Che en el Püji Mapu-Wajontu Mapu (la persona en el plano territorial)

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5.2 The Ordinariness of London Life

…..there is no denying it, London is dull (Eve, 1919:43).

As seen, Cocteau’s influence in advancing the cause of the avant-garde and modernism is unmistakeable. However, as this section will demonstrate, he was helped by the conditions prevailing in England and the pre-war work of the English avant-garde. While dissatisfaction with London life lingered in the English mind, a fully rounded picture of what life could be, incorporating more than just fashion, could be co-opted to alleviate it. It will be shown that Eve, especially in the persona of Eve, presented the concept of lifestyle modernism to readers, and that the ordinariness of London life was seen as a core value of being avant-garde.

In 1919, in only the second issue, Eve expressed her ennui with London. Nancy Cunard moved to Paris in January 1920, having been advised by Wyndham Lewis and Pound that she would be happier with life there (Mackrell, 2013:77). Pound wrote in 1922 that there was nothing new in London, so ‘…therefore, Paris is pleasanter than London’ (1922:49). The avant-garde life of London was much changed after the war and it may well be that ‘…something was lost… and certainly lost to London’ (Brooker, 2007:9). Pre-war London had been a hot-bed for avant-garde ideas and groups that, by 1918, had ‘vanished forever… Vorticism was virtually forgotten’ (Brooker, 2007:12). Eve recognised this in 1920, asking

Did you ever wonder where the Bohemians have gone now that the Café Royal is not quite the brain-storm-centre it was? (Eve, 1920:159).

Generally, Eve found London enjoyable, but travelling to Paris and the south of France remained a frequent distraction. Eve told readers that everyone took frequent short trips on the boat train rather than one longer trip (Eve, 1926:390). This will have reinforced the connection between the new pleasure of travel, particularly to Paris, where artistic society and Bohemianism were believed to thrive.

Page 75 of 162 Brooker (2007:31) notes Arthur Symons in 1918, when asked where London’s Latin Quarter was, remarking that it did not exist. This same quote by Symons appeared in Vanity Fair in 1915 -

there is no instinct in the Englishman to be companionable in public… for the café is responsible for a good part of Bohemianism in Paris and we have no cafés (Symons, 1915:47).

As this appeared in 1915, rather than 1918 as Brooker suggests, there is a question over Cork’s assertion that

Cafés were a crucial part of a London artist’s life during this exceptionally lively period: they served as informal forums where rebellious young painters could encounter other members of the avant-garde and debate the latest developments in a rapidly changing innovative momentum (1985:217).

Nevertheless, if Cork is right, perhaps the likes of the ABC Restaurants and Lyons Coffee Houses filled the void, despite Symons not seeing in them the Parisian cachet of a La Rotonde, or Le Dôme. Other venues favoured by artists included the Café Royal, the British Museum Teashop and the Sceptre Tavern and Chop House (Brooker, 2007:96), where Wyndham Lewis and Pound were regulars. These cheaper venues offered tea and cake, or perhaps scrambled eggs on toast which Brooker terms ‘dainty English ordinariness’ (2007:114). It may be that English tastes were more ordinary, making Parisian mores seem exotic and exciting, but these coffee houses had their Bohemian attractions. As manifestations of ‘English ordinariness’, they gave rise to avant-garde one-upmanship, with Wyndham Lewis ‘blasting’¹⁷ Lyons Coffee Houses, the preferred haunt of artist David Bomberg (Brooker, 2007:114), in his avant-garde magazine Blast in 1914. The coffee houses were therefore associated with the English avant-garde. Other manifestations of ordinariness listed by Wyndham Lewis included George Robey, a popular music-hall comedian, the Gaiety Girls and Gaby Deslys, all blessed in Blast (Tickner, 1997:n.p.)

17 Blast was the Vorticist publication first produced by Wyndham Lewis in 1914, with a second and final edition in 1915. Lists of people and things either blessed or blasted appeared in the 1914 edition. Nancy Cunard and Iris Tree pored over it, noting the blessing of music-hall. Cunard was particularly pleased to see her mother’s lover, Sir Thomas Beecham, blasted (Mackrell, 2013:67).

Page 76 of 162 Beaton’s Vogue cutting of 1927 advised readers that a more daring and ‘Bohemian’

venue was the Cave of Harmony. It was all a matter of attitude, as even somewhere Bohemian like the Cave served tea (n.d.:n.p). There, as Mannin relates, she and a friend, ‘viciously sat, with our pot of tea and our toasted scone, smoking in public…’

(1971:72). Eve devoted two pages to the Cave in December 1927, saying it was owned by Elsa Lanchester who had fashioned it with ‘typical Bohemian ingenuity’, employing fellow actress Kathleen Hale to decorate a refreshment room. It was inexpensive and staged plays by Cocteau. H G Wells, Charles Laughton and Arnold Bennett were regulars (Eve, 1927:693). The impression of going to a club was that it would introduce attendees to a Bohemian and artistic experience, with a chance of seeing someone famous.

The attitude at the Eiffel Tower restaurant was Parisian - an ‘experiment of bringing Paris to London’ (Brooker, 2007:129). Regulars who could not afford the prices might benefit from being subsidised by more affluent but unsuspecting customers. In this, it resembled some Parisian haunts which supported poor artists, such as Rosalie’s (Franck, 2002:209) or Marie Wassilieff’s Cantine in Montparnasse (Wiser, 1983:9).

It seems, then, that the English were conscious of the ordinariness of their lives by comparison with life in Paris. For Mannin, as discussed, this was countered by doing things with attitude, like sitting ‘viciously’. As she notes, ‘we were conscientiously rebels’ (1971:32). Something as basic as a toasted scone, ‘English ordinariness’ for Brooker, could be avant-garde if eaten with a rebellious attitude.

As seen, Cocteau was responsible for the introduction of less high-brow entertainment into what could pass as avant-garde or modern. However, he had been preceded in England by Wyndham Lewis, who had included music-hall turns in his lists to be blessed in Blast in 1914 alongside the blasting of Lyons Coffee Houses.

It seems likely, then, that ‘English ordinariness’ influenced what is now called lifestyle modernism. As such, it must have assisted the passage of the mundane into the avant-garde, at least in the English perception.

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