PERSONAL COLUMN

The book of vanities

SIMON RAVEN Every year, some scores of distinguished citizens are invited by Messrs Adam and Charles Black to fill in a simple form, in order that their names and achievements may be gazetted in the next annual edition of Who's Who. The suggestion is that they should state the level of eminence to which they have attained and should indicate the most important steps, educational and pro- fessional, by which' they have mounted on the way to it. This being so, one would ex- pect the entries to be more or less uniform in kind and tone; and uniform they cer- tainly are, on the face of it. and very boring to boot. There is little enough to choose be- tween one Vice-Admiral and another, or one QC and another, or, for that matter, between one Vice-Admiral and one QC. Passages like 'HMS Kenya, 1951-53; RN Engrg Coll., 1953-55' do not differ much in literary or dramatic quality from 'Lord Justice Holker Sen. Exhibn, Gray's Inn, 1952; WEA Tutor 1951-55.' And yet, if one only looks a little closer. there lies concealed beneath these unsightly abbreviations and dreary routine appointments—in palimpsest, as it were—such revelations of greed and falsehood, of treachery, hatred and pride, as makes the pages of the novelists seem grey by comparison.

For what one must have regard to is the emphasis implicit in each entry. There are, for example, men who list every academic award which they have ever won, including the 1st Form spelling prize at the age of seven, and will yet omit to record that they once coxed a famous eight. Others insist on their membership of some minor and semi- defunct cricket club, while disguising a starred first under some such modest form as 'B.A., 1952'. Others again will refer to a commission in a famous regiment as 'Nat- ional Service, 1948-50, and will go on to inform us, meticulously, that they were Assistant Honorary Secretary of the JCR at Keble Coll., 1951. It is from such refinements of emphasis—from the omission of this, the understatement of that, or the undue prominence given to the other thing—that we may learn how a man assesses his life and value, and how urgent he is to promote his own particular assessment. And once we know this about him, we know almost everything: we have penetrated to the soul itself.

But the trouble is, of course, that in order to appreciate the shifts and quirks of em- phasis in any one entry we have to know the truth which lies behind it. The man who writes himself as 'Educ: Eton Coll.' may have been sacked after a year and spent the next four at King's School, Bruton; or he may have been Keeper of the Field and President of Pop. Until we know which we can draw no deductions. It follows that the prime insights to be had from Who's Who are available to us only when we know, or know a lot of, the person whose entry we are reading. In short, for the best human value in the volume we are limited to bits written by and about our friends, not many of whom will necessarily be included. No matter. If among 'friends' we count our quondam Masters, Commanding Officers, Directors and so forth, we shall find plenty

of material on which to work. So let me now give an illustration of my method in action, by applying it to some of the more prominent of my own acquaintance.

First, my old headmaster. As I might have known, nothing is given away here. The entries are bleak and exact. concealing nothing and inflating nothing. The only hint of pride—and that surely venial—is to be found in the words `1st Class Hons. History'. Otherwise this is a mere catalogue of a lifetime's duties. But stay; what is this? 'Clubs: Athenaeum, travellers' (sic). A prin- ter's error? Messrs Adam and Charles Black would never countenance that. The small 't' can only be there by the error, or the intention, of my headmaster. If by his error, it could not have been mere slop- piness (for my old headmaster would never countenance that), it must have been the work of his subconscious. What strange visions of repressed and guilty torments are then evoked. Perhaps the unhappy man was rebuking himself for belonging to so worldly an institution, and trying to cut both it and himself down to size by a Freudian suppres- sion of the majuscule. Or again, if the mis- spelling is intentional, the case is still more fascinating-, for then the repentance; the self-humiliation, become deliberate, a public howl of 'peccavi'. Or perhaps it is not penitence at all that is behind the solecism but the sneaking hope that. if once the glaring Capital is dispensed with, no one will notice the tale-tell word itself—which. nevertheless, a lifelong dedication to truth compels him to set down. Or possibly he is just getting his own back for an unlucky bottle of claret or the monstrous dullness of his fellow members. Whichever of these explanations is the true one. I shall never think quite the same of my old headmaster again.

And here is another case. again unexciting at first glance and again turned into a pregnant source of speculation by one mis- take. One of my earliest cos, at a time when I was seconded from my own regiment, was a talented and forceful soldier who later became a Major-General. His entry is long and detailed, comprehending every single appointment which he held from 1927 until his retirement in the 'fifties—except one. He has neglected to mention that he commanded the unit in which I myself served under him in the late 'forties. Insignificant as this command was, the general can hardly have forgotten two whole years of his career, and one therefore concludes that in this instance the omission is deliberate.

Now why? We were, it is true, a tire- some, scruffy, drunken, incompetent shower of malingerers; but we were loyal to the man after our fashion and helped him to create the illusion (it was, I fear, no more)

of having 'pulled the —th Regiment to- gether again', a feat which-Won him esteem

and swift promotion. I can only conceive, as explanation of his slighting our memory, that he was ashamed of the entire episode.

Yet what could be shaming in having 'pulled the —th together again'? Clearly, he must have been ashamed of ever having been associated with the —th at all. I see his point; but whereas I was once his admirer, I now think him an ungenerous and manner- less hound.

Another and rather more subtle example of wishful thinking is provided by a Pro- fessor of the Humanities at one of the sounder provincial universities. The Profes- sor, while still a junior don at Cambridge in the late 'thirties, wrote a novel so scan- dalous by the standards which then obtained

that he prudently had it published under a nom de plume. But by this time the war

had started; the novel, which was about German adolescents and appeared in a very sparse edition, attracted little attention either then or later and has never, as far as I know, been reprinted. The Professor, however, gives it pride of place among his 'publications', yet without informing us that it has never borne his name, and thus ensuring that it would be almost impossible to trace a copy, even should any still exist.

What is the motive behind this elaborate manoeuvre? Is the Professor hoping to create a literary mystery? Does he imagine that years hence some wretch of a research student will delve through piles of dust in the basement of the British Museum and finally come up with a treatise called 'The Lost Novel of Professor . . .'? Or is it merely that the list of his publications is so exiguous that he had to swell it out for very shame?

And so the game goes on. In the latest edition of Who's Who I could (and if I

would) prick you a distinguished public

servant who has recorded as bit accompli an appointment which he is not due to take

up until this coming July. This means that he must have arranged for the necessary alteration in his entry early last autumn, a good nine months before his promotion

would in fact mature. A notable instance of hybris? Or just of fatuous optimism?

Neither, I assure you. The gentleman in question is modest and cautious, walking warily under the gods. And yet he had the temerity to take for granted that he would not only live another nine months but have all his hopes crowned at the end of them,

the kind of gross presumption, as he well

knows, which the gods especially dislike. The alteration could easily have waited an- other year, until his position was secure; so why such greedy, such insane anticipation? Here, then, is matter for endless conjec- ture, as there is on almost every page in the book. Try it some time, on a rainy afternoon or (better) a vinous midnight. First, think of a distinguished friend, then turn up his entry. If his name is not there,

this simple fact will probably afford pleasure enough. If it is there, you will have yet

greater pleasure in seeing how he has twisted the facts of his life to promote his private vision of himself. You will find dramatists who prefer to be war-heroes, war-heroes who think of themselves only as scholars, scholars who ape gentility, and noble- men who would be common if they could. In one thing only are they all agreed: there is none of them (or none whom I know), however renowned or accomplished, who has learned to be content with what he is.