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

[pshtaku.livejournal.com]

see - this would be a good time to do a poll!
(didn't go to Oxbridge, but am fascinated about spies, but more John Le Carre than real life hehehehe!)

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

I don't give a toss about them either, except insofar as it's a fine example of how the normal rules don't apply to the right sort of chap even when they are the wrong sort of chap. (applies to chapettes too)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Thanks - that sort of encapsulates my thoughts on it...

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I'm not fascinated by the Cambridge spies, although I adore the play / film Another Country.

Like you, however, I was enraged by the Hockney piece.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

Don't agree with your coda. The right sort of chap is by definition a chap.

[chickenfeet2003.livejournal.com]

What about the like of Ms. Bullying-Manners who is currently running MI5 or Anita Brookner, who was used to break Blunt? Both from impeccable service/bureaucratic families, the right schools and universities. The right sort of chap in every way.

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

I spotted that Banville remark and felt like you. My generation doesn't care much about Blunt et al. Its all part of a past that is hard to relate to, being too recent to evaluate but distant enough taht it didnt affect us directly.

I think when banville says 'my generation' he perhaps means 'my social milieu' but that says more about him than about Blunt.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Hmm, even a very good chappette isn't quite a chap.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* possibly - I doubt their milieu were the same, but it's not inconceviable that their colleges were...

[pigeonhed.livejournal.com]

That rarified social strata that is peculiar to certain colleges and, perhaps, a certain period of time?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

i'm not sure that I was enraged - I was annoyed, certainly. For him to whine like a baby when it's dragged off the teat isn't unexpected, and even his likening the curtailment of his right to inflict his addiction on whoever he likes to prohibition and the death of freedom is melodramatic but not actualy offensive, but when he takes it on himself to make potshots at someone based on their religion and race, and when the dear old Grunaid gives him their front page to do it...

well, ok, maybe I was enraged after all.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I don't know - the downside of not really caring about it is that I don't know very much about it. The upside is that I don't need to carry a chip around about it either.

[widgetfox.livejournal.com]

I doubt either would agree that they had had the same effortless access to the rewards and privileges of being the People Like Us that the chaps did. Not saying that they weren't there - just that women are always the Other.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but you are not of his generation. John Banville was born in 1945; the post-war, cold-war politics of the 50s and 60s meant that the Cambridge spies did get a lot of interest.

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

What did Hockney say?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I'll post it verbatim this morning.

[liadnan]

Precisely.
I don't think anyone of our generation cares that much, whether they were at Oxford or Cambridge or not. But to our parents it was a massive thing.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I think that was a bit of laziness on my part, not checking Banville's date of birth, but I was interested to see if the fascination, if there was one, was dying away. I'd also make the slightly presumptious claim that it meant very little to my parents or their generation, except for those who had an Oxbridge background - I'll amend my laziness by scurrying off and checking where Banville went to University.

Petards, hoist upon:

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

According to Wikipedia:


"Educated at a Christian Brothers' school and at St Peter's College in Wexford, he did not attend university."

So at least ONE non-Oxbridger was fascinated by the Cambridge spies...

[liadnan]

I honestly would be surprised if interest was limited to those who actually had an Oxford background... Burgess and Maclean in particular rocked the nation I think.
"Irish novelist John Banville was born in Wexford in Ireland in 1945. He was educated at a Christian Brothers' school and St Peter's College in Wexford. He worked for Aer Lingus in Dublin, an opportunity that enabled him to travel widely. He was literary editor of the Irish Times between 1988 and 1999. Long Lankin, a collection of short stories, was published in 1970. It was followed by Nightspawn (1971) and Birchwood (1973), both novels. "

I thought he was TCD actually, which would amount to Oxbridge equivalence at least in the social sense. But it would seem not. I've never heard of St Peter's, and suspect it isn't National University of Ireland either.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

I went to Cambridge: one ninth of my degree was about the history of spying, taught by a apy expert who'd helped bring Gordievsky across the Iron Curtain, and despite all this I AM NOT FASCINATED BY THE CAMBRIDGE SPIES either.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

*chuckle* I suspect that you are in this, as in so much else, a special case.

[itchyfidget.livejournal.com]

Late comment: I would describe myself as 'mildly curious', but being from a background where neither parent (despite university educations) had had anything to do with Oxbridge, and having been educated entirely in Scotland, it has barely featured on my radar. Parents have never mentioned it in my hearing.

I agree with most others here that it's more or less attributable to ego, and the rarified atmosphere in that little part of the world.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

"barely featured on my radar" sort of sums it up for me, too, and I'm a big Lecarre fan.

[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]

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.

[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.

[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*

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

I can also remember the fuss when Blunt - who if I recall correctly was the curator of the Queen's art collection - was exposed as a spy - sometime in the 70s, I think. 1979 - I ckeched on Wikipedia; I had thought it was earlier.

Interesting - he was named by Margaret Thatcher...

[rhythmaning.livejournal.com]

What were the other eight ninths in?

I like the idea of the history of spying being taught... But how do you know they were telling the truth? ;)

[liadnan]

Blunt was keeper of the Queen's pictures, yes, a post in which he performed rather well: I've read some of his art criticism. Not entirely sure how much access it gave him to state secrets.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

Probably the best thing written on Blunt was Bennett's (I think?) "A Question of Attribution" which I thoroughly enjoyed (without, of course, being fascinated by it).

[liadnan]

See, oh obsessive one, I don't think I've ever read anything about him, or any of the rest of them, as opposed to by him save stuff in the Sunday newspapers and reviews of things and references in novels. J'accuse....

(Oh and I've read Attorney General v. Blake, but that's different. Barking decision too.)

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

I didn't read it, as that would have required actual effort on my part, I watched it, on the BBC.

Prunella Scales as HRH and a Fox, probably Edward as Blunt.

[liadnan]

Ah right. Does ring a vague bell to be honest.

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

It made clever and extended play on what makes something (a picture or a spy) a fake, and if a fake could still have value.

[blonde222.livejournal.com]

blimey. I only vaguely remember....
- Two ninths was European History 1500 to present day (Peter and Catherine the Great, bits of French Revolution, Bismarck, Mussolini, some Nazis)
- One ninth was the Glorious Revolution
- One ninth was British social and economic history 1870-present (literacy, welfare reform, Mrs Gaskell)
- One ninth was American History (post civil war reconstruction, depression, Wall Street Crash)
- One ninth was British social and economic history 1500-1715 (peasants, church records, farming)
- One ninth was British political and constitutional history 1715-1870 (Walpole, Walpole, Walpole)
- One ninth was the spies
- One ninth was historiography

I THINK. Do you wish you'd never asked?

[f4f3.livejournal.com]

i wish he'd never asked - that sounds so much more interesting than:
Scottish Legal System
Contracts
Evidence
Delict (so dull I actually forgot the name)
Property Trusts and Succession
Mercantile Law
Tax
Criminal Law
Conveyancing (espescially conveyancing)
and probably more that I've forgotten.
Only Constitutional Law, Forensic Medicine, Jurisprudence and Moral Philosophy (I slipped that in under an obscure rule that let it count towards my degree) were interesting.