Who's Afraid of the Fourth Man?

[f4f3]

This isn't what I was expecting to be blogging about tonight. I expected to be talking about my Caledonian odyssey this weekend (Drumna-fucking-drochit?) or the kicking we gave the Bastard English or possibly the Guardian giving page one space to a racist and religious diatribe from one of our greatest living postcard illustrators, and probably I will, but I read yesterday's Guardian Review over dinner, and something caught my eye.
In the Guardian Book club column, John Banville writes entertainlingly about his decision to write a novel based on Antony Blunt. At one point he writes:
"Like so many of my generation I have been, and indeed, still am, fascinated by the Cambridge spies."
And I stopped, and crinkled up my brow. I'm not fascinated by the Cambridge spies. I'm not vaguely interested by the Cambridge spies. I don't, if truth be told, really give a shit about the Cambridge spies. Nobody I know gives a shit about the Cambridge spies, and nobody I've ever spoken to seems to give a shit either. I've always thought I was immune from the Oxbridge chip on my shoulder. I didn't go there, nobody else I know did either, and it never seemed even an option to worry about from my point of view. But I do wonder that somone could say that "So many of his generation" did care. I tend to regard myself as pretty mundane, in that my interests and fascinations are pretty reflective of everyone else's, but I seem to have a blind spot here.
So, knowing that some of my F's out there did go to Oxbridge, is anyone out there fascinated by this? Am I in this particular way less than mundane? Or is it an example of the lensing affect caused by so many of our opinion formers coming from such a closeted background?

Comments

[liadnan]

Well, except that as pointed out above, Banville has nothing whatsoever to do with "that little part of the world", unless you count the results of his (deserved in my view) literary fame as an adult. He's an Irishman with minimal tertiary education, and his interest in the subject in and of itself is thus an argument against the argument that such interest is confined to that little part of the world. In my experience current Oxbridge people tend to have no particular interest in the Cambridge spies either.
The assumption of many that one can, today, talk about Oxbridge people as though they were all or even largely of a type with similar interests peculiar to them is also, to my eyes, a bit odd. What people tend to mean seems, so far as I can make out, to be reference to a certain kind of person to whom the fact they went to Oxbridge is a source of endless fascination not only to them but to everyone they meet. Believe me, such people are a vanishingly small minority of Oxbridge graduates and undergraduates these days -maybe always were, I don't know: from what I know of the Cambridge Apostles they themselves would probably have been of that type. But even among members of the Union Clubs it's not that common a type these days.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I confess to having skimmed some of the above, and that there's a certain lazy shorthand to my original comment. I agree with you that that sort of attitude among the Oxbridge-educated is probably diminishing (and a good thing too, IMO). However, Banville is not of my generation, but rather my Dad's. I get the impression that to people of that generation, Oxbridge is still something of an enigma (ha), eliciting reverence or irritation, sometimes both at once.

It might be that the whole thing is merely an example of the inability of someone fascinated by a thing to understand why others might not find it so compelling. I can think of any number of occasions when I've seen this, or done it myself.

Of course, I should know better than to get into anything approaching an argument with a lawyer, not least because I have the debating skills of a bowl of porridge ;)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

A well flung bowl of porridge can derail the most carefully though out argument, believe me....

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

That's my kind of sophisticated retort, yup.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I can only see that as helpful - i can't imagine that there isn't a shared culture and common assumptions amongst Oxford and Cambridge graduates, and I'm encouraged that they seem to be lessening as time goes on. Perhaps those who are endlessly fascinated tend to congregate in the media, politics and law, where they have more chance than most to share their fascination with the rest of us.

[liadnan]

The last part: maybe so, though I trust you don't count me among that -for a start, I was never an Oxford undergraduate.
I think a high proportion of people come out caring about, and feeling part of, the place -or at least, of their college, university identity tends to be a poor second to college identity. Being no fools the colleges do their best to keep this alive as it means money down the line.
And the distinctive ways of teaching etc, that does create a culture that is a bit opaque to outsiders.
Where I think you're wrong is in suggesting -if you are- that there's some common outlook on life in general. There really isn't, not in my experience. And most Oxford graduates I know do not consider it the core fact of their identity, though I think they do consider the place important to them.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Sorry, I was being a bit lazy in my reply. What I meant to say that there is an ever growing majority of Oxbridge graduates (in who's numbers, if you'd allow the laziness, I would place yourself) for whom the Oxbridge Experience is not a central part of their existence or a source of endless fascination to share with themselves or others, but that the views of the minority, by nature of their positions in the Media, Law or Politics, are given undue exposure.

If I can struggle past my laziness to explain one step further, I don't believe that the proportion of Oxbridge graduates occupying senior posts in these fields has changed much (although I'd expect to be proven wrong by anyone with a chip on either shoulder) but that the constitution of that proportion is changing in line with the trend you identify.

How's that?

Oh, and to express a surprising interest, I was cheering on Liverpool against Trinity last night - I hope because Liverpool were the underdogs and came from behind. In my defence, I still don't know if it was Trinity College Cambridge or Dublin.

[liadnan]

Fair enough. The Blonde and Frankie may have more worthwhile views on this, as their Oxbridge experiences were probably more typical than mine -for a start, they were undergraduates. Postgraduates are in a bit of a different world from the start.

[liadnan]

More worth paying attention to than mine I mean, obvs.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Obviously, but also more so than mine *g*