More from The Cunning Man

WHEN IRONY FIRST makes itself
known in a young man's life, it can be like his first expe-
rience of getting drunk; he has met with a powerful
thing which he does not know how to handle. Of course
I had been aware of irony in its superficial form, because
Brocky made great use of it; but he was not a master, a

sub de and gentle employer of mockery in almost every
aspect of life, as was Dwyer; it was something Brocky
had learned, not flesh of his flesh. Later, when I thought
I had become wiser, I tried to find out what irony really
is, and discovered that some ancient writer on poetry
had spoken of "Ironia, which we call the drye mock,"
and I cannot think of a better term for it: the drye mock.
Not sarcasm, which is like vinegar, or cynicism, which is
so often the voice of disappointed idealism, but a delicate
casting of a cool and illuminating light on life; and thus
an enlargement. The ironist is not bittei:, he does not
seek to undercut everything that seems worthy or seri-
ous, he scorns the cheap scoring-off of the wisecracker.
He stands, so to speak, somewhat at one side, observes
and speaks with a moderation which is occasionally
embellished with a flash of controlled exaggeration. He
sPeaks from a certain depth, and thus he is not of the

:me nature as the wit, who sooften speaks from the

tongue and no deeper. the wit's desire is to be funny; the ironist is only funny as a secondary achievement.

One must have a disposition for irony, but it does not
come without practice; like really good violin-playing, it
must be practised every day. It seemed to me when I
met Dwyer that I had the disposition, but I was an
unpractised hand and, like a beginner on the fiddle, I
suppose my squawks and screeohes were painful to those
around me.

My first foray into R. Davies

The Cunning Man:

He certainly boiled them the February Sunday night
he read his paper titled A Knotty-Point of Shakespeare
Criticism Untied: Where Did Hamlet Hide the Body of
Polonius? This sounded so meaty, so solemnly literary,
that Mr. Thomas Norfolk, the senior English master,
decided to grace us with his presence, in addition to one
of the junior English staff, rely-poly; witty Mr. Sharpe,
w~o took an unschoolmasterish delight in Brocky's mis-
chief. There we sat, puffing away at our strictly legal cigarettes (Mr. Sharpe smoked a pipe with a bowl of
extraordinary size) as Brocky unfolded his manuscript
and began.

The problem of what Hamlet did with Polonius, said
Brocky, had been neglected because so many other mat-
ters of greater immediate interest were raised by the
famous scene (Act Three, scene four) where Hamlet has
his great confrontation with his mother? and treats her
to a most unfilial roughness of tongue. The scene moves
swiftly, as the finest of Shakespeare always does, and
indeed not twenty-five lines have passed until Hamlet
detects the presence of Polonius behind the arras, and
stabs him, without knowing who he is. What then
passes between Hamlet and Gertrude is so laden with
significance-Brocky said that he would not even
attempt to deal with the suggestions of an incestuous
passion in the Prince, and Mr. Norfolk nodded sagely in
approval of this scholarly reticence-that we are apt to
neglect Hamlet's declaration-

I'll lug the guts into the neighbour room

-until after the next scene when Hamlet appears,
declaring-

Safely stowed.

Clearly he has hidden the body of the good old coun-
sellor, but where? When Rosencrantz and Guildenstern
question .him, he says that he has "compounded it with
dust whereto it is kin," which would have tipped off
the two court toadies if they were not so stupid. We
know better; we remember that "dust" means not only
the flesh that remains when the spirit has flown, but
any cast-off rubbish or human waste matter, and in the

circumstances, what might that be? It is made plain
enough when Hamlet is questioned by the King, and at
last says that they may find Polonius by his stench-if
they take their time looking in the right place. "If you
find him not within this month, you shall nose him as
you go up the stairs into the lobby."

Now, what does this tell us? Is it not as plain as day?

Hamlet has hidden Polonius in a room reserved for the
King which the King rarely frequents, a room to be
found off the stairs. In such a castle as Elsinore, and
indeed in any castle of the sort that would be well
known to Shakespeare, who had visited several such cas-
tles with his troupe of travelling players, that room off
the stairs would be the privy, built on the outward walls
to overhang the moat. Hamlet who has a nasty and
decidedly dirty tongue--consider the way he talks to
Ophelia before the play-within-the-play begins, with
everyone listening!-is hinting that the King does not
often go to the privy, and is indeed constipated.

Was this a deadly insult? Consider the reference the
Prince makes to his uncle-father: he calls him "the bloat
king" and describes his kisses as "reachy" which we
know means rancid. Did the King then suffer from hali-
tosis? Was not Hamlet being inexcusably personal in
thus taunting a man who had the power of life and
death over him?

Can we utterly deny ourselves some speculation as to
what significance such a taunt may have had for
Shakespeare himself? It is often said that it is dangerous
folly to attempt to plumb the depths of an author's mind
by fmding apparently significant hints of personal preoC-
cupation in his work But-we are only human; may we
not seek to find out anything about the Prince of poetS
tha~ he has inadvertently let slip? It is surely worthy of
notice that you may seek a Shakespeare Concordance

from end to end without finding a single reference to
constipation, although a plethora of other human ills are
exploited to comic or tragic effect. Why this silence on a
complaint so common, so vexatious, so sinister in its
effect on the human spirit? Was Shakespeare attributing.
to King Claudius, through these taunts of Hamlet, an
ailment that was his own secret, nagging, unremitting
worry?

Brocky modestly left conclusions to others. He had
not had time, he said, to sift the complete works for ref-
erences which might throw light on this matter. But he
threw it open for discussion by the Curfew Club. Was
Shakespeare constipated? What do you think?

Our Man in Havana

Brilliant, brilliant Graham Greene.

Did you torture him?’
Captain Segura laughed. ‘No. He doesn’t belong to the torturable class.’
‘I didn’t know there were class-distinctions in torture.’
‘Dear Mr Wormold, surely you realize there are people who expect to be tortured and others who would be outraged by the idea. One never tortures except by a kind of mutual agreement.’
‘There’s torture and torture. When they broke up Dr Hasselbacher’s laboratory they were torturing … ?’
‘One can never tell what amateurs may do. The police had no concern in that. Dr Hasselbacher does not belong to the torturable class.’
‘Who does?’
‘The poor in my own country, in any Latin American country. The poor of Central Europe and the Orient. Of course in your welfare states you have no poor, so you are untorturable. In Cuba the police can deal as harshly as they like with émigrés from Latin America and the Baltic States, but not with visitors from your country or Scandinavia. It is an instinctive matter on both sides. Catholics are more torturable than Protestants, just as they are more criminal. You see, I was right to make that king, and now I shall huff you for the last time.’
‘One reason why the West hates the great Communist states is that they don’t recognize class-distinctions. Sometimes they torture the wrong people. So too of course did Hitler and shocked the world. Nobody cares what goes on in our prisons, or in the prisons of Lisbon and Caracas, but Hitler was too promiscuous. It was rather as though in your country a chauffeur had slept with a peeress.’
‘We’re not shocked by that any longer.’
‘It is a great danger for everyone when what is shocking changes.’

Kenneth Tynan

Marx, Perelman and Tynan

From the Diaries:

(In 1967) The premiere of Peter Brooks' "US" ended with the house lights up and the entire cast standing on stage staring accusingly at the audience, the intention being to arouse our guilt feelings over the Vietnam war. My reaction, since I felt no guilt, was one of mounting irritation. The audience docilely stayed in its seats, shifting a little uneasily (out of sheer uncertainty whether the show was over). I finally decided to break the deadlock from my seat in the third row. "Excuse me, I said, but are we keeping you waiting or are you keeping us waiting?'

Yellowing bits

Marcel Duchamp, center. Stephen Spender, right and Madame Blavatsky in soapbox derby.








From the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/20/arts/taking-jokes-by-duchamp-to-another-level-of-art.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/books/review/27SWIFTL.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=%22The%20poet%20of%20autobiography%22&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/03/31/books/books-of-the-times-the-self-and-those-who-tend-it.html?scp=1&sq=constructing+the+self+constructing+america&st=nyt

http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/03/14/bookend/bookend.html?scp=1&sq=defrocking%20the%20artist%20michael%20lind&st=cse

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/02/26/books/the-medium-with-a-message.html?src=pm

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=990CE7D9163FF935A15751C0A963958260&scp=1&sq=madame%20blavatsky%27s%20baboon&st=cse

My end

I have reached the age where I no longer fall over, but sustain a fall, which I did, a few days before the new year. I braced my fall with a slice of bread, which made Buddy's undivided attention to it pay off in the end.
The night of December 30th, I received a nasty cold which tours my body like a cadre of sightseers. They are overlooking the canyons of my lungs now. I had someone's belt buckle in my mouth that night. There is a picture. That can't have helped. The fever has amplified the pain of the bruise on my leg as it does everything with the great echoing hollowness of prewar municipal buildings with a leak somewhere in them. I can''t apologize for the way it causes me to write.
I am convalescing with E.M. Forster. Howards End, which I did not remember until I reached the slip of paper willing the place away, then still unsure whether I encountered the paper honestly, having read the book, or heard of it.
I retained a distant but warm affection for Forster, though I read him all in a rush very early and have not gone back. I love this book.

How lovable his voice:
"That evening Margaret took decisive action. The house was very quiet, and the fog- we are in November now- pressed against the glass like an excluded ghost."
and:
"The interlude closes. It has taken place in Charles's garden at Hilton. He and Dolly are sitting in deckchairs, and their motor is regarding them placidly from its garage across the lawn. A short-frocked edition of Charles also regards them placidly; a perambulator edition is squeaking; a third edition is expected shortly. Nature is turning out Wilcoxes in this peaceful abode, so that they may inherit the earth."

How indulgent he is:

"Margaret greeted her lord with peculiar tenderness on the morrow. Mature as he was, she might yet be able to help him to the building of the rainbow bridge that should connect the prose in us with the passion. Without it we are meaningless fragments, half monks, half beasts, unconnected arches that have never joined into a man. With it love is born, and alights on the highest curve, glowing against the grey, sober against the fire. Happy the man who sees from either aspect the glory of these outspread wings. The roads of his soul lie clear, and he and his friends shall find easy-going.

It was hard-going in the roads of Mr. Wilcox's soul. From boyhood he had neglected them. "I am not a fellow who bothers about my own inside." Outwardly he was cheerful, reliable, and brave; but within, all had reverted to chaos, ruled, so far as it was ruled at all, by an incomplete asceticism. Whether as boy, husband, or widower, he had always the sneaking belief that bodily passion is bad, a belief that is desirable only when held passionately. Religion had confirmed him. The words that were read aloud on Sunday to him and to other respectable men were the words that had once kindled the souls of St. Catherine and St. Francis into a white-hot hatred of the carnal. He could not be as the saints and love the Infinite with a seraphic ardour, but he could be a little ashamed of loving a wife. Amabat, amare timebat. And it was here that Margaret hoped to help him.

It did not seem so difficult. She need trouble him with no gift of her own. She would only point out the salvation that was latent in his own soul, and in the soul of every man. Only connect! That was the whole of her sermon. Only connect the prose and the passion, and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height. Live in fragments no longer. Only connect and the beast and the monk, robbed of the isolation that is life to either, will die.

Nor was the message difficult to give. It need not take the form of a good "talking." By quiet indications the bridge would be built and span their lives with beauty.

But she failed. For there was one quality in Henry for which she was never prepared, however much she reminded herself of it: his obtuseness. He simply did not notice things, and there was no more to be said. He never noticed that Helen and Frieda were hostile, or that Tibby was not interested in currant plantations; he never noticed the lights and shades that exist in the greyest conversation, the finger-posts, the milestones, the collisions, the illimitable views. Once--on another occasion--she scolded him about it. He was puzzled, but replied with a laugh: "My motto is Concentrate. I've no intention of frittering away my strength on that sort of thing." "It isn't frittering away the strength," she protested. "It's enlarging the space in which you may be strong." He answered: "You're a clever little woman, but my motto's Concentrate." And this morning he concentrated with a vengeance.

They met in the rhododendrons of yesterday."

and:
The sense of flux which had haunted her all the year disappeared for a time. She forgot the luggage and the motor-cars, and the hurrying men who know so much and connect so little. She recaptured the sense of space, which is the basis of all earthly beauty, and, starting from Howards End, she attempted to realize England. She failed--visions do not come when we try, though they may come through trying. But an unexpected love of the island awoke in her, connecting on this side with the joys of the flesh, on that with the inconceivable. Helen and her father had known this love, poor Leonard Bast was groping after it, but it had been hidden from Margaret till this afternoon. It had certainly come through the house and old Miss Avery. Through them: the notion of "through" persisted; her mind trembled towards a conclusion which only the unwise have put into words. Then, veering back into warmth, it dwelt on ruddy bricks, flowering plum-trees, and all the tangible joys of, spring.