Life Embitters

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This is a book of narrative literature, the kind I would have liked to write, if I hadn’t been completely taken up reporting the news, that is, if the frantic, disperse life of a professional journalist had allowed me. But it proved impossible. Of course, it is an open question whether I would have had any talent to bring to such narrative. I felt an interest, a pull towards this kind of literature. But that amounts to very little! I believe any — shall we say literary — point of view derives from a personal ability to grasp external reality aided and abetted by long, continuous experience of observing, remembering, and hard work. I have always lacked “non-productive” time. In any case, this is what my attempts have achieved. I say that because it would be wrong to describe them as anything else.

Journalism has its good sides: it opens up huge areas for scrutiny and leads to a great variety of human contacts, some of which are extremely interesting. This allows people who are inclined to roam, and feel like vague, unsubstantial shadows hovering briefly over this earth — that being my case — to move freely, particularly when the monetary element is reasonably buoyant. In certain periods of my life I have felt almost morosely fond of such gallivanting — I was a wanderer. I was to an extent a product of the value our currency held between the First World War and the Spanish Civil War. In this period, journalism enabled me to wander tirelessly and ingenuously and experience the most diverse situations. I flitted across Europe and tried out many different cuisines, slept in countless beds, and talked to a range of people. I wrote a lot.

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