1968

Of ogres, boom and bust

By Miriam Gross

Last Saturday there was a moving programme on BBC Radio Four about the famous concert, held on the very day in 1968 that the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia, at which the Russian cellist Rostropovich played – through tears – the cello concerto by the Czech composer Dvorak. As I listened, I was reminded of one of the most thrilling and nerve-wracking incidents of my working life.
It was a Friday in late August 1968 and I had recently become assistant to the literary editor of the Observer (the highly esteemed Terry Kilmartin, translator of Proust). The book pages were all done – ready to go to press – and Terry had departed for a long weekend, leaving me on my own to finish off routine jobs in the office. In the early afternoon the phone rang. “It’s Wystan here, can I speak to Terry?” The voice was deep and gravelly and the line crackly. Wystan, in my ignorance, was not a name I’d ever heard of. “He’s not here, I’m afraid, can I help you?” “I’ve written a short poem about Czechoslovakia, could you publish it in Sunday’s paper?” Normally I would have been taken aback by such presumption and snapped that it was much too late for this Sunday’s pages and that anyway poems had to be submitted for approval to the poetry editor. But there was a certain authority in this Wystan’s tone that luckily made me hesitate, because he then rasped: “It’s Wystan Auden”. Oh my God, my mind reeled, WH Auden, my favourite poet. There was only one answer to his request: Yes.
Auden then proceeded to dictate the poem to me in his mid-Atlantic drawl. I could barely make out a single word. Usually in such situations one can pretend that one has understood at least some of what is being said, but that is not an option when taking down a poem for publication. To my intense embarrassment, I had to ask poor WH Auden to repeat and spell out every word of the poem, including “the” and “and”. I kept blaming the bad connection, but he must have thought I was an utter idiot.
When this painful process was at last over, I rushed to the composing room (it was still the age of hot metal printing) to persuade the printers, who were very busy working on news pages, that, for the sake of great poetry, they would have to remove one of the book reviews and reset the page. After some resistance, they agreed.
When it was finally all done, I felt exhilarated. The poem is now included in Auden’s collected works and in anthologies:
The Ogre does what ogres can,
Deeds quite impossible for Man,But one prize is beyond his reach:The Ogre cannot master speech.About a subjugated plain, Among its desperate and slain,The Ogre stalks with hands on hips,While drivel gushes from his lips.
Like Rostropovich, Auden had felt impelled to give artistic expression to his abhorrence at the events of 1968. Like him, he produced something of lasting value.
The 1960s and 1970s are often thought of as the “golden age” of book reviewing. This seems to me quite wrong. Indeed the reverse of “dumbing down” has taken place in the literary sections of newspapers. When I worked on book pages during that period, no broadsheet published more than, at most, two pages of reviews a week. Now, most papers devote vastly more space and serious coverage to books – despite the fact that there has been no corresponding growth in book advertising. And standards have generally gone up in terms of quality as well as quantity. In the 1970s, most papers had one chief reviewer who wrote every week. The Observer had Philip Toynbee (father of Polly) and the Sunday Times had Cyril Connolly (father of Cressida). These two excellent men couldn’t possibly be authorities on all the books they had to discuss. As a result their reviews were often waffly and bland. By contrast, reviewers are now usually chosen for their familiarity with whatever field the book covers. This is a great improvement.
Cleavages have become a familiar feature of everyday life. Having been confined, for most of the 20th century, to parties and social life, and even then regarded as somewhat flashy and not quite respectable, plunging necklines and swelling bosoms can now be seen in all kinds of workaday places – in offices, at committee meetings, at academic conferences, on the floor of House of Commons, even at memorial services. This rather startling cultural change has arrived without causing much comment. It’s true that, earlier this summer, Hillary Clinton ignited a short-lived media “debate” when she displayed a bit of cleavage while addressing the Senate; and the home secretary provoked a few disapproving noises when she announced crime figures while displaying a glimpse of bosom between the lapels of her sensible suit. But what is the significance of this revolution in fashion? The zoologist Desmond Morris describes the cleavage as “a sexual signal that imitates the image of the cleft between the buttocks”. Are career women trying to enhance their power or soften their image? Are they trying to attract more attention to what they are saying or possibly draw attention away from its less welcome aspects? Or could it even be that they are letting it be known that they are up for an office romance?
A 12-year-old boy of my acquaintance has just been given an astonishingly advanced computer. It’s made in California and one of its miraculous feats is to listen to your voice and write down what you are saying (correctly spelt, of course). The trouble is that it only responds accurately when addressed in an American accent. So my young friend has been imitating the sounds made by the characters in his favourite TV programme, Friends. Perhaps he’ll end up sounding like WH Auden.