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And then you think, well, some of them must be no good, because in the history of English poetry to write 200 good pages is quite something."One final question. Does he feel like one of Britain's most august poets? Logue suddenly looks sad "No. Of course I just feel how second-rate I am, compared to people like..." Like? "Milton Pope. Shakespeare." I suggest that this may be one of the drawbacks of writing in English "I know," he says "Imagine if Shakespeare was French We'd never hear the bloody end of it. "Fodder for the masturbating armies of the West!" says Logue "The novel I wrote is bad pornography. I just needed the 200 quid." But it still appears in his eight-line biography for Faber "Yes, I'm not ashamed.
The great pornocrat and publisher of the Olympia Press." Girodias employed a stable of struggling bohemians in Paris to bash out the erotic novels for his Traveller's Companion series, which were sold to the men at the front to subsidise the publication of Beckett, William Burroughs and Nabokov's Lolita. I thought, Wow, I've really struck lucky with this lot."Since we seem to be on a roll, perhaps he could tell me, I suggest, about Count Palmiro Vicarion "Oh, Girodias gave me that name. So he took my pack and put it in the boot, then we got into the car, and then he took out his cock. And he said, 'I want you to look at the cock that's fucked Ava Gardner and Lana Turner Just so you know you're in the big time.'" He laughs "I was of course incredibly impressed by this. "So I arrived at the station and there was Artie Shaw, waiting for me! I couldn't believe it He was apparently living next door to my friends. And they'd send their wives round for a spot of special pleading." He is joyous.
"All kinds of bullshit!"He obligingly retells a wonderful story about meeting Artie Shaw, the bandleader and famous womaniser "I was off to stay with friends in Spain," remembers Logue. He remembers his time at the satirical magazine Private Eye, where he collated the True Stories column before moving on to curate Pseud's Corner "Oh God," he groans. "People would write in and try to say that their comments were forgeries. Apart from reading, I think the cinema has been the principal aesthetic influence on my life."Once we get on to the anecdotes, Logue's earlier diffidence disappears. Suddenly" - a faraway look - "things have turned against the Greeks with the withdrawal of Achilles, and the Trojans think of this as an opportunity to get rid of them. When Achilles comes in and saves the day for them all, it's got nothing to do with anything except himself He's quite happy for his own side to go down - let them die. He wants vengeance." Then he practically shouts: "I think that's WONDERFUL! It cuts through all that stuff about patriotism and so on; this person is doing it all out of his own will, and for vengeance.
