Herself by Hortense Calisher

Author:Hortense Calisher [Calisher, Hortense]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780877950424
Amazon: 0877950423
Goodreads: 1014164
Publisher: Arbor House
Published: 1972-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Sunday, Oct. 12th

Sat aft Mary had taken me to see the temples and the statue of the reclining Buddha. Wonderful gay, ceramic temples, with snakepoints at roofline, orange-clad monks all about. Many Chinese figures, large and small, at temple doors and in gardens, brought over as ballast in ships. Palace is 18th century. Loved it all—a gay architecture, unchristian, with the pervading Buddhist sense of the “avoidance” of suffering, which so explains the “East.” This is in part what is “mysterious” to us. In morning M. had also taken me to Jim Thompson’s famous shop. Bought white silk, and went to M.’s dressmaker to have made. Jim invited me for dinner, for Sun. night, and is taking me to see weavers on Wed.

Sunday aft—had the P.E.N. club, which was a riot. Their first meeting. Hours of Siamese speeches, then Nilawan Pintong, the guiding spirit, introduced Cecil to intro me—me with orchid on shoulder etc. I talked a bit—Ninon then interpreted me at length—but only about two questions were asked, then suddenly things got wildly off track, Vietnam had been mentioned. Person after person came up, grabbed one of mikes and spoke. Books, literature, P.E.N. and me left far behind. Prince Prem asked one question—was Amer. interested in S.E. Asia books (he has been courted by Russians—we haven’t courted him) and another pro-Communist asked abt book clubs with intent to point up commercialization of U.S.A. All Amer. and English hilarious about what happened—“a typical Thai business,” said they. Went downstairs—we were in Auditorium of Priests Hosp—for tea—Princess Poon, a tiny gem of abt 70, who bad taught in San F., came up and sat next, also the Stiers, Cultural Asst.—another nice type—and wife. Mnwhile I had glimpsed the R.’s in the audience, and they had followed our group downstairs, along with the Enrights (Denis—Donald Keene’s friend, who had spoken to me at reception and promised to see me again). J. had on purple dress so cd follow with tail of my eye—obvious she intended to get to me no matter what. Much business of being stalked—she of course cd not know I was watching maneuverings—I left one group, attached myself to fringe of another—she determinedly following, all innocent-eyed. They hung around to very end; at one pt she attached herself to Princess Poon behind me—I ignored—after all I had met scores of people day before and cd be excused for not remembering. To no avail. Nobody left but Sanfords, Stierses, and Nilawan and me—we were invited to Stiers’s for cocktails—but still the purple dress was on my tail.

Mary Sanford paid them no attention, although she is a very polite Virginian. Said later there was something about J. she didn’t like although she hadn’t the slightest idea what it was, and hadn’t pursued the acquaintance. So maybe my reaction isn’t as biased as I had feared. Gathered this might be general fern, reaction to J., and possibly accounts for their social position here, or lack of really “in” one—women are very important in social life here, handle invites, etc.

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