The Assassin's Cloak: An Anthology of the World's Greatest Diarists

Everyone knows diaries are just... full of crap.

— Bridget Jones

Great in theory — diverse diaries organised calendrically, so for any given day of the year you get a grab-bag from Pepys to Brian Eno — not so great in practice. The two drawbacks to the structure are 1) the individual narratives are completely atomised — so-and-so could be about to give birth to triplets on June 18, then the next thing we hear from her, she's arranging flowers on June 29, 10 years earlier and 2) the more obscure or less heavily-featured diarists are liable to fade from memory between appearances (especially if you read this, as you're surely meant to, at the rate of one day per day), necessitating repeated visits to the endpapers to remind show more yourself who exactly the fuck was, to pick a name at random, Dearman Birchall.

The selection is heavily biased towards British society figures and the second World War, but I suppose this is a reflection of the available material. As you'd expect, the entertainment value varies enormously. At one end of the spectrum you've got deadly bores like the Tolstoys and Henry Thoreau (who actually uses the word "perchance") and fatuous, gossipy showoffs like Kenneth Williams, Joe Orton, and Andy Warhol. There are people like Marie Bashkirtseff and William Soutar who offer interesting perspectives, but are unfortunately boring/irritating individuals (especially the unremittingly dour Soutar). Goebbels is one of the more interesting voices — candid and energetic and terrifying — and Florence Farmborough stands out as a talented writer working with great material, e.g. her account of trying to treat two soldiers grotesquely burnt in a wine cellar conflagration. Then you've got establishment diarists like Alan Clarke, Tony Benn and Chips Channon doing their thing — witty and entertaining enough, but always with the self-consciousness of diarists writing for publication. The best diaries are surely those in the lineage of Pepys — peepshows looking onto private worlds.

The inclusion of the fictional diaries of Adrian Mole and Elizabeth Pepys is just silly (and in the case of the latter, misleading, with many reviewers believing it to be authentic). Here are a few bits I got a kick out of:

⦁ Byron is, predictably, thirsty. In fact he has "so violent a thirst that I have drank as many as fifteen bottles of soda-water, in one night, after going to bed, and been still thirsty — calculating, however, some lost from the bursting out and effervescence and overflowing of the soda-water, in drawing the corks, or striking off the necks of the bottles from mere thirsty impatience."

⦁ Anaïs Nin’s lovely day in the Bois de Boulogne.

⦁ Stendhal is thirsty: "I spent an hour with Mme. Tivollier, with whom I'm making great progess. I put my hand on her thigh without any objection on her part, I'd sleep with her with pleasure for a month."

⦁ H.L. Mencken agrees with me on the proper position for reading: "I not only read in bed every night; I also do nearly all my daylight reading lying down. I believe fully in the Chinese maxim that it is foolish to do anything standing up that can be done sitting, or anything sitting that can be done stretched out."

⦁ Bob Dylan’s awkward dinner at the Coppolas' circa 1975 (in the words of Eleanor Coppola): "He came with Marlon Brando and some people after Bill Graham's concert. Francis made a huge pot of spaghetti with olive oil, garlic and broccoli. I was in the kitchen getting things and everyone sat down at the table. Bob was hanging up his jacket or something. When he got to the dining room all the chairs were filled except one next to the children down at the end, so he sat down there, not near his wife or Marlon or Francis. He sat there looking real glum and about halfway through he got up and left."

⦁ Andy Warhol encounters an ex-President, June 5th, 1982:

I went into one of those Korean produce stores and there were about 15 people in there, it was mobbed, and I listened to this guy rave about a pineapple for ten minutes and by the time he was through, I was dying to get one, too.

He was saying, 'I want it ripe and ready! Juicy! Luscious! Ready to eat, right off the bat!' And then I turned around and it was Nixon. And one of his daughters was with him, but looking older — maybe Julie, I think. And he looked pudgy, like a Dickens character, fat with a belly. And they had him sign for the bill. There were secret service with him. And the girl at the cash register said he was 'Number One Charge'.

show less

With its broad remit and the engaging conceit of ordering it by days of the year, this anthology of diary extracts is by turns amusing, saddening, and exciting, but never dull. The format led me to read it daily over the course of a year, which emphasised the rhythm of the collection. It seems to me that the 20th century, particularly the middle years, is over-represented but this is cavilling.

Thoroughly enjoyed this book and every time I had to put it down I eagerly looked forward to getting back into it. Well done and good choices from diaries and journals. Reread this at last and it is as good the second time as the first. Spent a lot of time on Google looking up details on the people who's diaries were excerpted in this book. I even ordered a few and started reading a couple I already had like The Greville Memoirs.

This is a fabulous book! I really enjoyed reading the day's entries before bed. I'm afraid some nights I just couldn't put it down and had to read a few extra days. I met some wonderful people. I am happy that short bios of the writers is included in the back as well as a full bibliography. There are several diarists whose complete diaries I will want to track down. The index of diarists allowed me to search through for favorites. Very thoughtfully put together. I'm grateful that my terrific sister shared this great book with me. I highly recommend!

While the format (a 'book of days' containing diary entries) is a good idea, I felt the selection was too heavily weighted in favour of diaries from the Second World War and from twentieth-century entertainers.

Good book for the bedside table to dip into when you've got a minute. Some of the diarists are (admittedly) unknown to me but it doesn't detract from the enjoyment, after all - who could resist reading someone else's diary?

Some entries were interesting,, some were just ridiculously boring.