I can't seem to avoid the Great Beast at the moment. After watching The Third Man last weekend and a documentary on Graham Greene that formed part of the extras, I decided to reread 'Excursions in Greeneland' Julian Maclaren-Ross' account of meeting Graham Greene to discuss the adaptation of one of his books, when the great writer lived on Clapham Common (I used to drink in The Windmill pub which sounds like the one they visit to get a takeout of beer). Having enjoyed that, I decided to reread the rest of Memoirs of the Forties, a classic eyewitness record of the characters of Soho and Fitozrovia including Tambimuttu, Dylan Thomas, Cyril Connolly, Nina Hammett, Anthony Carson (Peter Brooke), the Two Roberts, John Minton etc - many of whom are the subjects of posts on this blog.
One reminiscence I'd forgotten was his brief meeting with Picasso at a party at Feliks Topolski's studio, in which he amusingly portrays the excruciating dilemma of what do you say to the world's greatest living painter? Maclaren-Ross decides on an attempt at flattery by describing the hideous 'cubist' -style advertising on display on the London Underground at that period, poorly imitating the Master's work, but it doesn't seem to come across as he had wished.
It is during this party that he also runs into novelist, biographer and man of letters Arthur Calder-Marshall. (My comments in square brackets). 'Ara his wife was not with him that night, and he'd been hot on the track of Aleister Crowley, then still alive, whom he'd never met but wanted to write a book about. I didn't know Crowley either, but I told Calder-Marshall of what Joan Graham-Murray had recently recounted of his final semi-respectable phase.
'Joan, a friend of Louis Wilkinson alias Marlow, Crowley's literary executor who afterward scattered his ashes on the wind [Wilkinson read at the funeral in Brighton, but did not scatter the ashes, the fate of which has been subject to conflicting accounts], had gone to stay with Wilkinson in the country, taking with her a copy of my short story collection The Nine Men of Soho. Crowley, also there as a guest [this has to be Netherwood], had idly glanced through this, and saying he'd like to see what the young men were up to nowadays, asked Joan's permission to borrow it. When he returned the book she saw that the margins had been scribbled over with rather petulant old-world comments, such as: 'Yes, yes, all very well, but why doesn't he tell us what the girl's background is?! Who are her people?!! and so on [this seems characteristic].
'He also asked Joan if she knew me, she said yes, and Crowley then said testily: 'Well next time you see him, tell him to be more precise about his characters' origins. He seems to ignore all the traditional social values that make up the fabric of our civilisation,' which, since I'd always understood Crowley's mission as Worst Man in the World was to tear this fabric down, amused me quite a lot. But then maybe all diabolists are conservative at heart, or where would be the fun?
'Calder-Marshall, amused as well but slightly frowning since this didn't equate with his idea of Crowley either, asked me if I thought the story true. I answered that I'd seen the annotated copy myself [it would be interesting to know what happened to that copy, seems to have disappeared] and had offered to give Joan another in exchange, to which she had replied with the best-known line of Shaw's Eliza ['Not bloody likely']. Memoirs of the Forties (Alan Ross, 1965, 212-214)
Later, back at Maclaren-Ross' flat Calder-Marshall storms out after MR shouts at his girlfriend, calling him: 'A bad man, worse than Crowley!'
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