supplicium post mortem

On the morning of inauguration day, I woke up from a stressful dream about finding squatters in the “storage closet” area on the third floor of the building. They started making some “rise up ye people of color” announcement over the “PA” in celebration of the Inauguration. They hid when I went in there, and I saw that they’d made alterations to what had once been an unfinished space with wonky floorboards. But it was also a storage room for my furniture and I saw against the wall lots of old furniture I’d forgotten, which I thought might contain old stuff of mine, even old jewelry. One of the squatters tried to show me how he’d fixed the place up. I confronted one of my tenants about it because they let the people run through their apartment. On and on it went. What would I do about this terribly entangled problem?

I am so anxious in general from the assaults of the world – they wake me up early in the morning. I often feel like I’m near the end of my rope without M to make me feel protected and calmed down. When I used to get scared like this, I would (or Casey would) run to him, and he’d make us know it was all right and that we were safe. I’m not big on the overuse of the word safe, but I feel enormously unsafe now. There are no arms and no voice to comfort me and calm me down. When I was single, I didn’t have as many responsibilities; I was younger, less experienced, and weaker, and still I didn’t get anxious in the same way.  If I could pitch a fit and say Not another day! I would. But who would I pitch a fit to? And who am I fooling imagining something good will rock into my life again? Where would it come from?

Tell England, continued…

One thing that enthralls me (and also depresses me) about the relationship in Tell England between Radley and his students, and that’s how acceptable it is for him to be alone with the boys. He can take Ray’s hand and hold it while he talks intimately with him; he can work his psychology and let Ray know that he has strong opinions of his conduct and character. Today that’s all been perverted – and that’s the part that depresses me.

First, a teacher (especially a man) would never be allowed to be alone behind closed doors with a boy (or girl). In all schools where I’ve taught, there are windows in the classroom doors specifically to prevent this kind of intimacy, to “protect” both adult and child from such an intimacy, or the suggestion of one.

Second, it is generally frowned upon to express a strong, direct opinion of a student’s conduct or character. That’s considered judgmental (a negative thing now); we are expected to take a more morally neutral approach in which we hope to reveal to the student that such-and-such an action isn’t really in their best interests. Children are rather left to work out right and wrong for themselves, except in matters of political correctness in which they are subtly manipulated into self-censorship under the guise of tolerance. All this I find ultimately cruel.

Third, Radley’s love of boys – as un-sexual and unexploitative as it is – would be branded pedophilia today, and how much poorer they all would be! Without the intimacy, those personal lessons cannot be taught, or learnt. Viz:

I know now that the feeling for all the boys, as he gazed down upon them from his splendid height, was love – a strong, active love. We were young, human things of soft features gradually becoming firmer as of shallow characters gradually deepening. And he longed to be in it all – at work in the deepening. We were his hobby. I have met many such lovers of youth. Indeed, I think this is a book about them (105 in Google books).

Fourth, Radley’s show of strength in the corridor scene would be subject of a suit. Today, everyone’s minds (adult minds, at least) are turned ever outwards, away from the crucial task of teaching, and occupied with the possibility of criticism –  from parents, administration, law, the EU/government, students themselves. All that self-censorship drains men and women of the energy required to give fully of themselves towards the formation of decent human beings. Today, the essential task this novel presents, that of forging a young man to just behavior, would be impossible. Today we have less, so much less, passionately, energetically less – a brutal indifference in the name of progress.

I’ve been reading parts of Tell England by Ernest Raymond, which I suspect I read in college as part of my unofficial research of English Public Schools, but which I saw discussed on mmsa. It’s really quite something, and an edgy portrait of he pre-1914 world of school. Innocent and homoerotic, passionate, sensual. The boys are complicated and the hero-master, Radley, utterly charismatic. He loves the boys, has favorites, and makes hobbies of them, and is very hard with his favorites in the best possible way. He’s rewarded by their devotion. I love this early scene in which he canes Ray (the narrator) and his friend Doe for the first time.

I bent over, resting my hands on my knees. Radley was a cricketer with a big reputation for cutting and driving; and three drives, right in the middle of the cane, convinced me what a first-class hitter he was. At the fourth, an especially resounding one, Penny whistled a soft and prolonged whistle of amazement, and murmured: “Well, that’s a boundary, anyway.” …

When my performance was over, the second victim, Edgar Doe, with the steel calm of a French aristocrat, which he affected under punishment, walked to the spot where I had been operated on. He bent over (again without being told to do so), and only spoiled his proud submission by telegraphing to Radley one uncontrolled look of pathetic appeal like the glance of a faithful dog. Radley, not noticing these unnerving actions, or possibly a little annoyed by them, administered justice severely enough for Doe, proud as he was, to wince slightly at every cut. Then he put his cane away, and issued, as before, his little ration of gentleness.

“You’re two plucky boys,” he said (28).

Later in the dormitory, Doe confides to an astonished Ray:

“Do you know, I really think I like Radley better than anyone else in the world. I simply loved being whacked by him.”

I pulled the clothes off my head that I might see the extraordinary creature that was talking to me. A dim light always burned near our beds, and by it was I able to see that Doe was very red and clearly wishing he had not made his last remark.

Ray’s line of thought carries on:

Doe’s remark, I reflected, was like that of a school-girl who adored her mistress. Perhaps Doe was a girl. After all, I had no certain knowledge that he wasn’t a girl with his hair cut short. I pictured him, then, with his hair, paler than straw, reaching down beneath his shoulders, and with his brown eyes and parted lips wearing a feminine appearance. As I produced this strange figure, I began to feel, somewhere in the region of my waist [ha! ed.] motions of calf-love for the girl Doe that I had created (29).

Extraordinary!

Radley is known as one who “never lets anyone off, especially his pets.” He’s wry. At one point Ray overheards Radley and the school doctor (Chappy) discussing Doe. Chappy admits of Doe:

“I’ve a great liking for him.”

“So have I.”

“Good. Now, what first attracted you – his good looks or his virtues?”

“Neither. His vices” (38).

I love 1) that it’s perfectly acceptable for these men to admit their attraction to these boys without the onerous film of pedophilia over everything; and 2) that he’s attracted to a boy by his vices.

Radley goes famously for the swift alternation of severity and gentleness. He canes without apology, as in the scene where he rapidly changes from confidant to disciplinarian, commanding Ray to follow him to his study after Ray has complained to him about his housemaster unfairly giving him a thousand lines.

There was little change in my countenance when he placed himself opposite me with his cane in his hand.

“You have been very rude to me in speaking defiantly of your house-master. Do you understand?”

There was no alternative but for me to say “Yes, sir.” The answer came huskily. I was annoyed that my voice sounded hoarse.

“Put out your hand.”

I obeyed, stretching out my right hand as far as I could and displaying no perturbation, though I was wondering what it would be like to be caned on the hand. This was one of Radley’s surprises, and he followed it with one of his brutal remarks:

“Put that right hand down. You’ll need it to be in good condition for writing your lines. Put up your left.”

I held out my left hand. The cane sang in the air and whistled on to my open palm. A spasm of pain passed up my arm, my hand closed convulsively, my elbow drooped, and that vast array of tears made a tremendous effort to carry everything before them. But with all the strength at my command I got the better of them. Angry at having closed my hand, I extended the scorching palm again, and, very pale and trembling perceptibly, looked with set features straight at Radley.

He threw the cane away and, sitting on the edge of his table, took hold of the hand that he had struck and drew me towards him.

“Don’t you think, Ray, that you, who can take a licking so pluckily, ought to face bad luck in a less cowardly fashion than you have this afternoon? You’ll meet worse things than lines before you’re ten years older; and, Ray, I want you always to face your fate, whatever it may be, as you faced my cane – teeth set, no wincing.”

It was a stroke of master play. His gentleness, following immediately upon his severity, burst the dam. His words were an “Open Sesame” to the leaky floodgates I had held so tightly closed (45-46).

I also loved the moment when he yanks Ray into his study by the wrist, intending to show him his strength. He’s unflinching. He boldly tells Ray that unless he takes the wrath of his peers and leads them away from their rottenness, that he’ll lose his (Radley’s) esteem.

“Which would you rather have, their contempt or mine?”

“Theirs, sir” (102).

Awesome!

The book itself is an odd sort of hybrid. The first half is all about school, the second about Ray and his companions at Gallipoli (where they perish). So all of this character building in part one stands within the context of the slaughter and waste of the Great War. – Never mind, though. Bring on Radley, I say. *sigh!*

quotes from Tell England: a study in a generation by Ernest Raymondm (re)published by Echo Library 2006. (originally published 1922?). Also on Google books.