote that, when I set out soon afterwards to write her life, I found it hard at first to credit the fond, sociable, disarmingly absurd and affectionate creature described by friends who sorely missed her. The discrepancy was only one of many contradictions about her life and work for, as Anthony Powell pointed out, the two could not be separated, nor could the mystery of the one be solved without recourse to the other. It was as if the Victorian trappings provided, in both fact and fiction, a protective cover behind which her penetrating subversive intelligence might operate unsuspected, freely and without constraint.' -- Hilary Spurling
"It is a pity when we cannot judge by the surface, when it is so often arranged for us to judge by it." — from Mother and Son
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"It is the dead we do not speak evil of, and I shall treat my father as living for as long as I can. It is treating the old with more sympathy to speak evil of them." — from More Women than Men
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“People who have power respond simply. They have no minds but their own.” -- ICB
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"... familiarity breeds contempt, and ought to breed it. It is through familiarity that we get to know each other." — from Two Worlds and Their Ways
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"People cannot really give at all. They can only exchange." — from Daughters and Sons
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“A leopard does not change his spots, or change his feeling that spots are rather a credit.” -- ICB
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"You should be careful what you say."
"I dislike people who have to do that. I have nothing to hide. It is better to talk honestly."
"I think it is much worse," said Walter. "It means all sorts of risks. Honest people can even say: 'If you don't mind my saying so,' after they have said it. And they cannot know before. Dishonest talk is far better. I should like to hear myself described insincerely." — from A Heritage and Its History
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"Well, of course, people are only human. But it really does not seem much for them to be." — from A Family and a Fortune
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“I am ill at ease with people whose lives are an open book.” -- ICB
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"All institutions have the same soul." — from A Heritage and Its History
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"Marriage: So dangerous, these fusions of personality, don't you think?" — Ivy Compton-Burnett quoted by Hilary Spurling in Ivy: The Life of I. Compton-Burnett
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"It is unworthy to show off yourself at the expense of others. I do not mince my words. To say openly what is to be said! Ah, how much braver and better!"
"I think it is much worse. I can't tell you how bad it seems to me. And I never admire courage. It is always used against people. What other purpose has it?"
"I have said what I had to say. I shall not add another word."
"I hope not, unless you mince it," said Fanny. — from A Heritage and Its History
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“Well, of course, people are only human... But it really does not seem much for them to be.” -- ICB
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"Self-knowledge speaks ill for people; it shows they are what they are, almost on purpose." — from Parents and Children
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"Time has too much credit," said Bridget. "It is not a great healer. It is an indifferent and perfunctory one. Sometimes it does not heal at all. And sometimes when it seems to, no healing has been necessary." — from Darkness and Day
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"You must trust me," said Magdalen.
"But that is what I cannot do. At any time you might act for my good. When people do that, it kills something precious between them." — from Manservant and Maidservant
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“My youth is escaping without giving me anything it owes me.” -- ICB
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"Of course truth comes out of the mouths of babes. They are too simple to suppress it." — from Mother and Son
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"Truth is so impossible. Something has to be done for it." — from Darkness and Day
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"A thing is not nothing when it is all there is." -- ICB
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"Virtue has gone out of me."
"It has," said Reuben. "We saw and heard it going out." — from A God and His Gifts
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"You will find my casual methods a change," said Catherine. "I hope you will not mind them."
"Ursula will not. I will mind them very much. But wild horses would not drag it from me. Though I hardly think wild horses do as much to drag things from people as is thought." — from The Present and the Past
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"As regards plots I find real life no help at all. Real life seems to have no plots. And as I think a plot desirable and almost necessary, I have this extra grudge against life." -- ICB
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"Well, the English have no family feelings. That is, none of the kind you mean. They have them, and one of them is that relations must cause no expense." -- from Parents and Children
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"Perhaps that is the difference between a bad person and a good; that the one reveals himself, and the other has the proper feeling to hide it." -- from The Present and the Past
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"At a certain point my novels set. They set just as hard as that jam jar. And then I know they are finished." -- ICB
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p.s. Hey. Let's see ... on my end, I'm happy to say that I think it's now safe to say that 'TIHYWD' is quite a big if controversial hit. The buzz, the response, the feedback, the offers are everything we could have hoped, and the most recent reviews are much more positive and, in many cases, they actually understand the piece. I won't throw a batch of links at you, but, this review in Telerama is fairly characteristic. Anyway, I had a long weekend, good and bad. For instance, I'll need to be even zoomier than usual today for the added reason that it was so nightmarishly hot here yesterday that I broke out into a heat rash for the first time in my life (on my neck and legs), and while it's better than it was yesterday, I need to go get some lotion and whatever else very shortly to try to get rid of it because it's very discomforting. The rest of my last two days will be in my day report to Itmpw below, if anyone's interested. ** Wolf, Thanks, Wolfster. You guys get here tomorrow, no? Barring a miracle, prepare to sweat profusely and drag yourself around town. It'll be fun anyway. For me, at least. I was meh about the Liberation review, but Gisele really hated it, and, yeah, it completely didn't get the piece, but whatever. Anyway, you can make your own minds up straight away. Call me when you're here or close or something, yeah? ** Dennis Cooper, Hey, blowhard. ** Oscar B, Everything's cool now except for the weather. Enjoy your only kind of horribly hot Paris return, and see you very soon. Oh, I keep forgetting: your post goes up here on this coming Thursday. Thanks, pal. ** Scunnard, And a very refined ! it was. ** David Ehrenstein, Hey. Oh, sure, a long relaxed tete a tete with you that includes the Tom Ford issue sounds like greatness to me, sir. I'm seeing Gisele in a few minutes, and I'll ask her if she knows that 'Tales of Hoffman' tune. I'd guess so. ** Bill, Hey. Praying for your sake and mind that we get a wind or rain storm between now and your entrance. Serious envy on getting to the Scott Treleaven event. So, so wish I could have been there. Locrian is awesome. So, you met Terence Hannum? Such a talented fella.** Bernard Welt, If you didn't see Postit's comment, you need to click the little box on the far right showing the 'TIHYWD' pic to see the segment. Facebook message, cool, I'll find it one way or another. So true about 'Prater Violet's virtues. Hey, B! ** Pilgarlic, Ha ha, thanks a lot, P. Well said, deep bow. ** Chris Goode, Hey, Chris! Thanks a lot for the commiserations, man. I'm sure you've been there once or twice. Well, that's extremely interesting about your reassessment. Did something in particular bring it on? Is it a matter of unifying, conserving, pinpointing your energies? Well, as it gels I'd love to know more, and I'll check Thompsons when I can for further filling-in. I sure hope the producer listens wisely and gets on board with the excitement of the move. When will you meet with the producer? I'd love to hear what transpires. And how that curious puppet show turned out to be too, natch! Love to you, big guy. ** The Dreadful Flying Glove, Hey, man. I owe you an email, and I'll send it asap. Great thoughts and add-ons re: Current 93. More soon when my legs and neck aren't throbbing and begging for my fingernails. ** Stan_cz, Thanks, Stan. Well, you should see the girl who pronounced the title in her French accent. I do not think you'd be disappointed. ** Christopher/ Mark, The piece causing a violent ruckus at the Palais des Papes is this one. Quite a good piece. It's in part a rough but intelligent attack on Catholicism, and that seems to be the piss off. By the way, one of the pieces I saw yesterday was by the youngish darling of French dance, Boris Charmatz, entitled 'Flip Book'. It was presented as an homage to Merce Cunningham but unfortunately was a silly, wrongheaded, pointless thing, to my mind, using Cunningham's movement language as the basis for the kind of jokey modern dance choreography that the French have been plying for decades while some guy in the front row turned the pages of a big book about Cunningham. Dumb. Having known Gerard Malanga in the 80s, I find it so hard to believe that he ever had a shred of honest gayness in him. At the time, I thought he was one of the determinedly, blatantly skirt-chasing heterosexual guys I have ever met. Oh, yes, please make that post if you don't mind. That would be amazing! Thank you so much, Mark! ** Steevee, Hey. Sorry about all the cable TV hassles. That must be such a drag, especially with your feeble air-conditioner as background noise. ** Sypha, It really was a great honor for me, James. And it's great how all future googlers of Tibet/ C93 will be able to find the post easily and learn so much. ** _Black_Acrylic, Thanks, Ben. The power point presentation sounds super interesting. Do report on how it goes. Yeah, sad about Holland. Still, having Spain win is hardly the worst thing in the world. Great team, and it's been such a long time coming. ** Postitbreakup, I might just do that GbV cover. Maybe Kiddiepunk can be my band. Hm. ** Misanthrope, Oh, well, I guess ultimately that little girl on fire memory compels as much as it repels or something. You know how my shit works. Birds continue behave fairly well. They can't fly into the audience because we lower an invisible screen before they come on. I guess they could bash themselves against it. That might be interesting. ** Empty Frame, Hey. Thanks, man. It's a wild ride here for sure. Maybe the piece will get to Berlin. I think so. We're getting serious feelers from some Berlin curator or two here. Sorry about the big macho expressionist paintings invasion. Germans love that stuff, seemingly. Back in the 80s, it was practically all they were making, or at least all that they were making that made it big internationally. Sewing's better. Love right back to you. ** Allesfliest, Hey! Oh, how great that you're off to Japan. Sigh. I'm still lobbying incredibly hard to get to go out on our 'TIHYWD' tour there, but you'll be back in Berlin by then, I think. I know the name Irit Rogoff, sure. Not sure if I know the actual work or not. I'll find out. Safest of trips down there, and, yeah, wonderful if we/I get to see you more, of course. ** Pisycaca, Hey, M! Yeah, things are much less hectic and scary here now re: the piece, although it could go haywire again tonight or any night easily. I know of 'Halcyon Digest', yes, and I'm excited too. Bradford and I didn't talk about that. Anyway, the conversational mystery will be solved when you get the new Deerhunter album if I don't spill the beans before. It's not a big deal, but it's cool. ** Alan, Hey. ** JoeM, Hey, Joe. That is really strange about the, uh, coincidence of Crisp's and Horsley's deaths. I didn't know that. Well, maybe our Phantom of the Opera is real, and the initial disaster was just a taster, and the Phantom's logic is to get us to overly relax before he swoops full-on. Oh gosh, I shouldn't even kind of joke about that. Ha ha, thanks a lot, Joe. ** Paul Curran, Hey, Paul. Oh, man, that's rough and intense about your mom and the sibling fights. Yeah, you can bet I can feel that and sympathize endlessly. I'm really glad you get to go see her and also taste some cooler weather while you're at it. Ah, Len is almost three! How amazing! What a lovely little nipper your kiddo is. ** JW Veldhoen, Hey, John. Great stuff about C93 and Sypha's post. Very cool you got to the Treleaven event and saw Locrian too. Their newest album is a killer. ** Jesse Hudson, Hey, Jesse! So glad the writing is going well. The ebbs and flows and thinning and thickening are part of the deal, you know? You're learning important things with every step, and every misstep is ultimately not one at all. You'll see what I mean when you're on the other side, if not before. Oh, fuck, I think that advice to new writers is fucking ridiculous, wrong, destructive, etc. It smacks of writers who don't want young whippersnappers to encroach on their success, or else of embittered writers spewing their crap selfishly. That advice is absolute fucking nonsense. There is no reason, no excuse for telling a new and talented writer that they're overestimating their talent or their chances. It's just a fucking lie. I don't know who gave that advice, but it sounds like writers whose idea of success involves major publishers, big sales figures, NYTBR raves, and all that crap. If I'd listened to writers who said that to me when I was new, I might have proceeded anyway, but maintaining my belief in my work and in the world's possible interest in what I do was incredibly important. And I haven't hit the big time or anything, but I've gotten more than I ever even dreamed I would, as big as my dreams were. Don't buy a syllable of that bullshit advice. ** L@rstonovich, Hey, man! ** Marcus Whale, Hi, Marcus! Wonderful to see you. How are your writing and music projects going? ** Shit, Gisele says she needs to me to meet with her about something important right now, so I have to take a break here, and I'll finish up in a bit. Back now. Sorry this post/ p.s. is arriving so late. ** Inthemostpeculiarway, Hey. No problem on the crossings. Hopefully you don't need them by now, but I'll keep something or other crossed until your hearing is a gift again. Yikes about that dressing down by your friend's mom, but it seems to have had a part in your not having to lift a paint brush, so maybe it was the veritable blessing in disguise. You watch so many interesting sounding things I've never heard of before. I feel I'm like your online student, which is cool. That's nice about your returning, long lost friend. So, is that the beginning of a total friendship reengagement? Okay, here's my weekend as quickly as I can because my heat rash is starting to drag down my brain a bit. So, on Saturday, I met with those French students I mentioned, aged 15 to 18. They were great, no surprise, I guess. Totally interested and curious and open-minded and asked a ton of questions and said smart things. I hung around for about an hour afterwards talking to a bunch of them one-on-one. Then I had to do a TV interview, again for Arte, who have decided to do another segment on 'TIHYWD', which is very cool, of course. By then, it was almost show time. The show went really well again, and it had this surprisingly wild response. Like, the second it ended, some older man stood up and yelled at the top of his lungs (in French), 'Dennis Cooper, you should stop writing and make cars!' (Apparently this was a reference to Austin-Coopers). Then a crazy, deafening mixture of boos and bravos erupted. It was the most raucous response our work has ever gotten. The bravos won out eventually, and the cast got four curtain calls and a standing ovation. Weird. Then we ate and drank a little bit, and I, at least, went back 'home' and crashed. On Sunday, which was our day off, I went to the theater, set up my computer and then left for three hours to meet with another group of students. They were but much quieter and seemed more suspicious of our piece, seemingly in part because of their teacher who clearly hated our piece and kept talking throughout the meeting about how it wasn't a play, like that was a problem. But after the meeting was over, a bunch of the students came up to me to secretly tell me they loved the piece. After that, I went back to the theater, and it had been locked up, and I couldn't get inside, so I was sans my computer and other stuff until this morning. So, I decided to join Gisele and Stephen who were spending the day watching other works in the Festival. Let me say here that it was violently hot, so hot that even people who live here were shocked, and it was literally hard to even walk around. Anyway, we saw three pieces -- a silly, pointless dance piece that I mentioned to Christopher/ Mark called 'Flip Book', and then a kind of not too bad theater piece called '1973' that recreates and critiques the 1973 Eurovision Song Contest. It was funny and pretty smart. Finally, we saw the new piece by the great Belgian choreographer Anne Teresa De Keersmaker, who I profiled in that '5 biggies' post here last week. It was performed outdoors in the ruins of an old church, and it was a fucking knock out, really exciting and inspiring and riveting and a total thrill. By then, I had developed my heat rash problem. Earlier, Gisele looked at me and said, 'What's wrong with your neck?' And then I realized my legs had also broken out in a bad rash, and it was very weird and increasingly painful. So, after the Keersmaker, I went home and laid around in pain basically until I managed to fall asleep. So, that part really sucked and still sucks, and it's horribly hot again today, but at least I can hide out in the air-conditioned theater until dark. That's my weekend in full for you. Tonight is the first of our last four shows. It's awesome here, and the success is really great, but I am counting the seconds until I can get the hell out of this broiling fucking town and back to Paris where it's two or three degrees cooler at least. How's Monday? ** Oliver, I was going to read your piece yesterday until I got locked out of the theater and left sans computer until this morning. I'll hope to read it during a lull today. Looking forward to that. ** Brendan, Glad the opening went so well. Yeah, it's an increasingly nice art scene down that way from what I've been able to tell. Ah, Vegas, the whole shebang. You've earned it. Gandhi would surely look the other way. ** Math, Hey, pal. What is going on with this NYC bedbug plague? It's so weird. So, yeah, good that you're getting out of the pad for that reason at least. Have a great time with your great friend with the great timing. Lots of love. ** Okay, I'm going to go try to make my rash disappear if I can. I'm sorry for the kind of shabby p.s. The rash is making me feel pretty shitty today. Above are some words of wisdom from the great Ivy herself to keep you around until tomorrow. See you then.
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