Postscript
Pouncers
P. J. Kavanagh
One of the pleasant things about trying to write novels and poems, and publishing them, is that they seem to vanish into an abyss. Something may be going on down there (maybe not) but no one writes to tell you that you have got something fac- tually wrong. Mind you, no one writes to tell you that you have got something right, either. One of my books, called Rebel for Good, contains correct accounts of Ameri- can Indian tribal customs, of a battle at sea between the US Navy and the Bey of Tunis, and of what North America was like in 1805. This was the result of many moons among the archives, but no one seems to have noticed. This is despite 156 borrowings of that book last year, in the 16 libraries used for the Public Lending Right sample.
The PLR print-out arrived this morning, and it makes interesting reading. I suppose those 16 sample libraries are typical? They don't seem to read much verse in those places. The borrowings for my first four books of poems read like my cricket scores: 0,0,0,0 (though things pick up a bit after that). And the enclosed leaflet says 'You
will need a further statutory declaration signed and witnessed each time you submit a new application form.' You have to go before a Commissioner of Oaths, for heaven's sake!, and testify that you have committed a new book, an activity that before was almost entirely private in my case. Of all the reasons for stopping writing that seems the most conclusive.
The silence that surrounds novels and poems is, as I say, blissful, compared to the racket you set up if you venture into jour- nalism. I first noticed this when I wrote an article on our nearest town. In fact, I must have been aware of the danger because, as I remember, I mostly confined myself to a description of the sky above this town, to be on the safe side. However, I did mention a little grocer's shop with a bell on its door that tinkled as you entered and when you left, because that seemed a pleasant, memory-of-childhood sort of sound. But I was foolish enough to name the street the shop was in, and had failed to notice (as I should have) that the street, though almost straight, mysteriously changes its name before the shop: so the shop was in a dif- ferently named street, as an extraordinary number of people wrote to tell me, with ex- traordinary crossness. It was the crossness that surprised me, as though there is a tribe of angry people, pens permanently poised, ready to pounce indignantly on error. (I wish they would all become proof readers of the Times!) It is not only errors that infuriate cor- respondents but what sometimes seem like wilful misunderstandings. Recently I men- tioned on the radio, in passing, and as a mild piece of Christian propaganda, that the Christmas story is apparently the story of a 'loser'. The stuff of a thousand ser- mons, I should have thought. But no, that too has aroused a small storm. One kind lady has even gone so far as to send me a copy of St Luke's Gospel, so that I may be converted. Another writes: 'Some loser!'
I seem to have brought down upon myself another small theological storm because of some remarks I made about All Saints' Day. Several people have written to say that All Saints' is not for all souls, but for all souls that are in heaven. Now, I don't expect anybody to believe me but I knew this. The words 'for everyone who had made it' were on the tip of my pen. But that seemed too light, and anything else seemed too heavy for the portion of the readership for which the subject holds no interest. So I left out the qualification altogether. I suppose the lesson is, that in order not to be boring, I left the door open for the pouncers. I must be more vigilant.
On the other hand, G. K. Chesterton cheerfully remarks in his Autobiography
that half the art of editorship is to make the angry portion of your audience so incensed they seize their pens and write half your paper for you, for nothing. But that's too easy. All you would have to do, to bring that about, is to mention (with anything less than prostrate reverence) farmers and farming.
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