The thing I enjoy most about reading published journals and diaries are those wee gems of anecdote and information that often fail to be included in biographies and memoirs.

Take for example this (possibly apocryphal) tale from the author of The Magus and The French Lieutenant’s Woman, John Fowles, which is included in volume one of his Journals:

”...[A]n amusing story about Allen Ginsberg, one of the new American literary clique—the Beat Generation—who came to Oxford to lecture to the Jesus College Literary Society. Ginsberg started his lecture by saying that he had landed in Ireland before coming on to England.

‘Soon as I landed, I felt a kind of weight pressing on the top of my head. And I knew what it was. I knew what it was. It was the Church. And you know what I did? I went straight into the first church, and I went straight up the aisle of that church, and I stood before the altar. I stood right there in front of the altar. And you know what I did? I masturbated, right there. And that was good. That was real.’

The Literary Society, said Podge, rose to a man and hurled him gently out of the room.”

The “Podge” who told Fowles this story was Fred Porter, a university friend and later a respected Marxist and teacher at Magdalen College School, Oxford.

I thought I’d check the veracity of this amusing anecdote against Bill Morgan’s biography I Celebrate Myself: The Somewhat Private Life of Allen Ginsberg, which recounts events very differently:

”...[Ginsberg] pushed on to Oxford University. There he gave a reading to a small group of about twenty enthusiastic students. Since he hadn’t read in quite a while he was a little hesitant, but once he began speaking it felt great to be in front of an audience again. He wept as he read Howl, and then recited some Creeley, Whalen, and Levertov poems to the students. Triumphant afterward, he walked along a quiet stream near the college towers and listened to the bells ringing peacefully as they had for hundreds of years.”

I prefer Podge’s version to Morgan’s, as it was possible that Ginsberg may have read his poetry before recounting his activities in Ireland, and then being ejected. Morgan’s version reads like the description to a closing scene from a cliched Hollywood biopic.

Anyway, for those who love Ginsberg, here he is talking about The Beats, Bob Dylan, Jack Kerouac and censorship. Alas, he makes no reference to his onanistic protest against the Catholic Church.