Edward Upward interview

Sandown, Isle of Wight, 27 March 1997

Goodbye to Berlin

RH:   And did you meet any of the people who figured in [Christopher] Isherwood’s stories?  Jean Ross and -

EU:   I met Jean Ross in Berlin, but we didn’t particularly hit it off.  I wasn’t her type at all.

She wanted to be an actress.  She was an absolutely hopeless actress and she wanted him to write some piece or other for her to recite or - I don’t know what it was.  He took a lot of trouble over it and he said she said, “This won’t do at all!  I know a man who’ll do it in no time.” [laughs]  She got some man and he did do it in no time and Jean was very disapproving of Christopher Isherwood and said, “I suppose you think you are superior to people like us.” He said, “In fact Jean, I do.” [laughs]  Yes.  And I think that riled him a bit, and I think in a way he enjoyed exposing her ridiculous behaviour - her gullibility.  I don’t know if you’ve read the stories…

RH:   I have, yes.

EU:   You would know.  But it’s been worth a lot of money to Christopher Isherwood, as you probably know - appeared in various forms, and finally, the last one, I still see it advertised here, the - what was it called?

RH:   Cabaret.

EU:   What?

RH:   Cabaret.

EU:   Cabaret.

RH:   With Liza Minelli.  …

RH:   And what was your impression of what Isherwood was doing in Berlin?

EU:   Er, he was there as - Berlin - he confessed later on - meant boys.  But unlike other people there he left the scene early and went to bed so he was fit to write.  He’d sit in a café in the morning, doing his writing - in a café, thinking, “What a wonderful life!”   …

Defection of Auden and Isherwood

RH:   So, obviously a lot of people felt that Auden and Isherwood had let the side down by going to America just before the war [in January 1939].

EU:   Yes, they did feel that, yes.  Well, I’m afraid I felt - my feeling was really, “I’m glad they’ve got out - they’re out of it.”

Silly really, I didn’t hold it against them they’d got out.  I did hold it against them they’d taken up this line [that] they were no longer anti-Fascist, but the fact they were out [of it] I don’t hold against them.

RH:   You don’t feel - [Stephen] Spender said in his memoirs [World Within World] he regretted Isherwood and Auden hadn’t been around to give their commentary on the Blitz or… 

EU:   Er, yes, it would’ve been interesting, but they decided to have their war - you see everyone else got their war - somewhere else.  Auden went to Spain but he was kept away from the danger-spots.

He wasn’t told by [Harry] Pollitt to go and get killed as some people suggested. [laughs]  But he was used for propaganda purposes and he wrote that poem on Spain which he afterwards repudiated but it sold very well and was good propaganda.

He felt it wasn’t genuine but I don’t know.  I think what upset Auden was seeing the churches burnt out even though priests were very reactionary there, but Isherwood was much more courageous about being homosexual than Auden.  I don’t know whether it was the death of his father in the war had anything to do with it - they both of course hated anything that smelt of patriotism.

But he certainly, well they both [were] prepared to take risks in China [for the book Journey to a War].  Auden used to walk around in slippers everywhere, his feet were so bad, but he had perfect confidence no bomb would hit him.

RH:   Did he actually in your experience wear carpet slippers?

EU:   No, no.

Link: Enitharmon Books - http://www.enitharmon.co.uk/