Bowsma on Fermor; Cowan on Hattics

[John Cowan]

At Barrie England's blog today
<http://caxton1485.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/bazs-quotes-12/>, he has
published a quotation from the classicist Maurice Bowra (/ˈbaʊrə/,
who knew?), who has been mentioned a few times at the Hat, mostly in
the comments. When asked why he got engaged to a very plain woman
(Audrey Beecham, niece of the conductor), Bowra supposedly replied
"Buggers can't be choosers."

According to the Wikipedia article, it seems Bowra's main influence has
been through his teaching and conversation rather than his books: his
friend John Sparrow said that his "prose was unreadable and his verse was
unprintable." The unprintable verse, mostly sharp satires on his friends
and enemies, was printed posthumously as _New Bats in Old Belfries_.

However, two poems satirizing Patrick Leigh Fermor, who *has* been
mentioned at the Hat <http://www.languagehat.com/archives/004275.php>
for his Catalogue not of Ships but of Greeks, were omitted,
as Fermor was still alive. They are now available on line at
<http://berlin.wolf.ox.ac.uk/dugdale/bowra/websiteplf.pdf>. In my
opinion, the second (a parody of Kipling's "Road to Mandalay") is better.

And now seems to be the moment to reveal the hidden motivation behind
this mailing list for me. When occasionally I find something that
looks to me to be of Hattic interest, and it just seemed too much of a
stretch to post it as an OT comment, I would send Hat a brief email in
hopes that he would turn it into a post in his inimitable Hattic way.
Usually he didn't, of course, and a Good Thing Too -- as it is, LH is
the only blog that posts daily and with comments that I can keep up
with -- the vast majority of the blogs I read are far more like mine,
with strictly occasional (in both senses) contributions.

And then, of course, that was the end of that. But now I can post such
things here instead, and then all thirty-odd of you get to see them.
Very gratifying for me, and if you're annoyed by them, the Delete key
is only centimeters away.

--
The Imperials are decadent, 300 pound John Cowan <co...@ccil.org>
free-range chickens (except they have http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
teeth, arms instead of wings, and
dinosaurlike tails). --Elyse Grasso

[AJP Crown]

Maurice ("Morris", in England) Bowra is supposed to be the model for Mr Samgrass in Brideshead.  He did a very good parody of John Betjeman that I found in Wikipedia when I couldn't remember Mr Samgrass's name:

Green with lust and sick with shyness, 

Let me lick your lacquered toes. 

Gosh, oh gosh, your Royal Highness, 

Put your finger up my nose, 

Pin my teeth upon your dress, 

Plant my head with watercress. 

Only you can make me happy. 

Tuck me tight beneath your arm. 

Wrap me in a woollen nappy; 

Let me wet it till it's warm. 

In a plush and plated pram 

Wheel me round St James's, 

Ma'am. Let your sleek and soft galoshes 

Slide and slither on my skin. 

Swaddle me in mackintoshes 

Till I lose my sense of sin. 

Lightly plant your plimsolled heel 

Where my privy parts congeal. 

There's a quite good v short LRB piece about Bowra by Stefan Collini (incl. the 2 letters following): http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n03/stefan-collini/delighted-to-see-himself  

[John Cowan]

AJP Crown scripsit:

> Green with lust and sick with shyness,
> Let me lick your lacquered toes.

Well, I have never read a word of Betjeman, but this *is* funny, in a
gross-out kind of way. I am reminded of Thingummy's remark about how
Meredith is a prose Browning, and so is Browning, which Etcetera says is
a remark that can give pleasure to someone who has never read a word of
Meredith *or* Browning, which is very nearly if not quite my own case.
(Thingummy is definitely Oscar Wilde, as Dr. Google reveals; Etcetera
may well be Northrop Frye.)

> There's a quite good v short LRB piece about Bowra
> by Stefan Collini (incl. the 2 letters following):
> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n03/stefan-collini/delighted-to-see-himself

Collini makes Bowra sound like someone I'd rather read about in a
really good biography (preferably written by a Boswell) rather than
actually meet. I used to be rather like that in my late teens and early
twenties until I got it kicked out of me, a salutary experience that
Bowra evidently missed.

A.N. Wilson scripsit:

> When coming into college and seeing the flag at half-mast, Maurice
> Bowra said to the porter: ‘Don’t tell me. Let me guess.’ Surely
> a brilliant remark?

Surely not. Brilliancy is, if it's anything, a surface effect, and if
this remark is in any way insightful, it depends deeply on its context.
(Insert rant about high-context Brits and low-context Yanks here.)

--
Unless it was by accident that I had John Cowan
offended someone, I never apologized. co...@ccil.org
--Quentin Crisp http://www.ccil.org/~cowan

[AJP Crown]

No, it's not at all brilliant; give me Sidney Morgenbesser any day. And I wouldn't want to have met Bowra either. The fact that he's the basis for the awful Samgrass is the clue to that; also that he was a great friend of John Sparrow - a man we all despised when I was a teenager who has subsequently sunk without trace, I think - though he was also friends with a great deal of other people, like Berlin, so perhaps that doesn't mean so much.  

[John Cowan]

AJP Crown scripsit:

> No, it's not at all brilliant; give me Sidney Morgenbesser any day.

Amen! But what does Bowra's wisecrack even mean? Can you explicate
the subtext?

> also that he was a great friend of John Sparrow - a man we all despised
> when I was a teenager

Well, yet another crypto-Macgregor (see
<http://www.languagehat.com/archives/004399.php> and
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clan_Gregor>.

> who has subsequently sunk without trace, I think

He has a Wikipedia article,
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Hanbury_Angus_Sparrow>, which says
he wrote an article saying that the _Lady Chatterley's Lover_ case
was wrongly decided because the book "promoted the illegal practice
of sodomy." That must have amused Bowra no end.

--
John Cowan co...@ccil.org http://ccil.org/~cowan
Original line from The Warrior's Apprentice by Lois McMaster Bujold:
"Only on Barrayar would pulling a loaded needler start a stampede toward one."
English-to-Russian-to-English mangling thereof: "Only on Barrayar you risk to
lose support instead of finding it when you threat with the charged weapon."

[The Hat]

> There's a quite good v short LRB piece about Bowra by Stefan Collini

It is indeed excellent; I particularly enjoyed these bits:

If you are fascinated by what Isaiah wrote about what John thought about what K. felt about what Maurice said, then you will find this book deeply rewarding.

But it is worth asking why people who behave appallingly, even if in an entertaining way, should be allowed any licence at all.

He does sound like an awful person.  I'm glad I never had to endure his company.

On Sunday, September 15, 2013 3:11:50 PM UTC-4, AJP Crown wrote:

Maurice ("Morris", in England) Bowra is supposed to be the model for Mr Samgrass in Brideshead.  He did a very good parody of John Betjeman that I found in Wikipedia when I couldn't remember Mr Samgrass's name:

[...]

[John Cowan]

The Hat scripsit:

> If you are fascinated by what Isaiah wrote about what John thought about
> what K. felt about what Maurice said, then you will find this book deeply
> rewarding.

Alas, as a non-subscriber I only get to see up to "‘He really ought
to be fitted with a silencer,’ one friend winced."

> But it is worth asking why people who behave appallingly, even if in an
> entertaining way, should be allowed any licence at all.

Amen.

--
John Cowan co...@ccil.org http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
Thor Heyerdahl recounts his attempt to prove Rudyard Kipling's theory
that the mongoose first came to India on a raft from Polynesia.
--blurb for Rikki-Kon-Tiki-Tavi

[Norman Gray]

Greetings.

On 2013 Sep 16, at 16:42, John Cowan <co...@mercury.ccil.org> wrote:

> Amen! But what does Bowra's wisecrack even mean? Can you explicate
> the subtext?

I presumed that 'don't tell me; let me guess' would be a way of stopping the porter abbreviating the delicious anticipation of guessing which of his colleagues had died, presumably unexpectedly and ideally ignominiously. A cute thing is that the implication that the porter is eager to tell him, makes the porter unavoidably and possibly uncomfortably complicit in an attitude which, because of the difference in status, the porter can't disavow. That's quite a lot of work for just six words to do.

From the account here, Bowra sounds like a good person to talk to, since he'd be fair game for any sort of conversational legerdemain or thuggery which you want to get out of your system. As long, that is, as you have the out of 'oh dear, unfortunately I have talked my glass dry -- would you excuse me. *whoosh*'

And re

> Alas, as a non-subscriber I only get to see up to "‘He really ought
> to be fitted with a silencer,’ one friend winced."

The LRB's a good buy. It's a general interest magazine which makes absolutely no hint of a move towards the idea of dumbing down. (I am sure) I remember an exchange in its letter pages over what was the set of contemporary languages which should not require editorial translation when quoted in articles. I think russian was not in that list, but italian marginally was.

All the best,

Norman

[John Cowan]

Norman Gray scripsit:

> I presumed that 'don't tell me; let me guess' would be a way of
> stopping the porter abbreviating the delicious anticipation of
> guessing which of his colleagues had died, presumably unexpectedly and
> ideally ignominiously.

Ah, I see; I'm used to the half-staff flag only when truly major public
figures die, along with occasional uniformed public servants like cops
and soldiers.

> That's quite a lot of work for just six words to do.

Indeed it is, though I prefer "For sale, baby shoes, never worn."
(Hemingway)

> From the account here, Bowra sounds like a good person to talk to,
> since he'd be fair game for any sort of conversational legerdemain or
> thuggery which you want to get out of your system.

That might be reckless even with an escape plan. "There is no getting
on with Johnson. If his pistol misses fire, he knocks you down with the
butt of it." (Goldsmith)

> The LRB's a good buy.

I'm sure, but I can barely make time to read the parts of it I do have
access to.

--
Eric Raymond is the Margaret Mead John Cowan
of the Open Source movement. co...@ccil.org
--Bruce Perens, http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
some years ago

[Stephen Bruce]

"For sale, baby shoes, never worn" is maybe not Hemingway; see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_sale:_baby_shoes,_never_worn.