July 29 People

I know why John likes to come to this conference. It gives a very different view of England than the typical American experience of West End Theatre/ Tower of London/ changing of the Guard at Buckingham Palace. Most of the attendees are older, if not elderly, with a scattering of earnest and ambitious young foreign scholars (one of the papers coming up is “Thomas Hardy’s Popularity in Iran”). John said the Hardy Society has made deliberate overtures to younger people recently, as their original membership is dying off. We have met young women from China, from Russia, from Dublin (still foreign I guess) several from America. There is a contingent of young French academics, usually smoking at the back door of the church.

But the most interesting people are the mid- to older English men and women. Our housemate at the B&B, for example, Linda, is a white-haired, energetic, and voluble woman who retired a few years ago with her husband and now lives in Spain. “We have one son in Brazil and one in Boston in America,“ she said. “It made it easier to leave England when the time came.” She has a rental car for the week--she brought us home from the concert last night in the rain, giving us a tour of Poundbury on the way. In fact, her previous home was in Poundbury, which is a planned community owned/administered by the Duchy of Cornwall--I‘ll have to take a photo of the ‘medieval‘ market hall, built four years ago. In England, Linda was active in Labour politics, and she is quite defensive of Tony Blair. “All those Old Labour socialists quit the Party practically the week he was elected because he didn’t put up the minimum wage to where they wanted it,” she said. “We’d been 18 years out of power, did they think he could do it all in an instant?” I met an Old Labour socialist on the coach yesterday, Julia, a lively woman on crutches (“I need a hip replacement that I’m avoiding”) with fuchsia lipstick and blue eye shadow who told me that she grew up listening to her Tory dad and socialist mum argue politics. “Labour’s not even Labour anymore,“ she mourned. “And of course with the war, we marched, but did Blair listen? No. People who voted Labour for generations don’t identify as Labour now. The Conservatives will sweep the next election.”

When people hear that we’re American, they often start a political conversation, then stop and inquire politely into our views before proceeding. I don’t know if or why Thomas Hardy readers are mostly left-leaning, or perhaps society-joiners in general are left-leaning, or maybe only Labour-types are speaking about politics at this conference (at least to Americans), or Brits know that not many of the 25% of Americans who support the current administration are visitors to England.

But the political talk is only casual--most of the conversation is wildly diverse, about the incredible range of interests and occupations of this group of people bound by a single passion. John met Margaret and David Graham last time he came to the conference. They are from Warwick, she a social worker and he a businessman who had a transformative experience as an older adult going back to University and is now an educational consultant. Last night at the concert I talked shop with her about disability assessments and diagnostic overlaps--why do attention deficit problems so often coexist with anxiety disorders? Or aspergers, dyslexia and anxiety? Rosemary also sat by me on the coach tour and talked about her bird-watching and truffle-hunting adventures with her (female) partner. She removed a spider that had wandered into Julia’s hair during the previous stop at a Tess site, and we discussed the differences in the common names of bugs and insects between rural Devon (where she is from) and rural Utah (for her, Daddy Long Legs is a sort of large annoying Mayfly, apparently, not the spidery creature with a round gray body and multiple bent legs that I thought it was). On hearing that we planned to travel to the fens, she recommended a book as background--“Waterland” by Graham Swift. Furze Swann himself is 87 years old or something, and perfectly mythological. This morning I decided to go the lectures with John, and heard a sharp and funny talk about Hardy and The Moon from Michael Irwin, director of the last conference, who with his grizzled hair and sideburns looks like a heavy-faced, bow-legged Welsh miner or a melancholy farmer. He spent five minutes discoursing “at the risk of chauvinism” on the superiority of the English word ‘moon’ to that of all other languages (even the French ‘le lune’ or whatever it is--as a part of his work he translates French opera into English and pays attention to the lengths of vowels and consonants). We also heard from Simon Gatrell, a British academic from the University of Georgia, on cross-dressing in Hardy’s novels (one sensed he may have a personal interest in the topic); and an argument for a more varied Hardy canon, with a passionate introduction to a less-read poem as both aesthetically superior and emotionally typical of Hardy. Maybe I’ll insert the poem, if I can find it on the web.

The Face at the Casement
If ever joy leave An abiding sting of sorrow, So befell it on the morrow
Of that May eve....
The travelled sun dropped To the north-west, low and lower, The pony's trot grew slower, And then we stopped.
'This cosy house just byI must call at for a minute, A sick man lies within it Who soon will die.
'He wished to marry me, So I am bound, when I drive near him, To inquire, if but to cheer him, How he may be.'
A message was sent in, And wordlessly we waited, Till some one came and stated The bulletin.
And that the sufferer said, For her call no words could thank her; As his angel he must rank her Till life's spark fled.
Slowly we drove away, When I turned my head, although notCalled; why I so turned I know not Even to this day.
And lo, there in my View Pressed against an upper lattice Was a white face, gazing at us As we withdrew.
And well did I divine It to be the man's there dying, Who but lately had been sighing For her pledged mine.
Then I deigned a deed of hell; It was done before I knew it; What devil made me do it I cannot tell!
Yes, while he gazed above, I put my arm about her That he might see, nor doubt her My plighted Love.
The pale face vanished quick, As if blasted, from the casement, And my shame and self-abasement Began their prick.
And they prick on, ceaselessly, For that stab in Love's fierce fashion Which, unfired by lover's passion, Was foreign to me.
She smiled at my caress, But why came the soft embowment Of her shoulder at that moment She did not guess.
Long long years has he lain In thy garth, O sad Saint Cleather: What tears there, bared to weather, Will cleanse that stain!
Love is long-suffering, brave, Sweet, prompt, precious as a jewel; But O, too, Love is cruel, Cruel as the grave.

[sorry about the formatting]

Part of it is that people are much more open here than in general life, because they assume the shared interest in all things Hardy. I remember during previous trips to the UK traveling on the train or waiting in a queue, the people most willing to make conversation were from South Africa or Canada or New Zealand. But today, standing waiting for John in the church hall/ 2nd-hand book sale/ coffee-break area, several people approached me in the most friendly manner, and even forgave me my lukewarm feelings for Hardy--after all, I‘m married to an aficionado. Actually, when I confess that I like Hardy’s poems better than his novels, and he‘s not even my favorite poet at that, quite a few spouses of both genders admit that they are here for their husband or wife and don’t like Hardy that much either. So I guess it’s another shared experience. Maybe it would be the same at a fly-fishing conference, or a workshop on playing the dulcimer.