Postscript
Lewisitis
P. J. Kavanagh In a recent interview the writer Norn/1 Lewis admitted sadly that he had stoPPe reading. It came upon him suddenly, `li_ikebeo terminal disease' I think he said, and for sounded bereft. I felt extremely sorrY, him. One of my favourite fantasies 01 1 :.ig age is of sitting, wrapped in a rug, w°. my way through Dickens again. But then I began to wonder: t,111 disease, had Lewisitis, struck me? Vine-4 was asked, for example, to name the books I had most (and least) enjoYed year I realised, to my horror, that I '- read no new books at all.
What reading had I done, then, aro, from in the way of business? It was,11-n. that I became aware of something I ha re: ly been uneasily half conscious of beit aii the pile of unfinished books by mY Not that had for long been undisturbed. books I did not want to read, you tolof, stand, but books I had begun, apprOveg 0, and laid aside for a more propitious,Lcs ment — which never came. And now "— unlikely ever to do so. In order to exorcise this unease (or perhaps enable me to put them awa,Y,',Es return them) I feel the need to list the boo that rebuke me. They make an odd bunch. On top of the pile is The Labyrinth of Solitude by Octavio Paz, the Mexican poet. It is about Mexico, about being Mexican, and about the alienated consciousness of the 'Hispanic' in the United States. Apart from the great interest and elegance of Sr Paz's reflections, the subject, uprooted- ness, is of great importance and the Hispa- nics, at least in New York, have struck me as being among the unhappiest of people. I once met Sr Paz, years ago, on a train bound for a poetry festival in Umbria. At Florence station he spotted a British poet, aold friend, and enthusiastically invited
m to join us. The British poet, in a long raincoat and muffler for some reason (it Was a brilliant Italian July), peered through the window into our compartment and said, But this is First Class! We're looking for a i
Third Class carriage.' (The difference in fare was very small, a few shillings, no more.) Paz, a small, beautiful man in an ex- quisite white suit, smiled at his mufflered friend and said: 'My dear — poets should always travel First Class!' I offer that story as a small fable, for the reader to ponder. It says something about contemporary British poets, and poetry, not Wholly to our advantage. Next in the pile is Unlikely Stories, Most- 13), by Alasdair Gray, a Scottish writer to whom Jeremy Treglown, editor of the Tones Literary Supplement, awarded the Cheltenham Prize last year. Gray is certain- lY an original (`Kafka and haggis' says a tierce critic in our domestic circle, but that's not a bad mixture, and Gray has LI-I!nnur). He also illustrates his stories with his Own Gothic drawings. Then, Henry Vaughan, by Thomas 0. Calhoun. Last year I recorded a talk about Vaughan for the BBC. As preparation I read his poetry, read his biography and
n wrote the talk. It was only after I had
recorded the talk that I thought I ought to read what a specialist had to say about him. probably it should have been the other way round. Mr Calhoun certainly knows more abriteout Vaughan's poetry than I do, but he ws in a rather over-careful, American- scholar swear itlY. way. But him I shall read, I Sl The last is Sailing Round the World, by
He is a flavoursome man. He foil- an attack of bare-footed pirates, near the
Straus of Magellan, by scattering his deck with un-tacks. He is probably too unreflec- tive an old salt for the likes of me, though adirable, and he may go back on the sh el f • _ Oh, and Summer Lightning, by P. G. Wodehouse. Sadly, the old master does not cheer me as he used to. I begin to feel impa- tience with his clowns. I suPpose this list reflects a diversity of interest — or at least lack of interest. But Where does it come from, Lewisitis? Is it in air? Volcanic dust? Uranium fall-out? Is It nitrates in the water — whisky in the water? Or is it over-work? That's it of The , I should have thought of it before. nie time to wrap oneself in a rug is now.
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