JG Farrell in His Own Words : Selected Letters and Diaries

The Rogues Gallery: the Faber and Booker Prizes 1971–74

The Rogues Gallery The Faber and Booker Prizes 1971–74 To Carol Drisko Egerton Gardens 28 April 1971 Dear Carol, Your ESP did not deceive you: I got back here about ten days ago and have been slowly recovering and trying to get down to work. I think I must wait until I see you to discuss India. I don’t believe my feelings about the country changed significantly after Jaipur but I know that the general feeling of unavailingness increased and the depressing aspects of life there intensified ... I can no longer meld myself with another culture: I have an advanced case of spiritual hardening of the arteries and didn’t even try ... I was disappointed in the hippies too, as a matter of fact, and met only two or three who impressed me as ‘real people’. However there are any number of maladjusted young Americans drifting round India, though making precious little contact, it seemed to me, with any of the Indias. ... I have a 50% definite arrangement to go with my French friends Claude and Anna to Northern Ireland, there to rendezvous with a girlfriend of mine who goes by the improbable name of Bridget O’Toole who teaches at the New Univ. of Ulster (where she’s known as Red Bridie) and who has a car, in which we would then proceed South to the bogs where my uncle has his woodmill 1 in which, and this is the main point of the operation, an immense collection of books belonging to me have been mouldering for years; these I have been hoping, thanks to B.’s car, to shift back to England ... On the whole, though, since I am now in the middle of a massive and crucial effort to get into my new book I don’t think I 253 shall want to be wandering round Ireland ... [Troubles] has just been awarded something called the Faber Memorial Prize2 for 1971 (£250) which is to be handed over on May 6th. Piers [Paul] Read won it last year. Still no paperback rights sold, however, for all that. Love Jim To Bridget O’Toole Egerton Gardens 7 May 1971 Dear Brid, The prize-giving has taken place (I say this to make up for the inexplicable failure of the national papers to headline the matter): my hand was shaken in front of a spotty young man with a camera 3 by the gloved paw of Lady Faber (I assume she kept her glove on to avoid animal contact with a member of the lower orders). It was the sort of gathering best described by the word ‘function’: not much drink and a lot of middle-aged men in suits – these appeared to be chairmen, directors, members of the family (I kept thinking I was at a wedding and would have to make a speech) and a sprinkling of literary odds and sods (more sods than odds by the look of them). They replaced each other shaking my hand and making a few remarks with a dizzying rapidity, one chairman melting into another so quickly that I very often found myself finishing a sentence to one that I had begun to another. There was no shortage of Praise! In fact, I really gorged myself. I also gorged myself later at the Etoile where I was taken by a v. nice young editor at Faber’s called Matthew Evans. 4 Diana’s 5 dinner-party was quite pleasant, mainly because I spent the evening holding forth ... on the subject of India. The other guests after making a few attempts to change the subject sat there with glazed eyes until it was time to leave ... Things may be going a little better with mah book than when you rang (though they could hardly go worse). For £25 I’m reviewing Thor Heyerdahl 6 for Europa – this came via H. Tube. 1200 words. The weather has gone terrible here again. Are there any particular weekends that wd be better for me to visit than others? I feel in any case I might have to subject the matter to the progress of my J.G. Farrell in his Own Words 254 book. I hope soon to have made enough definite progress to leave with a clear conscience. I’ve invited M. Evans and his wife, Janet Dawson, Jogi and Malcolm to supper on Sunday evening. I...