Xanadu in Northampton

J. L. Carr

PENFRIENDS FROM PORLOCK by A. N. Wilson

Hamish Hamilton, £14.95

These are reprints of interruptions to Mr Wilson's real writing-life, his 15 or 16 volumes of fiction and biography. There are three essays from the TLS, seven from the Sunday Telegraph and numerous sun- dries sold elsewhere. His most importunate caller has been The Spectator (17 times).

Literary societies have been just as remorseless in tapping his 'exceptionally alert and abundant mind' (jacket quote) addresses to the C. S. Lewis, the Ambrose, the Chesterton Societies are reheated and served up. As final proof of the harassed life he has led, we are invited to sit in on a couple of longish papers delivered to an audience of young Turks. I like book-talk and found him often informative and almost always entertaining.

Wiggings and prizes are dished out even-handedly. Queen Victoria and John Braine, Miss Pym, Philip Larkin, Henry James are approved — although often for unusual reasons. Dame Iris Murdoch, for instance, wins praise for beginning a novel, `I will arise and go unto my father and say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight.'

But St Paul and Tom Maschler, the Lords Esher and Snow, ('the crazed sage of Bulstrade Gardens with 31 honorary doctorates') are savaged. Cecil Beaton, a photographer, gets the harshest sentence — a piece in Harper's & Queen.

And then there is Dean Inge. Mr Wilson is unsure about Dean Inge. After all, did he not remark, 'No, I am not interested in the liturgy; neither do I collect postage- stamps'. The Dean gets an Open Verdict.

But a book with such variety of material . . . how does one hint that you would or would not enjoy it, should or should not buy it? I posed the dilemma to a neigh- bour, a Boot & Shoe Trade assessor. And when, by handing over a similar miscellany (by Jonathan Raban) I overcame his pro- test that he was trained to work only in comparisons, he reported:

Both books weigh 700 grammes. For £11.50, Raban's has 157,000 words (many original). Wilson's has 114,000 second-hand words for £14.95, (.00013 pence a word which is twice as much as a word from Raban). Then, of Wilson's 278 pages, 26 are deliberately blank — and for no discernible Sterneian reason. And this might not be discovered by a book's purchaser until a 9 per cent refund no longer could reasonably be demanded.

Neither jacket is a true representation of its interior contents but Wilson's is more handsome.

Both artefacts stood up well to some hammering and a reviewer could pass them as near enough new to a shady bookseller.

However, if this brutish assessment is disregarded, it must be plain to even the most casual reader of Penfriends from Porlock how severe a loss has been its author's defection from weekly journalism and more particularly from that pulpit of High Anglicanism, The Spectator. And lately this opinion has been bravely en- dorsed by its editor's admission that 20 per cent of his subscribers believe that they are not receiving enough religion for their money.

They may be right. Apart from a scatter- ing of blows from Mr Waugh at Good and Evil (in, of course, a general sense), religion does not seem to play much part in the lives of regular contributors. Mr Ber- nard, for instance, although late at night he must frequently be approached by Salva- tion Army recruiting-officers scouring Soho pubs for lost souls, never makes copy of such encounters.

Yet it is no more than fair to point out that Mr Wilson's passion is not for saving souls but for saving the charming parapher- nalia which takes up so much time at Anglican Synods. He would come down firmly for that college choirmaster who ordered an American tourist to stop join- ing in the singing of the Magnificat. And, when this stubborn fellow protested, 'Are we not enjoined in Holy Scripture to lift up our voices in praise? Is not this the House of God?', replied, 'No, of course not. This is King's College Chapel, Cambridge.'

How happy A. N. Wilson would be here in Northamptonshire! Why, it is only two months since Towcester PCC applied for a Faculty to dispose of a second head of a statue of Archdeacon Sponne (+1547) which had turned up in a hatbox in a locked attic. And, no more than a week ago, it was discovered that a local artist had slipped the face of a Northampton male witch into a church mural of the Child Christ disputing in the Temple with the Elders. This, of course, is the real stuff of religion.

True, we have our disagreeable dissi- dents. A couple of days ago, when a Wellingborough printer and I had finished our business, he first asked my opinion of Gatting and then of the Crockford canon.

Basing my judgment on Lord Hawke's ruling (see Yorkshire CCC Minutes, vol.LV..1928), I quickly disposed of Gat- ting but then, feeling that I must show a more compassionate side to my nature, I remarked that Dr Bennett probably had only needed someone to talk to. 'He could have talked to God' my friend said flatly, (well, this was 17th-century Leveller coun- try.) Let Mr Wilson join us here. Not only is property cheaper but we have no learned societies, no literary parties; he could get down to some steady book-writing. Here is his Xanadu. Here, only Jehovah's Witnes- ses knock on our doors.