Today, over lunch, after a couple of meetings, one with the Czech who is to translate our word lists, one with Bryan Waldrop about the Business Course and Book and Tape. Milena suggested that I write a short novel to fit in as a part of the Advanced Course. Apparently they do this at Harvard, and she saw them doing it while she was back there. I would retain copyright and get royalties, she should publish 3,000 or so copies to sell to students, and then maybe to the public. I said I was very interested1. Went to the library, returned Bertrand Russell, giving up on relativity, and the book about Peter Brook’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream – written by a boring, peevish Marxist about a complete wanker who hasn’t had a clear idea in his life. Fuck them. Got Peter Hall’s Diaries. Another smug bastard? Why am I reading these theatre books? And got a Past Masters book on the Buddha. Pronounced Bud-dhuh. At the British Consul I photocopied the full text of Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech, so I can enjoy it at my leisure. Then got a couple of passes, to allow me, and Barbora if she wants to go, to get reasonably close to President Bush. The F.B.I. or somebody has gone up and down Wenceslas Square handing out posters to shopkeepers. Almost every shop now has a picture of Bush in the window, looking completely bewildered. There’s something wrong with his jaw. From one of the balconies of Wenceslas Square a banner has been hung up — “We Are Happy.” There seems to be a note of self-reassurance in that. Lots of flags up, the bullet-proof box almost finished and now decked out in red, white and blue. The national colours of America, England and Czechoslovakia. There’s a wooden construction, for the most important guests to sit on; Shirley Temple etc. And another one for the TV camera.
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Wrote; A couple of pages of the Milena novel. Called, for the moment, May. I’ve got some good ideas. But I’m not sure how I can carry them out and keep my syntax simple. ‘I had thought…’ in Chapter One is a bit difficult.
During the meeting Milena told me some interesting things about the Czech language. How there is a body to revise the spelling every ten years, to come up with neologisms, etc. One change was from ‘s’ to ‘z’ in President, Philosophy. One of their coinages was rozhlas for radio. They are situated up near the Strahov Stadium. So that student’s question “Who is responsible for the terrible way in which the English words are spelled?” had some logic!
This is something I had forgotten. My first offer of publication. It was to be several years until the next. Perhaps I should have taken it.