Motoring

Frank Kermode

• Deep Romantic Chasm: Diaries 1979-81 by James Lees-Milne, edited by Michael Bloch
  Murray, 276 pp, £22.50, October 2000, ISBN 0 7195 5608 2
• A Mingled Measure: Diaries 1953-72 by James Lees-Milne
  Murray, 325 pp, £12.99, October 2000, ISBN 0 7195 5609 0
• Ancient as the Hills: Diaries 1973-74 by James Lees-Milne
  Murray, 228 pp, £12.99, October 2000, ISBN 0 7195 6200 7

Of the seven volumes of diaries published over the years by James Lees-Milne two have now been reissued as rather grand paperbacks, along with an eighth, a final hardback selection made by Michael Bloch. They all have titles like Ancestral Voices, Caves of Ice, Through Wood and Dale, Midway on the Waves and Prophesying Peace, and it will not escape the notice of the literate public that they are all derived, one with a bit of a spin on it, from ‘Kubla Khan’. This sturdy attachment to Coleridge’s poem is not easy to explain, as Lees-Milne, for all his curious learning, does not pretend to go in for flashing eyes and floating hair, and the chosen titles seem quite irrelevant to the contents of the books. It is known, for Coleridge mentions it, that Byron admired ‘Kubla Khan’ and that Lees-Milne admired Byron, for he makes a point of saying so, but the connection still seems tenuous.