The Richard Burton Diaries (15 page)

Yet it is clear that such a depiction of diary-writing as a genre is one-dimensional and misleading. The very process of remembering, most certainly of writing, is itself an editorial process, offering many opportunities for self-censorship. Diarists, it can be argued, always have one eye on a readership, even if that readership is to be found after their own death, or even if it is only themselves. There is no sense in which diaries (written at the time) are any more ‘natural’ than autobiographical memoirs written years after the events being described, although obviously they offer different kinds of information and are subject to their own genre conventions.

Not everything in the diaries, it has to be acknowledged, would pass muster in a court of law. Yet it is possible to agree with Robert Fothergill that these diaries, like other diaries, are ‘true to life’ if not necessarily ‘truthful’. As Fothergill writes, ‘[e]ven in their disguises, evasions, and lies diarists are responding to the pressure of first-hand experience; they are being, for better or worse, themselves.‘
¹⁴

The extent to which Burton's diaries were accessible to his wives, and more generally known to exist by his family, friends and entourage, has already been discussed. That Burton knew that Elizabeth, or Susan, or Sally, might read his entries may have encouraged a certain degree of self-censorship. That should not surprise: all diarists, even those who keep diaries written in code and in locked vaults, must edit themselves and their testimonies to some degree.

The fact that Richard did not write about something in the diary does not mean it did not happen. There were days, weeks, sometimes months, even during the ‘diary years’, when he did not write. From July 1965 to March 1966, from November 1967 to July 1968, and from September 1970 to June 1971, he appears to have kept no record.
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And, of course, he decided how much to
write, which could vary enormously. Variations in the length of the diaries means that the nature of the record kept is quite different. Although he kept a diary in 1975, ostensibly over a period of eight months, this amounted to only a little over 8,000 words. Most of the entries are quite short.

Furthermore, at times Richard did not, or could not, remember what had happened even though he was keeping a diary. There are days in some years when the only entry is the word ‘booze’. That might cover a multitude of sins! One must ask whether Richard was always fully honest with himself in entering his record of the previous day's proceedings. He sometimes records that he and Elizabeth rowed, or that he behaved badly in a public or social context, but rarely does he go into any great detail. He chose not to relive those episodes beyond a brief mention. Equally there were other events and episodes which do not reflect badly on Richard but which also fail to appear in the diaries.

Melvyn Bragg's view was that the diaries were the place where Burton could detach himself from the celebrity whirlwind, the gossip columns and mischievously playful interviews, and be serious, honest with himself. They were his record of truth – ‘He swore on the Bible of these Notebooks’.
¹⁶
One certainly senses in the diaries a level of disengagement, a distancing from his public persona. Burton would have been aware that there was someone called ‘Richard Burton’ who existed in the press, on the television screen, in the cinema, who millions of people thought they knew (and still do). It was not always someone he recognized. In his diary, he could construct his own sense of himself, of who he was, what he valued, and where he was going.

In pursuing the question of the diaries’ ‘truth’ one example may be considered. Much speculation at the time and since has surrounded his relationship with the French-Canadian actor Geneviève Bujold, with whom he appeared in
Anne of the Thousand Days
. Taylor evidently suspected Burton of having had some kind of fling with Bujold, and this was a matter of contention between them. Yet Burton offers no support whatsoever for such suspicion in his diaries; quite the opposite.
¹⁷
Richard's own testimony in one of his last entries in the ‘diary years’ sequence, on 15 March 1972, was that he and Elizabeth had been faithful to each other throughout their marriage, and there is nothing in the diaries to contradict this. Sceptics will point out, particularly as Taylor had access to the diaries, that that is exactly what one would suspect, and of course one cannot prove a negative. But the available evidence for any relationship with Bujold is exceedingly slender – despite the generalized claim, for example, that Burton slept with ‘all his leading ladies’ (with exceptions made, presumably, for Sue Lyon, Ava Gardner and Deborah Kerr at the time of
The Night of the Iguana
; Claire Bloom at the time of
The Spy Who Came in from the Cold
; and Rex Harrison at the time of
Staircase
!), or the suggestion that Burton gave nicknames to all his conquests, so that the fact that he called Bujold ‘Gin’ was proof of sexual congress.

Part of the difficulty here is that Burton's reputation both preceded him and has survived him; that there is a public appetite for believing the most outlandish claims about his life; and that many of those who have written about Burton prefer the sensationalism of a ‘good story’ to more sober evaluation of the evidence. Much of what passes for biographical writing is badly researched and heedless of the obligation of any serious writer to corroborate testimonies. Instead, the many lurid, sensational and improbable stories about Burton's drinking and private life are recycled and embellished. As a consequence, Burton's personality, achievement and importance continue to be regularly misrepresented and misunderstood. All too often he appears as a caricature: brawling, drinking, womanizing, throwing his talent away in an orgy of self-destruction. In reading such books one is reminded of John Updike's comment that most biographies are ‘novels with indexes’.
¹⁸

Of course, Burton himself was guilty of telling tall tales about his life and times, sometimes, it would appear, simply to see whether he would be believed, sometimes because he feared being thought boring and thus strove for maximum dramatic effect, employing considerable poetic licence in the process. As John Cottrell and Fergus Cashin noted, ‘Burton the story-teller has never been one to let concern for accuracy outweigh his concern for effect. ... Burton tells and retells so many stories that they grow or become confused, but so marginally that he does not realize it and sincerely believes he is reproducing the original.‘
¹⁹

Among those who knew Burton, often it is individuals who were most peripheral to the man who are relied on most heavily for ‘authoritative’ quotations about his escapades, or even insert themselves into the narrative of his life.
²⁰
Even those who may be counted as friends good and true, can fall into the trap of colouring their reminiscences for dramatic effect, of conflating episodes, of imposing their own explanations and interpretations on Burton's life and, naturally enough in the process, casting themselves in the best possible light.

Burton's diaries have no automatic claim to ‘truth’.
²¹
But they are surely one of the most important sources, if not the most important, for Burton's life, at least during the years when they were kept. They allow Burton to speak for himself.

Editing the Diaries

Melvyn Bragg, who published the authorized biography of Burton –
Rich
– in 1988, had access to most of the diaries presented here.
²³
In his work, Bragg drew substantially on Burton's own words, citing about one-fifth of what he had
access to at the time of writing. Inevitably he was forced to be highly selective, and could not provide the level of contextual information and referencing that is possible in a fuller scholarly edition.

It is not suggested that Melvyn Bragg, in any significant way, mishandled or misrepresented the diaries’ contents. There are a few places in which the transcription differs from his but, for the most part, the spirit in which Richard Burton's words are rendered in Bragg's biography are faithful to what one might feel to be the original and intended meaning. Yet it is only through publication of the diaries as they were written that one will be able fully to appreciate Burton's own words and the insights the diaries offer into his life. Rather than Bragg, like any biographer, allowing Burton's words to appear at a time in the book and on a subject both of Bragg's own choosing, the diaries allow Burton's voice to be heard unmediated, direct, clear and in full.

The first principle adopted in editing the diaries has been to refrain from doing anything that might alter the meaning of the text. Where the text is ambiguous, then it has been left ambiguous, and the reader may make up his or her mind as to its meaning. However, where Richard Burton crossed out or altered words or passages these reconsiderations have been respected.

A second principle, clearly subordinate to the first, is to remove any unnecessary obstacles to readability and accessibility. There seems little point in irritating or confusing readers by retaining typing errors or misspellings when no such ambiguity exists. (It cannot be said of Richard Burton, as it has been said of Virginia Woolf, that his spelling was ‘so consistently good that [his] rare aberrations are preserved’.)
²⁴
Abbreviations have been bodied out and capitalization and punctuation have been rationalized, providing no damage is done thereby to the meaning of the text. Ampersands, unless integral to the title of (for instance) a business, have been replaced by ‘and’, the occasional
replaced by ‘therefore’. Where handwriting places the title of a film or a book in inverted commas, that has been changed to italics. Where double quotation marks were used it has often been possible to render these as single quotation marks, more in tune with current practice. Such transformations have been made silently, that is, without the need for a footnote to mark them. The text has also been formatted in a consistent manner, so that dates are presented in standardized form.

As for referencing, the primary objective followed in referencing the diaries has been to provide such information as is necessary or helpful for the reader in allowing him or her to understand the text. Thus, individuals mentioned have been given their full name, profession, vital dates (where known) and any other information of relevance (such as previous or future connections with Richard Burton). This has been provided once, on first mention (the reader will need to consult the index if they seek further information following a second or subsequent mention). Where no clarificatory footnote is provided, that is because no further information about that individual or location has been found.

Book and film references have been clarified, where possible. Where Burton quoted from a poem, play or book it has usually been possible to identify the relevant line or passage and provide contextual (sometimes corrective) information. Where he referred to current affairs or historical events, brief explanatory notes have been provided. Where he mentioned locations, places, hotels or restaurants, again, clarification has been supplied wherever possible. Specialist terms have also been explained where this has been thought necessary.

Except in very few cases it has not been thought necessary to provide references to the references, as it were. It should also be noted that the professional historian's caution has been rendered implicit rather than explicit, otherwise the word ‘presumably’ would make regular and tedious appearances throughout the notes. For some references at least, an element of guesswork and conjecture is involved, and corrections and further information will be welcomed for any future editions.

Distances are given in the form appropriate to the location described. Thus, in the UK and the USA they are given as miles, but in Switzerland and France as kilometres.

Virginia Woolf wrote that it was the role of the biographer to ‘admit contradictory versions of the same face’.
²⁵
Neither the diarist nor, most certainly, the diarist's editor, may be thought a biographer, and there are significant differences between diarists and autobiographers, whatever claims may be made for the all-embracing genre of ‘life writing’. Yet Woolf's observation pushes us to recognize the fragmented nature of the individual life, the constructed character of any would-be coherent personal identity, and the difficulties that face any attempt to approach the ‘essence’ of any one person.
²⁶

Richard Burton was a complex, conflicted, and contradictory character. There is ample evidence of this in his diaries, as in other aspects of his turbulent life. It would be rash to claim that the diaries reveal the ‘true’ Richard Burton, not least because it is not clear why the Burton who sits quietly at his typewriter assembling his account of his previous day's activities should automatically be considered any more genuine than the Burton whose antics filled newspaper column inches.