I Alone Have Escaped to Tell You: My Life and Pastimes

Chapter One: Reflections in a Golden I

o n e reflections in a golden i to say that this book is not the confessions of st. augustine may sound as gratuitous as saying that none of my novels is War and Peace, but the remark has point. In writing these memoirs I have been conscious of the fact that I am not writing the story of a soul; that would be an altogether more depressing exercise. The septuagenarian finds selfdelusion difficult, and there is an account of my life that could be of interest only to God and myself. Remember Augustine’s addressee. Only a saint could be so unflinchingly honest about his life, and I—another needless disclaimer—am no saint. What I have written is the truth, but of courseitisnotthewholetruth,noteventhefullergraspImyself might have of it. Even for that, I would want to invoke St. Paul’s neque meipsum iudico, his admission that he remained largely a mystery to himself and was even unable to say for certain that he was in the state of grace. When friends of mine suggested that I write an autobiography I was at first amused. But the thought grew on me, as unfriendly suggestions will, and I imagined writing little bursts on the order of the End Notes I did for each issue of Crisis: episodes, people, events, arranged more or 1 2 Reflections in a Golden I lesschronologically,butnotaimingatanynarrativecontrolbeyondbefore and after. The thought enabled me to begin. What emerged is not quite that, but it is close. I recall the past in terms of large categories that enable me to gather together events and activities and people. Of course there is sometransgressionof genera.Theaccounthasabeginning,amiddle,and, if not an end, brings matters to where the shadows have lengthened, the sun sinks slowly in the west, and I find myself praying for mercy and the grace of a happy death. Autobiography is very likely the most various of literary genres. It includes the confessional account—edifying like St. Augustine’s, the oppositeinthecaseof Rousseau’s,corruptaspracticedbyAnaïsNinandHenry Miller, incredible in the case of Frank Harris. Chesterton’s seems to be about everyone but himself, as in a way is that of Kingsley Amis. Most of Amis’s chapters bear the names of the persons and places he chooses to pillory and excoriate. The targets of these witty put-downs could scarcely enjoy them, but the reader is soon in the grips of morose delectation. Outright laughter, actually. But then Amis is pretty hard on himself as well. Collections of letters are more unbuttoned, even more so diaries, particularly when they were kept without any thought of eventual publication . I would mention Evelyn Waugh’s letters to Nancy Mitford and Diana Cooper, but he seems to have assumed these more or less pagan ladies were preserving his letters. Why this difference? The autobiography , excepting Augustine’s, perhaps, is a device that enables the writer to give a carefully edited version of his passage through time. But even Augustinefailstomentionthenameof Adeodatus’smother.GrahamGreene apparently forgot the names of his children. The autobiographer’s besetting temptation is summed up in Nietzsche’s question, “Why am I so wonderful ?” If life is a book in which one sets out to write one story and ends by writing another, an autobiography tends to be an account which, if not hagiographical, seldom puts the writer in the dock. Even recounting unflattering episodes can seem a preemptive strike. I began this task reluctantly but soon was taking culpable pleasure in the exercise. Aristotle distinguished between memory and reminiscence, and I began to see what he meant. A hitherto forgotten past—people, places, events—suddenly comes vividly to mind, emerging from who knows what recesses of the self. The greatest problem is to find a principle of exclusion. So much of what comes flooding back can scarcely interest anyone but myself. It is the thought that much of the contents of memory will be interred with one’s bones that spurs one on. If nothing else, this record may be of interest to my children and grandchildren. Because the real story of one’s life is known only to God, few autobiographers put themselves in His presence as they write. The shaping of events makes one acutely aware of the mystery of even the most ordinary humanlife.“Knowthyself”isnotonlythesloganforthemostdifficulttask of all; it is one few of us care to undertake. The autobiographer becomes increasinglyawarethatheispluckingitemsfromavastundergroundriver...