Orating in Oxford

St. Hilda's College, Oxford

Tuesday June 18. Intensely busy day. Said farewell to Bath, and Jane Odiwe, took taxi to station rather than haul heavy suitcase, and boarded a train which changed at Didcot, but there my difficulties ended: my friend Jean met me at Oxford station. We went directly to The Grand Cafe, which advertises itself as the oldest coffeehouse in England, est. 1650, but looks vaguely Italian; and there I delighted in one of the best Victoria sponge cakes I ever ate, and tea.

 

 

 

 

Then we walked down to St.Hilda's College, to lunch with Jean's friends "in college," very handsomely on pasta and cold ham and cheeses. These were all St Hilda's fellows and media members, who were about to have a meeting; when they began their business I went off on my own for a walk, leaving my suitcase at the porter's office.

 

 

 

 First I happily inspected a charming but expensive antiques shop (where I bought nothing but a few cat post cards from the 1930s), and then visited the Ashmolean, to refresh myself with an exhibit of old master drawings - Michelangelo, Raphael, Turner, up to more modern ones.  I particularly liked a self-portrait of William Palmer, which has led to my liking of him in general - what a pity his son burned so many of his works!  The Guardian shows many of the drawings in this exhibition, here:

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2013/may/24/old-masters-ashmolean-museum-in-pictures#/?picture=409452754&index=0

 

William Palmer, self-portrait, 1824

 

John Ruskin, kingfisher

 

Michelangelo, ideal head

 

Rembrandt's wife Saskia, dying, probably of plague
 

After enjoying the exhibition, I ordered a cab at the Randolph across the street to go to the home of Allison (a journalist), where the talk was to be. I was quite amazed by the array of wonderful people who came: more accomplished and delightful intellectuals in a room than I might meet over the course of several years in Los Angeles (sorry, but it's true!). A famous publisher, the production designer for Dr. Who, a range of most interesting writers, including best-selling friend Elizabeth Aston. What would bring this knowledgeable, sophisticated group out to see me? Well - my talk was entitled, "A Life in the Story Department: Forty Years Reading My Way Through Hollywood." If anything interests writers and publishers, it's selling books to Hollywood!

 

Golden youth of Oxford

 

The talk went nicely, it was only hard, afterwards, to keep up any level of witty conversation during dinner (most delicious risotto...and an interesting exposure to Oxford dinner-table talk) while being assailed with waves of belated and rather severe jet lag! Never mind, it was very enjoyable. Lizzy kindly drove us and my suitcase home to Jean's house on Cumnor Hill and I plunged into much-needed sleep.

 

Oxford University Press

With Simon, "Stuck-in-a-Book"

 

Wednesday was a bit more relaxing!  I was excited to meet Simon of the Stuck-in-a-Book blog ( http://stuck-in-a-book.blogspot.com/ ) at the Oxford University Press, where he has been working as editor of the Oxford Words blog (for which I was honored to write a piece

http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2013/06/dorothy-l-sayers/ ).  We had a lovely lunch in the OUP's canteen, and I devoured delicious Scotch egg and smoked mackerel, and Simon his usual vegetarian choices, while covering a range of subjects with great dispatch and (at least in my case) delight!  

After lunch it turned warm, went to muggy 76F (it will get cooler and showery tomorrow), and I strolled back from Oxford University Press to the Bodleian where I saw a rather nice small exhibit called Magical Manuscripts - ancient tomes and manuscripts and how they influenced Tolkein, Lewis and Pullman. Some quotes:  "When in doubt, go to the library."   "Libraries are the half enchanted repositories of the strange and indecipherable scripts written in unfamiliar formats with which fantasy literature abounds."  There was the Ashburnham burnt fragment, an 11th century Anglo Saxon life of St. Basil that survived the great fire of Ashburnham House  of 1731. A heroic librarian, Dr. Bentley, escaped the blaze through a broken window clutching the Codex Alexandrinus.

 

Ashburnham House, 1880

 

There was also the Mirroir du Monde, a 1463 chronicle of world history up to Christ, which had a merman monster, quite hideous with big breasts. What I liked best though was an unpublished Lewis manuscript about Digory and his kindly godmother Mrs. Lefay, and how he lost the ability to talk to animals and trees. The squirrel Pattertwig is in it. Digory says he is ill and Pettertwig offers him a nut, even though it's a cold winter - "what kind of squirrel would you take me for if I didn't have enough of a pile to spare a friend a nut?" And Digory turned away as it is very bad form to look to see where a squirrel's store is.

 

 

 

After that I sat at the cafe at Blackwells where I could use my iPad, and Jean met me there. Chatted about the writing life till they threw us out, then had an elderberry sparkler at the Quod, a lovely restaurant garden. Then since Lizzy thought the riverside pub the Trout's food has gone downhill we took a cab to another riverside pub, The Punter, formerly the Waterman's Arms.  Lizzy's children, Anselm, science fiction author and editor, and Eloise, classics scholar going into neuroscience, came. They love cats and are altogether charming, talented, and very knowledgeable about publishing, so conversation was lively!  And the food was superb, as Lizzy had intimated. English venison, potatoes dauphinoise, beet compote, fresh press local apple juice, and crumble.  We looked out at the narrow bending river as the summer twilight set in about 10 pm, with relaxed, pleased with themselves Oxonians chattering on the grass. Lizzy drove us home again and I visited with Jean's lovely husband Tony who sadly missed dinner because of a town council meeting. He kindly helped me with maps for tomorrow though he gets up at 5 AM to go to London. Now I'm going to sleep - Cambridge tomorrow. My suitcase is lamentably getting heavier as I keep acquiring books... 

 

 

In the morning, Jean and I bundled up my cumbrous load and took a taxi into town where we met Lizzy and author Rosie Orr at Brown's.  We talked writing and publishing and I ate English free range scrambled eggs with heavenly smoked salmon and brown bread and butter. Then they took me to the bus stop, and waved me goodbye.  Very sorry indeed to leave this sociable clever and very nice set.  As Anne thought in Persuasion

when she met Captain Wentworth's friends, "These would have been all my friends," was her thought; and she had to struggle against a great tendency to lowness.

 

Goodbyes at Oxford Bus Station

 

View through window of Senior Common Room,

St. Hilda's College