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Blog Page 1679
Here’s to you, Ms Robinson
I remembered how obscure American fiction can become in Oxford when I told my friends I was going to hear Marilynne Robinson and was met with blank expressions. In many ways, Robinson – widely considered one of America’s best living authors – is both a niche and a lower-class ‘c’ catholic writer. She is a novelist and an essayist. She writes on science, religion, politics, and history – local, national, and international. Her writings are extremely porous and her interests seep into one another. If you are likely to turn from writing which includes religion, or which seriously considers the ideals of American democracy, or which is still interested in the Western frontier as a symbol, alongside the nuclear disaster in Japan, or the new austerity, or lost American heroes, she presents a problem.
Despite – or perhaps because of – America’s global hegemony, being American has never been less popular. Americans are fat, they saturate the world market with their fast culture, their voices screech in the streets of Oxford, as they ask ‘But where’s the University?’ whilst clutching their Union Jack pillows and Jubilee tat (just for the record, I’m American). Robinson proves the superficiality and gross inadequacy of this cultural stereotyping.
Robinson’s first novel, Housekeeping, was published to great acclaim in 1981, won the PEN/Hemingway award and was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. Her second novel, Gilead, was published twenty-four years later and did win the Pulitzer. Home followed in 2005. In the meantime she has taught at the prestigious Iowa Writer’s Workshop. I’m inclined not to rate the glories of the state of Iowa and I’m much moved by Robinson’s sympathy for her adopted landscape, but all writing hopefuls consider the Iowa Writer’s Workshop to be a kind of Elysium. Flannery O’Connor went there. Robert Lowell taught there.
Her career as a novelist has been interspersed with collections of essays, and the latest offering, When I Was a Child I Read Books, was published last month. Robinson, an honorary Oxford D.Litt after last year’s Encaenia, returned to Oxford this week to lecture on ‘Christology’ at the Exam Schools and to read from her new book in Blackwell’s sunken Norrington room.
Robinson first read from her title essay, ‘When I was a child’, the best essay of the volume, describing her early habits of reading and her childhood in Idaho. Robinson has a placid expression, and she cocks her head from side to side when she reads and when she answers questions, as though her hair is too heavy for her neck. This gives her a kind of gravitas. Her accent is uncompromisingly American but her voice is like the lower notes of a piano, with a steady habitual rise, and an easy skipping around. ‘I find that the hardest work,’ she read, ‘is to convince the world – in fact it may be impossible – is to persuade Easterners that growing up in the West is not intellectually crippling.’ Housekeeping was set in the Idaho of Robinson’s imagination; it is a perfect novel, dark and quiet and fir-brooding.
After studying at Brown in Massachusetts and living on the East Coast, Robinson moved to what she terms with dignity ‘the middle west’. Gilead, from which she read next, reflected this change of landscape. In the novel, an ageing Iowan Congregationalist minister, John Ames, writes the young son who he will probably never know in manhood a series of letters. Turning the ‘middle west’ into great literature may seem like an impossible task for coastal critics, but Robinson is earnest and immovable in her defence of this part of America which is so often seen as being ‘without history’. Robinson traced the impetus of the novel back to her need to ‘know the narrative of a place’ when she encounters it. She called the cultural amnesia which midwesterns experience an ‘alienation from one’s own history, as if a prolonged historical moment never happened at all’.
Robinson is interested in the settling of these places, in the movement of young intellectuals and idealists from the east to found new societies in the middle west and beyond. Many of these new societies were founded by abolitionists and were part of the Underground Railroad. Colleges and universities were established and most of them admitted women and black Americans from the beginning. Here was a ‘culture being established,’ said Robinson, ‘and with a great brilliance with reforms that wouldn’t happen for another hundred years.’
The character of Ames is a great favourite in recent American literature, and his fans flocked to the Robinson event in grey-topped glory. Robinson read the excerpt from Gilead in which Ames is introduced to his second wife, his son’s mother, like a tender sermon. The character’s appearance in Robinson’s mind, after a twenty year hiatus from fiction-writing, was sudden, though ‘nothing silly like an apparition’. Instead, said Robinson, it was like ‘you suddenly feel like you know someone’. When she was asked whether Ames would make another appearance, Robinson said her lips were sealed, but the merry silence was interpreted with a suddenly generated anticipation.
John Ames is not the mouthpiece of Robinson, but his inclusion in her canon signals her deep and abiding interest in matters of religious faith. This is where many readers of her work find themselves uneasy. She writes in her essay ‘Wondrous Love’ that, like it or not, Christians of all denominations are ‘members of one household. I confess from time to time I find this difficult. This difficulty may be owed in part to the fact that I have reason to believe they would not extend this courtesy to me.’ What does one do with a novelist who is right of her secular readers and left of her religious readers?
Robinson herself is an active member of a Congregationalist Church across the street from her university. She is interested not only in practical faith and in simple story telling – to her, the Bible is narrative – but the ideas behind and around faith. Robinson is a critic and her description of her faith marks it out as something measured and considered. To skip over the essays or writings in which she contests or argues for things of faith is to miss the chance to extend an act of sympathy to an astute and gentle writer who happens to have made the cultural misalliance of siding with the majority religion.
I suspect Robinson was awarded her D.Litt not only for the lucid prose of her novels but her unusual public position on the bridge between religion and science. Robinson, who is religious and avidly interested in science, disputes with both Creationists and evangelical atheists in what she terms the ‘pillow fight’ or ‘street theatre’ which has been played out between them in the media. ‘It’s difficult to tell what is authentic and what is media-driven,’ she said to the Blackwell’s audience. For Robinson, the two discourses of religion and science are not incompatible; as she writes in her essay ‘Freedom of Thought’ against ‘the idea, which is very broadly assumed to be true, [which] is again to reinforce the notion that science and religion are struggling for possession of a single piece of turf, and science holds the high ground and gets to choose the weapons.’ She then described the aesthetic effect of scientific knowledge upon her.
Robinson’s habits of auto-didacticism are impressive; she admitted to her audience that when she realised she had had a poor scientific education, she read to fill the gaps. She calls herself a humanist, and admits to her constant interest in basic humanism. The prototypical humanist, like Erasmus or More, is interested in compulsive reading, in things of the mind, and a general, liberal, knowledge. The humanist spins something vast and connective and well-spoken out of the knowledge gleaned. Robinson is clearly writing in this mould. Her essays are elegantly argued but accessible to the layperson; she omits dense technicalities and laborious explanations for the rhetorically persuasive tone of someone who has learned themselves.
This latest volume indeed sounds incredibly ‘spoken’, and the sentences are written as such to make one imagine the voice speaking them. This is probably because Robinson’s volumes of essays come out of her speaking engagements and lectures.
An audience member asked Robinson whether she had anything to say about ‘sorrow’, an emotion which recurs in her characters and the atmosphere of her novels. Robinson volunteered that she thought current society was too quick to diagnose sorrow and grief as depressive and medicate them. Sorrow, she said, is a ‘legitimate music. Though I don’t believe in self-indulgence, I believe in the integrity of one’s own life.’ Here, Robinson elegantly summarises her American and her humanist inheritances: her hardy Protestant self-regard, and the pioneering principle of individuality within community. Robinson’s apt ways of speaking and writing make her an ideal observer of a society which may not always agree with her.
In the meantime, before change happens, we can all hope for a pause in which to digest When I was a Child and the promise of a new novel.
Teenage boy dies at Donnington Bridge
15 year old Hussain Mohammed died at Donnington Bridge last night after jumping into the river with a friend at about 8.30pm.
Mohammed jumped from the bridge into the Thames but did not resurface causing onlookers to follow him into the water to look for him.
The emergency services were called and an extensive search made of the river and surrounding area. Police, ambulances, and the fire service were at the scene and a crowd of onlookers gathered on the bridge. The fire service recovered his body from the water at 10.20pm. He was taken to the John Radcliffe Hospital where he was pronounced dead.
A rescue boat and specialist fire and rescue teams were sent to the incident by the emergency services and one rescue worker, Simon Belcher, noted, “When crews arrived there were several people in the water bravely trying to rescue [him].”
A spokesman for South Central Ambulance Service said that two people, including Mohammed, had been taken to hospital while a third was treated at the scene for minor injuries.
Thames Valley Police has appealed for witnesses and stated, “The incident is not being treated as suspicious, however it is essential that we understand as fully as possible the events leading up to the tragic death of this young man.”
Detective Inspector Rob France, the officer in charge of the case, warned against jumping into the Thames, saying, “while it might be tempting to jump into the river during this hot weather, there are hidden dangers under the water and so we would advise against doing so.”
Racing on the river for Summer Eights went ahead this morning although a minutes silence was observed by spectators and rowers before the event began. Oxford University Rowing Club tweeted, “We just observed a minute of silence for the tragic event that happened last night. Our hearts go out to the family affected.”
Spectators were warned to be respectful of the incident with one JCR receiving the message, “If you intend to spectate at Summer Eights today you are advised not to go beyond the bung lines…Please keep all noise, cheering and chanting to an absolute minimum as a matter of respect.”
Lincoln rowers were told, “This morning we had an emergency Captain’s Meeting to discuss some events that occurred yesterday evening. Last night an individual fell from Donnington Bridge into the water, and despite the best efforts of the OURCs committee and polemen, lost their life. The police reopened the river this morning, and racing will continue.”
The email went on to ask participants to be quiet around the bridge, to not celebrate bumps until past ‘The Gut’ section of the river, and finished, “There must be NO throwing in of coxes in the river. Likewise, there must be no jumping in by crews. This is strictly forbidden by the authorities, and in bad taste given the events of last night. If you see others in the water, please discourage them.
“While no one wants to detract from your enjoyment of Summer VIIIs, this situation calls for understanding and respect.”
Brasenose JCR received similar instructions, stating, “Everyone should definitely go down to the river today to enjoy themselves and support all the rowers but please can everyone be very respectful of the situation…NO ONE MUST JUMP IN THE RIVER. People often go swimming on Saturday of eights but please do not do this today. All the boathouses will be flying flags at half mast too.”
Tributes have been left at the spot where Mohammed lost his life with one message reading, “RIP Hussain. Gone but never forgotten. Always in our hearts.”
Summer Eights 2012: Friday
Another corker of a summer’s day and another feast of rowing on display for all those lucky enough to spend a day by the Isis. While there was some competition on Friday as the Varsity Twenty20 teed off over in Uni Parks, turnout at riverside was still high, and good spirits were in abundance.
Oriel, Pembroke and Christ Church go into Saturday in that order, still. It didn’t always look likely though, as Christ Church were pushing Pembroke very hard at one point in the race. All eyes to today’s action to see if Oriel can hold onto the headship. Further down the division Magdalen bumped Hertford and Trinity, having bumped into the division by bumping Keble down to Division 2.
In the women’s divisions St. Johns unseated Balliol from their third place, meaning that the Broad Street VIII have been bumped every day so far. Pembroke and Wadham rowed over in first and second.
So there’s plenty to look forward to today, in what promises to be an eventful afternoon’s rowing. Get on down to the river, grab an undercooked hot dog, some overstrength Pimms, and relax in front of the rowing – with the weather like this your tutor will be no doubt doing the same, so there’s nothing to worry about.
A View From The Bridge – Trinity Week IV
Following last year’s unequivocal success outside Park End, CherwellTV toddles over to The Bridge in order to bring you a fresh helping of news and views from Oxford’s self-proclaimed ‘number one nightclub and bar’.
Interview: Samantha Shannon-Jones
Samantha Shannon-Jones has recently signed a three book deal with Bloomsbury for what is set to be a seven part series. Samantha discusses her first book The Bone Season and the texts that have inspired her, her passion for writing and the publicity surrounding the deal.
Oxford women triumph at Varsity Athletics
The 2011 edition of the Athletics Varsity match was, quite simply, a thrashing, as a very strong Cambridge team steamrollered all before them on their way to a 4-0 victory. The current OUAC committee had put in countless hours of work to ensure this was not repeated and when Cambridge arrived on Saturday morning, slightly delayed to a series of coach-related mishaps, battle commenced as the 138th running of this historic competition, over thirty years older than the modern Olympics, got underway.
In the men’s Blues match, it quickly became clear that the overall standard was very high and the result would go right down to the wire. Ex-CUAC captain Mark Dyble, now running for the Dark Blues, overcame a hamstring strain to heroically win the 100m for the fourth year in succession, while men’s captain Bradford Waldie mastered difficult and gusty conditions to win the pole vault.
Alas, he and newly-elected club President Alex Probodziak, victorious in the javelin, were Oxford’s only winners in the field and Cambridge were able to pick up plenty of points through the strength of their heavy throwers and horizontal jumpers.
On the track, Josh Gilbert was a popular winner in the 110m hurdles, with all four athletes well under last year’s winning time, while fresher Adam McBraida picked himself up after a tumble in the 400m hurdles to win the 200m hurdles in a lightning-quick time, earning him a Full Blue. Other event winners were Chris Morter in the 200m, Tom Frith with an electric last 200m in the 5000m and Caspar Eliot in the 400m. Eliot and high jumper Freddie Hendry were the two non-winners to achieve the Full Blue standard on the day, Eliot in the 400m hurdles, and were unlucky to come up against stronger Cambridge athletes. Hendry in particular, who was defeated by a CUAC high jumper who added 9cm to his personal best in the high jump to eventually clear 2.04m and win athlete of the match for his troubles.
However, their efforts were not quite enough, as the Cambridge men emerged victorious, although some of their showboating during the final relay drew the ire of the crowd, a slight black mark on a day where everything else was contested with excellent spirit.
The women’s Blues match followed similar script, with every point fiercely fought over and every win crucial. Star of the show was incoming women’s captain Nadine Prill who was in imperious form as she took the 100m, 200m and 400m, the 200m in an OUAC record, and she was justly awarded women’s athlete of the match. This match also saw the last outing for OUAC stalwart Clara Blättler, as she looked to add to her five event wins from the last three matches. Unfortunately, a schedule shift due to the tabs’ late arrival saw her favoured pole vault moved to after the 400m hurdles, so although she was victorious in the latter she was unable to reclaim her vaulting title for a record fourth year in a row due to fatigue (trust the author, you can’t do anything after a 400m hurdles), and had to make do with winning the 100m hurdles instead.
Other excellent wins for Joanna Klaptocz in the mile, Jess Chen in the 5000m, Sue Altman in the shot (with Millipedes captain Katie Holder a mere 2cm back in second), Cat Hirst in the javelin and international oarswoman Kathryn Twyman in the steeplechase saw the scores level coming into the final event, the 4x400m relay. The race ebbed and flowed, the lead changing hands several times, and the final changeover saw Nadine receive the baton a good few metres behind the Cambridge runner. There was a brief nervy moment round the back bend where it looked as if the four previous races had left too little in the tank, but on the home straight a stunning kick saw her storm past to take the victory, and with it the match.
The second team matches (Oxford’s Centipedes and Millipedes against Cambridge’s Alverstones and Alligators respectively) were played out to a similarly high standard. In the men’s match, Edoardo Guaschino and Fabe Downs were double event winners on the track, while Jonathan Darby ran an excellent solo 800m, a first lap of under 54 seconds taking him to a huge win and personal best.
Exeter College’s Ralph Eliot was another notable performer, winning the 200m/400m double in faster times than the Blues match in both cases (much to the chagrin of his elder brother), and he was duly awarded the trophy for most notable second team performance. However, OUAC’s weakness in the field was again apparent, not recording a single victory, and the final result again saw Cambridge take a narrow victory by six points.
The women’s second team match saw the only clear cut result of the day. Sports Federation President and last year’s captain Helen Hanstock was ineligible for Blues this year, and instead had to make do with six individual event wins and two second places for the Millipedes. Hockey Blue Lizzie Totten swept the longer sprints, while Clemmie McAteer took the steeplechase in a fantastic time, beating last year’s Blues winner and qualifying her for the National U20s championship. In all, the Millipedes took 15 wins to the Alligators 5, to record a comfortable victory.
So a case of congratulations to the women and commiserations to the men, but thoughts of what might have been were swiftly forgotten in the night that followed. In truth, the turnaround from last year’s record defeats was in itself excellent, and the Men’s Blues can consider themselves unlucky that they didn’t make it a 3-1 overall victory. It will be up to the new committee, led by Prill, Alex Probodziak and Paralympic hopeful Dan Hooker, to nurture the young talent and ensure that the club’s next visit to Cambridge is remembered a lot more fondly than its last.
Axle to grind for Oxford
On the first true day of Oxford’s summer, the Halford Tour Series, the UK’s premier domestic cycling competition, came to town. Before the pros began Oxford and Cambridge’s cycling clubs took the opportunity to stage a Varsity road race through Oxford’s central streets.
You’d be hard-pressed to call it a close-run thing, unfortunately. As the sun beat down, the large and curious crowd, brought to St Giles by the commentators’ PA belting out around the North Oxford area and the enormous fences blocking the road, saw only Light Blue domination. In the final reckoning the top 5 racers were all Tabs.
From the fourth lap the Cambridge strength emerged. Three of their cyclists broke away at that point, led by the hugely impressive Wojciech Szlachta. As the laps went on this intrepid three never looked like being caught.
Behind them there was far more of a contest, the chasing pack’s composition fluctuating throughout the race. As the race-side PA honked out DJ Tiesto’s ‘Adagio for Strings’ cover, for no apparent reason, Sean Ledger of the Dark Blues was working incredibly hard to break out of the pack; at each attempt, however, he was stymied by a Cambridge jersey, having been comprehensively marked by the Cambridge cyclists throughout the race.
The 1.5km course was by now more than familiar to the crowd, bending around in front of St Mary Magdalen church and going up to the fork in St Giles just opposite Taylor’s. This span gave the commentary team plenty of scope for local plugs – they shamelessly pushed both Green’s Café and Najar’s in the hope of freebies – Najar, presumably delighted to hear he was the purveyor of the finest falafel in the world, complied.
With only three laps remaining, the leading trio’s had extended their lead to over thirty seconds. As their impregnable margin became obvious they started chatting to each other and playing about, now each going for the individual win.
In the end it was Szlachta who came first, besting Edmund Bradbury and Toby Weatherall. Oxford had been well beaten, but the character of the team was on display as they kept jostling for position until the brink.
Henry Stapley, a stalwart of OUCC kept out of this race by his economics finals, but still loyally watching on, summed up the day as, ‘a shame, that we couldn’t live up to the fantastic event we’ve hosted. My feelings are disappointment cut with pride.’ They’ll be hoping for better next year
Catz’ cuppers stick-up
The last two terms have seen women’s and men’s hockey contested individually, with Catz winning the league-cuppers double. In Trinity the competition has continued with mixed cuppers.
Saturday saw the two semi-finals being fought out between Catz and Keble and then Teddy Hall and Worcester. Catz took their semi-final. Keble, in what turned out to be their last match under outgoing captain Vyas Adhikari, went ahead early on, but goals from Chris Lambert and James Arch pulled it back for the Manor Road team. Kat Kaltsas eventually scored the winner for Catz in extra time.
In the final, Teddy Hall, who had beaten Worcester, took the lead quickly, stunning a previously calm Catz, who then lifted themselves to the level of the day. Lofted balls from Ben Thomas and dribbling skills by James Arch now took centre stage, with Arch soon equalising. Each side scored again before the end of the half, as Arch contued to dominate.
At the beginning of the new period the Hall were too much for Catz to deal with and poached a quick goal. But Thomas managed to equalise, dragging Catz back into the equation, with the score now at 3-3. With five minutes left the players, now fatigued, were clearly dreading another extended period of play, and both teams strived eagerly to score the winner.
In the last two minutes Catz managed to capitalise on a break, from a run by Arch, and Lambert slammed it in from close range. The keeper got a hand to it, but unluckily for him the ball bobbled over him into the goal. All that followed was a nervous minute or two for the Catz fans, as the Hall continued to press until the bitter end. As the last minute approached, realisation struck, and all the team pushed forward. The hotly contested match finished 4-3, and Catz’ treble was secured.
Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen
In Varsity athletics this year Oxford were the underdogs; we fought hard and were rewarded. The same could just as easily be applied to the state of British athletics.
Although the 2011 Daegu World Athletics Championships saw great success for Team GB, with the best medal haul since 1999, it was by no means as impressive as that statistic suggests. Britain had no representatives in the final of any event from 100m up to 1500m on the men’s side, and 100m up to 800m on the women’s side. As Charles Van Commenee, national head coach at UK Athletics, admitted, a ‘good number’ of his golden generation had underperformed. Jessica Ennis and Phillips Idowu, who went into the championships as favourites for the heptathlon and triple jump respectively, were both soundly beaten into second place by Tatyana Chernova and Christian Taylor. The World Indoor Athletics Champs in Istanbul brought further disappointment for Ennis too: after a two-year undefeated run, she had now lost both her World Outdoor and Indoor titles in the space of seven months. Moreover, as we moved into Olympic year the fortunes of even our best athlete from Daegu, Mo Farah, were taking a turn for the worse. After laughing off a fall at the Boston Mile at the beginning of February, he was beaten in three successive races – over two miles at Birmingham and in the two rounds of the World Indoor Athletics Champs over 3000m. The usually amicable Farah stormed past journalists after his fourth successive defeat and, suddenly, the rather quaint notion that at the start of 2012 Farah had ‘no idea’ when the Olympics started was jumped upon as a sign of over-confidence, as a lackadaisical attitude towards what had been heralded as Britain’s best chance of gold. As The Guardian’s Andy Bull proclaimed in March after Farah’s defeat in Istanbul, ‘[he] looks a shadow of the runner he was last year’. Much like the anti-climax of the England Football team at every world cup since 1966, after a sniff of glory, the media-hype surrounding the Olympics had put British athletes upon a lofty plinth and cracks were now beginning to appear.
Inadvertently though, critics such as Bull were doing UK athletics a favour. After all, the best way to spur on a real champion is to count them out, put their back up against a wall, and make them fight their way back to the top. The previous weekend is a perfect example of this. The three aforementioned athletes all competed this weekend, and all three produced stellar performances to defy their critics. On Friday night, Farah and Idowu were out to show that they are back to their best. At the ‘Oxy High Performance’ meet in California, Farah ran Olympic ‘A’ Standards of 3:34.66 and 13:12.87 to win the 1500m and 5000m in the space of just 90 minutes. On the other side of the world, at the Diamond League Match in Shanghai, 5000m and 10,000m world champion Kenenisa Bekele (arguably Farah’s biggest competition for gold this summer) came a lowly fifth in 13:13 – a time slower than Farah’s second race of the night. Idowu, at the same meeting where Bekele struggled, produced an exemplary performance to win the triple jump with four jumps of over 17 metres. Christian Taylor, on the other hand, the man who beat Idowu to Gold in Daegu, had four no-jumps and didn’t manage a single jump beyond 17 metres. On Sunday, as the varsity athletes were still recovering from their celebrations the night before, Ennis celebrated what was initially thought a new personal best of 12.75 over the 100m hurdles at the Great City Games in Manchester. The event was unfortunately marred by confusion and controversy as it was discovered that only 9 hurdles, not 10, had been put out for the race, thus invalidating the time. Take nothing away from Ennis’ performance though; on a miserable looking day she beat both the Olympic 100m hurdles champion, Dawn Harper, and the World silver medallist, Danielle Carruthers, in one of her seven heptathlon events.
Charles Van Commenee must have woken with a smile on Monday morning as, after a less than ideal winter, his athletes are starting to show the form he hoped for when setting the ambitious target of eight medals at the Olympic Games this summer. As well as Ennis, Farah and Idowu, Andrew Pozzi and Lawrence Okoye recorded Olympic ‘A’ Standard performances in the 110m hurdles and discus respectively, at the Loughborough International meeting, Okoye just 24 hours after breaking the British record in Germany. At the same meeting, Hannah England, silver medallist over 1500m in Daegu, ran her fastest ever opening time over 800m to win by more than a second.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be writing this article at all. Tom Daley’s victory at the European Diving Championships on Sunday is but further testament to the increasingly apparent correlation, across sport as a whole, between media criticism and impressive results after his high-profile telling off by Alexei Evangulov for spending too much time with sponsors and the media. If we want Team GB to achieve Van Commenee’s tough medal target at this summer’s Olympics, now only nine weeks away, perhaps we should stop exhorting our athletes and start invoking the old dating cliché, ‘treat them mean to keep them keen’. We don’t want to risk the state of UK athletics ending up like that of England’s football team.