Our world of words…

CHRIS BENNETT considers the voluptuous pleasures of words.

AS we approach the beginning of another academic year, eyes watering at the news that 98 percent of matric students (‘learners’ drive cars) passed their exams, I thought you might enjoy this little quote from the Telegraph obituary for Professor Fred Halliday, a Professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics

His fluency in Arabic, Farsi, Russian and the major languages of Western Europe earned him widespread respect, and his expertise on the complexities of the Middle East and the Muslim world reached a substantial public audience.

As a veteran of academic conferences Halliday’s pointed but light-hearted advice to the organisers of such events in an article in 2007 evoked the peripatetic life of the successful academic in the injunction “not to foist oppressive, embarrassing or vexatious local practices on often tired, patient and stressed visitors, such as long boring 'high table’ dinners (Oxford, Cambridge), third-rate Indian restaurants (most other UK universities), ducks’ feet as main course (Beijing), Stetson hats (Texas), sheep’s eyes (Khartoum), fatty sheep’s tails (Ulan Bator), mastication sessions of narcotic qat (Sanaa, Aden), hypocritical pretence at avoidance of alcohol (most Arab universities), evening meal at 6pm with no alcohol (East Coast, US), evening meal at 11.30pm with too much alcohol (Barcelona, Madrid, Moscow, Berlin), ponderous, ugly and useless formal presents (Baghdad and many other places), long, vapid and self-regarding introductions by the chair (much of the world), pestering and importuning about own students who have failed to get into the London School of Economics (pretty much everywhere).”

An academic friend from Pretoria commented on the pass rate by saying “the proof of the matric pudding will be in the university eating. Let’s see their progress after six months”.

I attended a small and private memorial gathering in Port Edward last week, to mark the committal to the sea of the ashes of my friend of many years, Wendy Benn. It was a singular privilege to be with the family, who came from as far afield as Hartbeespoort and Durban, London and Newcastle (the one under the snow).

The obsequies were under the gentle guidance of John Pretorius of Port Edward, where Wendy had enjoyed holidays for most of her life. Afterwards he commented that he was in agreement with my steady, if occasionally harping, entreaties to encourage more people to read, especially young people. The now renowned 98 percent of last year’s matric students (learners drive cars) may care to note this somewhat feeble endeavour.

In his account of the life of the island of Rhodes during the early 1950s*, Lawrence Durrell recounted his experiences as the editor (and sensor) of a local Greek language newspaper. Largely for the enjoyment of my editor and her excellent chief sub, I took out this little piece from this beautifully written book. Durrell writes of the people who come into the editor’s office, “to consult me on a point of style or an infinitive that had somehow split in the heat of composition”.

In a later book, about Cyprus**, he writes of the abbey in the little town of Bellapaix, where he had bought a house: “The tower of the church took the tawny golden light softly upon its ancient face, so that the stonework looked as if it were made of the compressed petals of the rambler roses which bordered the walks”.

To all those on the South Coast who about to enter university, especially if they are studying English, one of the by products of which is usually a lifelong habit of reading and enjoying it, I salute you.

* Reflections on a Marine Venus; Lawrence Durrell; Faber and Faber, Lodon, 1953. My copy is a 2000 edition and the book is probably still in print.

** Bitter Lemons; Lawrence Durrell; Faber and Faber, London, 1957.

CB