Tennessee Williams, Journal Entries, 1937

I am finally getting around to reading the spectacular unedited edition of Tennessee Williams’ Notebooks, the journal he kept for his entire life (well, there is a 20 year gap in there). I have flipped through it – it’s a masterful edition. The journal entries themselves rest on the right-hand pages, and the left-hand pages have extensive footnotes – of whatever is referenced on said right-hand page. This makes for tremendously easy reading (no flipping into the back every other line to find the appropriate footnote). The left-hand side of the page has facsimiles of some of the journal pages (complete with his cross-outs, and the notes he would insert into his journal – sort of messages to his younger self, when he would re-read the entries). There are also facsimiles of typewritten copies of his early plays, poems, short stories. The footnotes are extensive, and the layout of the book just aids the reader in comprehending everything. You can flow with the text. Glance over to the left-hand side to pick up the footnote you need, and then glance back to the right-hand side to continue reading. His spelling mistakes are not corrected. His underlines are duplicated. And when words are struck out that seem important (evidence of his editing faculties), then the struck-out words are duplicated. Like this. It’s a marvelous reading experience (aside from all of the fascinating insights in the writing itself): Margaret Bradham Thornton, who also edited the two volumes (thus far) of Tennessee Williams’ letters, is also responsible for the editing of the Notebooks, and she has done a superb job. It is encyclopedic. For example, if Williams mentions that he read a poem in a journal that he liked, or felt inspired by – then that poem is sometimes included in the footnotes on the opposite page. This is a book for obsessives, make no mistake. Dilettantes need not apply.

There is something fascinating about reading a person’s journal, and I have to be in the mood for it. There are times when someone’s journal (I am thinking of Katherine Mansfield) is far superior to any of her fiction. Her journal is a classic.

Tennessee Williams’ journal has more of a fragmented emotional feel than Mansfield’s – he details everything, in scattered one-line pieces of prose. He loved to swim. So he tells his journal when he took a swim. He tells his journal about how he’s drinking too much coffee. His ailments (he was a bit of a hypochondriac – although who could blame him? His sister, who was equally “nervous”, was institutionalized and eventually lobotomized – which is THE defining event of Williams’ life.)

Tennessee Williams is not one of the writers who intimidates me into silence; there is something about his letters and memoirs that actually make me feel like creating. I read about his struggles – with form, with discipline – and it makes me want to get to it, pronto. Additionally, his opinion of himself is quite low – the journal is full of excoriating commentary on how lazy he is, how undisciplined – and yet his work ethic is so so strong. If nothing else, this man knew how to work. But who can say what it is like for another person. An artist is rarely satisfied. That’s part of the deal, part of the torment. You can always be doing better.

Some of these entries are just a yowl of pain. Insomnia, waking up in a nervous state, unable to settle down, feeling isolated … It’s heartbreaking to read. Yet, in the midst of this constant onslaught of nervous tension which he seems prone to, he keeps plugging away. He is tenacious.

Williams grew up in St. Louis, in a kind of claustrophobic household, with an overbearing and loving mother, and two siblings – Dakin and Rose. Rose always seems to have been a bit of a problem. I read about her and my heart aches. The brutality of psychiatric treatment at that time, and how randomly it was used on this poor girl (insulin treatments, shock treatments, and finally a prefrontal lobotomy) is enough to make even the coldest person tremble. Imagine that being your beloved sister. The Williams family did the best they could by Rose. She did not have a family that did not love her. She had a failed “debut” into society – something didn’t go quite right – the story isn’t clear – she was not a “success”, and the tailspin began. Delusions set in. She became obsessed with sex. One of her psychiatrists told her her problem was that she should “try to get married”. Unbelievable. She eventually was diagnosed with “dementia praecox”, an early term for schizophrenia.

Meanwhile, Tom (Tennessee) and Dakin were trying to live their lives – and resist the pull of the tragedy that was unfolding in their own home.

Mrs. Edwina Williams reading to her children, Rose and Tom (Tennessee)

Tom was going to a local college in St. Louis and living at home, feeling trapped and suffocated, and horrified at what was happening to his sister. In 1937, he was accepted into the University of Iowa. Rose had been institutionalized in January of 1937 (she would never, after that point, not be institutionalized). So there is an aspect of Tom going to college that feels like a getaway. The guilt he experienced at his ability to leave must have been excruciating and factors into the entire theme of The Glass Menagerie, especially Tom’s last monologue in that play:

I didn’t go to the moon, I went much further – for time is the longest distance between two places. Not long after that I was fired for writing a poem on the lid of a shoe-box. I left Saint Louis. I descended the steps of this fire escape for a last time and followed, from then on, in my father’s footsteps, attempting to find in motion what was lost in space. I traveled around a great deal. The cities swept about me like dead leaves, leaves that were brightly colored but torn away from the branches. I would have stopped, but I was pursued by something. It always came upon me unawares, taking me altogether by surprise. Perhaps it was a familiar bit of music. Perhaps it was only a piece of transparent glass. Perhaps I am walking along a street at night, in some strange city, before I have found companions. I pass the lighted window of a shop where perfume is sold. The window is filled with pieces of colored glass, tiny transparent bottles in delicate colors, like bits of a shattered rainbow. Then all at once my sister touches my shoulder. I turn around and look into her eyes. Oh, Laura, Laura, I tried to leave you behind me, but I am more faithful than I intended to be! I reach for a cigarette, I cross the street, I run into the movies or a bar, I buy a drink, I speak to the nearest stranger – anything that can blow your candles out! For nowadays the world is lit by lightning! Blow out your candles, Laura – and so goodbye …

Here are a couple of journal entries from the fall of 1937 – as he departs from St. Louis, and starts college in Iowa. He would never live at home again, except for brief stopovers. After he graduated in 1938, he went down to New Orleans, then moved on, basically accepting that he was gay (or a “sissy”, as he called himself) – which I wonder if living at home, and how nervous he was all the time, had of course to do with the fact that his sister was having a mental breakdown right before his eyes, but also the fact that he was homosexual, and he just knew that that could not fly. He was not hostile towards religion. He was drawn to it, and speaks to God often in his journals. He speaks of needing to receive Communion after going to visit Rose in the sanitarium – so the fear of what would happen to his soul must have been intense. His beloved grandfather, who was Tennessee’s companion and sometimes roommate for years, was a minister as well. But once he finally left, once he got out, and started to find his own tribe of like-minded artists, he could accept who he was. He only slept with one woman in his whole life – that was a girl he met at the University of Iowa, a passionate relationship by all accounts (he wrote a lot of poetry for her) – and when she threw him over for another guy, he was very hurt. He considered it a turning point in his life (he mentions it often, in later essays, when he was a much older man). These were all elements of Tom shuffling off the shackles of his homelife, and the terrifying things that were happening to his sister Rose.

That’s the context of these two entries. I am mostly struck by the first one because here he is, a college student in his mid-20s, and you can feel Glass Menagerie in this first entry. It is already there: full and complete. It would just take time and courage for him to write it out. But it’s already there.

Thurs. Sept. 16 [1937] Tonight is pleasant – A crisp chilly autumn night that elates the spirit and makes life seem a more definite, positive quantity.

Dakin is at the S.A.E. House for his first-rush date – I am waiting up – in my garret room – to let him in. This is a charming room. I almost hate to leave it. You see, I feel in my heart that I will never really return to this place. Whatever happens good or ill, this next year I think it will surely divorce me at last from the paternal roof – wish-fulfillment! –

But of course my life has been a series of returns – I do not seem to have much capacity for exploring new fields although I have no lack of desire.

I will see Clark and Holland tomorrow morning. I plan to leave Wed. night or Thurs. morning if nothing happens to prevent.

No, I haven’t forgotten poor Rose – I beg whatever power there is to save her and spare her from suffering.

My play is all but finished and I feel pretty well satisfied with it. Now I yearn for work on a new one – will not be content till I have made a good start on it. The next play is always the important play. The past, however satisfactory, is only a challenge to the future.

I want to go on creating. I will!!!

Wed. Nite – The miracle has happened – I’m on the train for Iowa City – at least I will get there – Deo volente I will remain – Feel pretty good – less sc nervous than I expected and rather jubilant – At last I am really doing something – Making a definite move – that is a satisfying thing – It is interesting to speculate upon the possibilities of this coming year – So much may or may not happen! Of course I am a little frightened – ca va sans dire – but I think I will carry it off okay –

Sat. Oct. 9 – Been up here over two weeks – love the place but am disgustingly ill and nervous – have jolting sensations in heart and almost constant tension – disturbed and frighten[ed] – I intend to avoid getting panicky about it – I must keep my head on my shoulders – but it is not very pleasant – Do other people have lives like this? Yes – some do – and endure it.

Aside from wretched bodily condition – which may pass off – I am getting along nicely – Encouraging enthusiastic letter from Willard – Skit to be presented by living newspaper – Nice associates up here – pleasant atmosphere – much to be interested in – if only I could be strong and free – ! Please, God, let me! I think of Rose and wonder and pity – but it is such a faraway feeling – how bound up we are in our own selves – our own memories – Why can’t we forget and think of others? It is the nature of the beast! I must admit that I have felt very beast-like lately and if things turn out well for me it will be better than I deserve.

My virtues – I am kind, friendly, modest, sympathetic, tolerant and sensitive –

Faults – I am ego-centric, introspective, morbid, sensual, irreligious, lazy, timid, cowardly –

But if I were God I would feel a little bit sorry for Tom Williams once in a while – he doesn’t have a very gay easy time of it and he does have guts of a sort even though he is a stinking sissy!

Yes, Tom. You do have guts. Not “of a sort”. But guts, end-stop.