Delving into delectable diaries (National Post December 24, 2008)

Delving into delectable diaries

Barbara Kay, National Post  Published: Wednesday, December 24, 2008

As one looks back on the year's accumulated joys and regrets, consider diaries as natural literary accompaniments to the festive season's sub-themes of summing-up and self-assessment.

Diaries that begin in youth and accompany a writer through life begin with reportage of events, but invariably segue into reflection, comparison of the older with the younger self and self-judgment as the subject ages. They can be an excellent source of wisdom, but the best are never didactic; the wisdom arises organically from the life lived. For widespread appeal they must also contain entertaining social history.

Which is why, although the diary would seem to be the easiest and most natural form of writing -- indeed, most creative writing courses assign "journaling" to students as a means of opening the creative sluices --any diary worth reading by the general public is always the work of a professional (and a professional writer is certainly what adolescent diarist Anne Frank would have become).

Unless writing about specific, horrible events --like Anne Frank or Victor Klemperer archiving their experiences in the Holocaust -- diarists leading lives in normal times should eschew broody solipsism. Once a diarist goes all inward and analytical, he can too easily dissolve into grievance-mongering, self-justification and enemy-bashing. Or a moroseness the reader has no wish to share -- the problem with Kafka's diary.

Outward clubbability but inward loneliness is a great asset to a diarist. Over the past few years I've been enjoying just such a mix in the diaries of James Lees-Milne, a bisexual Englishman who worked for The National Trust. Lees-Milne's diaries combine

three sine qua nons of the great diarist: total authority in his life's professional passion, the stylistic brio to convey it and a social life rich in fodder for high-level gossip. (A New Yorker cartoon has one woman saying to another, "Are all Brits bisexual, or just the ones who publish their diaries?")

The unapologetically snobbish and judgmental Lees-Milne certainly delivers on all fronts. On Buckingham Palace: "What a heavy, uninspired, lumpish elevation! The Corinthian pilasters are too small for the heavy entablature; the columns in the centre-piece ought to be disengaged. As for the circular basin of the Victoria Memorial, it is not too bad ... but the black Michaelangelesque figures are far too large... "

Lees-Milne was a onetime lover of Tom Mitford and a dear lifelong friend of sisters Nancy and Debo Mitford, who figure large in innumerable luncheons, dinners and teas. Lees-Milne's social calendar also included tete-atetes with Lady Emerald Cunard and Prince Charles (whom he pitied for his insecurity).

There being no specific diary template, diarists are at complete stylistic liberty to embellish or restrain themselves as the impulse

takes them. In matters of the heart, Lees-Milne often adopts a style of startling, almost Hemingwayesque minimalism that conveys unexpected depths of feeling underneath its surface asperity. Of Tom Mitford, who died in the Second World War, Lees-Milne writes (Nov. 12, 1944): "[Tom] is off to Burma at his own request, for he does not wish to go to Germany killing German civilians, whom he likes. He prefers to kill Japanese, whom he does not like. Tom makes me sad because he looks so sad, and because I am so deeply devoted to him."

At the moment, I am making my way through a 700-page, seven-layer cake of a book, The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists. Entries are set out by calendar days, with a hugely diverse number of contributors spanning the last four centuries -- from Samuel Pepys to Canada's own Second World War diplomat Charles Ritchie to 20th-century novelist Barbara Pym. (I loved Pym's entry on my birthday, Nov. 27, in 1964: "Lunched at the Golden Egg. Oh, the horror -- the cold stuffiness, claustrophobic place of tables, garish lights and mass produced food...But perhaps one could get something out of it for a novel. The setting for a breaking-off, or some terrible news or an unwanted declaration of love.")

Today, Dec. 24, includes, among lesser lights, an entry from Noel Coward (Jamaica, 1954): "The news from home is mainly concerned with disaster, floods and gales and houses collapsing. I am very lucky to be here in the warmth and so I will crush down the embittered nausea which the festive season arouses in me and plunge into gaiety with an adolescent whoop."

I suspect publishable diaries are a thing of the past, what with the ascendancy of the ubiquitous blog. Will we one day see a print anthology of "The World's Greatest Bloggists"? Hmmm. Something else to consider over the roasting chestnuts and the open fire while Jack Frost nips at your nose. Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good 2009.