The Professor and the Comics
HIS MOON GLASSES shining on his round red-cheeked face Professor MacDuff cycled happily along through the March day which made the streets as white as bone. On days like these the city looked freshly coloured and new, the butchers in their striped smocks standing at shop doors, knives clutched absent-mindedly in their hands, young boys racing each other on bicycles, older boys hanging about with yellow crash helmets, women pushing prams and groceries along, window panes flashing, church spires climbing into a blue sky, cinemas advertising (he noticed sadly) Bingo instead of Wild Westerns.
Professor MacDuff waited placidly at the red traffic lights, in his tweed suit, his white shirt and large green tie. He felt fine as if newly resurrected from the grave of winter. What a fine month March was, bringing with it scents as from a rich soil, memories of boyish escapades, ladders, paint, whooping dogs, hosepipes. He cycled on past the Art Gallery (where they were holding an exhibition of Magritte’s paintings), past streets lined with flaring green trees, past small shops which said things like ‘M NS CL T ES’ (the brood which flourished and so quickly died) till he arrived at last at the open steel gates of the university from which rose green sweeping lawns towards the mellow-bricked building itself.
Students (boys hardly distinguishable from girls wearing long hair like Charles I’s doomed followers or the Marlborough he hugely admired) strolled about, books under their arms, talking. They waved to him. He waved back, by now wheeling his bicycle. The clock in the tower boomed. Ah, the forest of Arden where all was green, where Rosalind and Celia and Orlando and Oliver (indistinguishable from each other in their virginal green) wandered happily forever. He waved to the Professor of Logic who on dusty days sometimes wore a gas mask. Logic could of course be carried too far.
He parked his bicycle and walked along the corridor where the notices proliferated, so many of them that one didn’t have the time or the inclination to read them: a Violin Concerto cheek by jowl with a performance of Uncle Vanya, a teach-in on Communism next to a notice about Nationalism, a Wine and Cheese Social next to a poster which showed a lynx-eyed Chinaman with a machine gun.
He said ‘Hello’ to young Hilton who looked, as usual, aloof and saturnine. He wondered if he was wearing his red socks again and looking back saw that he was. The Moral Philosophy Professor of course never wore socks at all.
He stood outside the door of his lecture room looking at the wooden seats which arose in tiers towards the back, smelling as he so often did the smell of varnish, a reminiscence of his first day in university as a student. ‘Ah,’ said the History Professor, ‘narcissising again?’ The History Professor was called Black, wore a black gown and was a very precise Civil Service type of man who read out his lectures with great deliberation in a very even unexcited voice. His students liked him because he arranged and tabulated everything so neatly that it really seemed as if the precise year 1485 was a new departure in English History and the Renaissance did begin in a particular year and perhaps even on a particular day.
‘The lecture rooms look different in spring,’ said Professor MacDuff.
‘Everything is different in spring,’ said Professor Black, ‘except History.’
‘It is as if the people in there were plants,’ said Professor MacDuff, turning moon glasses benevolently towards Black who had however moved on. Having not a single jot of imagination himself he was uneasy in the presence of anyone who had.
‘Uptight, that’s what you are,’ said Professor MacDuff grinning.
He went into his room, and put on his gown. Soon his students would be appearing for the lecture. He smiled with satisfaction, and for a moment he appeared different, as if he were about to embark on a difficult adventure.
It seemed at first to be as it had always been before, the lecture room filling slowly then more rapidly with chattering students who quoted at each other the possibly more obscene bits of Anglo-Saxon or opened notebooks on which were drawn in bold imaginative detail anatomical sections of the human (feminine) form with words like sex and CRAP prominently displayed. Some lounged, some sat up attentively, some shifted about, some half closed their eyes (after late night hangovers), some dreamed. And here and there of course were the pale intense bespectacled ones who had really come to drink at the fount of Helicon, to whom for instance Donne’s poetry was not merely an academic abstraction but a possible experience. The students wore all sorts and styles of clothing: the only constant was difference. Some of the girls wore long sweeping red Lady Macbethish coats which swung open to frame like Renaissance pictures voluptuous legs below brief skirts. Boys wore dungaree trousers, leather jackets, silken scarves, polo-necked jerseys, a proliferation of costumes.
When he arrived at the dais the noise as usual died down. Professor MacDuff had been at the university for some time, was an institution and was expected to provide not only information but some urbane and even vaguely comic jokes or at least some entertainment. Bred on the unrelated stories of TV the students did not so much want a lecture as a performance, not however insincere but at least with the sincerity of the actor who has his own truth. They expected the medium and the message to coincide and were quickly bored if the medium (in this case the lecturer) should provide a message which had no relation to his own life style. As a Professor at the university had recently remarked with some bewilderment, ‘They not only want us to lecture on Che Guevara but in some measure to be Che Guevara.’ They did not like dissection of the dead and were therefore impatient with literary criticism.
It need not be said that what the Professor was about to do was remarkable and in some ways revolutionary. He had his own reasons for doing it and they were perhaps not mean reasons. What the students were looking for was excitement. They were young volatile energetic (fed on the milk of the Welfare State), already, many of them, veterans of demonstrations, obscurely irritated by restlessnesses whose source they could not focus. It was, Professor MacDuff often thought, a hunger for drama. There was something theatrical about their clothes even. They were pseudo-Elizabethans without any world (except dead planets) to conquer. They seemed to be continually dressing up for a stage which had been shifted while they were preparing or which, though still there, had no audience waiting. For no one wanted to be a member of an audience, everyone wanted to be an actor. Everyone wanted colour, the brighter the better, and drama, the more exciting the better. Perhaps many of them thought they could do the Professor’s job better than he could himself.
Nevertheless it was a big thing he was about to do … ‘Today,’ said Professor MacDuff drawing himself up to his full height, ‘and for the next few weeks of this term I shall talk about comics.’
The reaction of the students to this was at first complete stunned silence and then after a moment a spontaneous roar of applause in the middle of which he stood benevolent and fresh-faced as if he were a kind of happy personification of a vernal rural god.
Some however refrained from cheering as if they sensed that they were being got at in some way, as if they felt a daring breathtaking irony, a parody so piercing that it was a kind of hatred.
One or two among the pale and the bespectacled looked at him as if he had gone mad.
But he continued unperturbed referring duly to his lecture notes, a rotund slightly untidy figure with moon glasses.
‘Today,’ he said, ‘I shall begin since it is spring with a short lecture on the World of the Comics with special reference to Desperate Dan. Later I shall mention other such heroes of the Comics as Korky the Cat. My sources are the Dandy and the Beano and to a lesser extent the Rover, the Wizard, the Hotspur, etc. I shall sometimes refer to comics that are now extinct though at one time they flourished in the imaginations of many who for instance set out to found the British Empire. It is partly with this buried imaginative world, so like Atlantis, that I shall be concerned.
‘Now you will all be familiar I take it with the red and yellow pages of the Dandy which I place I may say at this
point much higher than the rather belligerent papers such as the Victor, the Wizard and the Hotspur in accordance with the one law which I shall enunciate, that distinguishing the truly creative from the uncreative. This law states that no truly creative work of any kind can omit the vulgar.
‘For it is clear,’ the Professor continued, ‘that whereas the Wizard for instance is a merely inferior version of such overrated books as Treasure Island, the Dandy on the other hand represents pure creativity and belongs to the same world as the silent films and the inimitable Charlie Chaplin, the Dandy oscillating as it does between the human world of Desperate Dan and the animal world of Korky the Cat.
‘It would however be invidious for me to draw comparisons between these two characters since in fact in such a world comparisons are not possible and would in fact be odious nor would it be meaningful for me to point out that an animal and a man are not essentially different in this world before good and evil (notice that I do not say beyond good and evil) theological terms which cannot be applied to material of this kind. It is a world rather of errors and inexactitudes. There is a difference one might interpose between an error and a sin. A sin is not an aesthetic term, whereas an error may be so classified.
‘Now should comparisons be made on the grounds of vocabulary. I myself would not wish to use neo-Bradleyan techniques in this matter since to do so would be to exile these characters from their own separate world. In the short time that I shall spend today on an introduction to this theme I should merely like to draw attention to some of the characteristics of a typical comic hero, that is, Desperate Dan.
‘Naturally one begins with his name. I could spend a long time discoursing on this, especially on the inspired choice of the name Dan which I consider to be much superior to the word Donald or Daniel which are possible alternatives. Why it is superior is not so easy to determine. (It is not for instance as clear as the inspired choice of name by Dickens for his sullen sexton, Gabriel Grub, a name which reconciles both heaven and earth, the angelic and the mouldy.)
‘Also one would have to discuss the adjective “desperate”, again an inspired choice because of the connotations of menace and despair, both transfused with comedy.
‘And I suppose that when one studies Desperate Dan with his unshaven appearance one could at first sight consider him menacing, especially as he is rather large. He might at first be thought of almost as domesticated Stone Age man ambling about in a world of clonks and aarghs.
‘He is one might say perpetually on the verge of a revelation, a being dazzled and swindled continually, sometimes by his family, sometimes by outsiders. But he always wins.
‘I should like at this point to outline the plot of a typical Desperate Dan episode. In this episode …’
At which precise moment there was an unexpected (or perhaps expected) interruption. A slim pale bespectacled boy of the kind whose aloofness conceals a fanatical fire, whose shyness is a mask for a burning egotism, stood up and said: ‘I think we have listened long enough to this ridiculous lecture. Surely, sir, you are aware that we have to try to pass an examination in a few weeks’ time. As this examination will affect the livelihood of most of us …’ Before he could proceed any further there was a brutal roar of derision and anger from the assembled multitude and expletives such as ‘SHIT’, ‘CRAP’, etc. were freely hurled.
But the serious boy though paler than before continued: ‘It’s possible, sir, that you may be interested in comics but that is no good reason for interrupting the syllabus. You are paid to teach us English Literature and by no stretch of the imagination can the Dandy and the Beano be said to form part of …’
A huge bearded student wearing a flowered shirt and tie and a brown leather jacket pushed the earnest protester back into his seat. But at that same moment as the huge hand descended on his shoulder propelling him downwards there emerged from another part of the whirlpool a fresh-faced curly-haired girl who shouted vigorously: ‘He’s quite right. There are some of us who believe that Shakespeare and Donne are great poets and that it is our right to be told about them. That stuff about Desperate Dan is what we left behind in the nursery. What do you think we are? Do you think we are still in the primary school? Are you playing a joke on us or something? Are you trying to take the mickey? What sort of professor are you? Are you showing some kind of intellectual contempt for us or what?’
‘Were you taught about Desperate Dan when you were in the University? Did someone decide that you were too immature to know about Donne? Or about Shakespeare? What right have you to take on yourself to judge us in this way?’
It was noticeable that the girl who was trembling with emotion was listened to with a certain degree of gravity and in a reasonable silence and if she had sat down at that point she might have swayed the meeting but as so often happens she overstated her case: ‘Even Beowulf,’ she concluded fiercely, ‘is more interesting than Desperate Dan.’
Whereupon there was a universal roar of execration, ‘Rubbish’, ‘Codswallop’, ‘Piss’, etc. and she was forced to sit down though battling valiantly to the end, her mouth opening and shutting soundlessly like someone on a TV screen when the sound has been cut off and the temporary fault extends for minute after minute.
All this while the professor sat happily and placidly believing that presently from the world of charge and counter charge there would emerge some heroic figure who would tell what the commotion really meant. It was as if he was waiting for such a figure. Meanwhile he sat perfectly still and relaxed while the mass seethed and shouted, instinctively waiting for a leader, speaking for the moment broken words like ‘DONNE—OUT OUT OUT’, ‘TO HELL WITH SHAKESPEARE’ and even ‘MACDUFF FOR THE PRIMARIES’ which at that moment were being fought in distant Florida.
But as always happens the hour produced the man and the dialogue proceeded.
This time the speaker was a tallish bearded student who stood up with a book in his hand. His beard was of a strawy colour, his lips were red and blubbery and his cheeks had a red slightly hectic tinge. His clothes looked dirty, as if he had been sleeping in them.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ he began, ‘I for one have listened to the previous speakers with amazement. What is their definition of education? I might ask this question without hoping for much of an answer.’ There was an interjection from the girl who was howled down after which the students settled down to listen to what the student had to say.
‘Are the previous speakers some sort of élite? Is that what they are? Let me ask you, how many of you really like reading Donne’s poetry or Shakespeare’s plays? It would be interesting to find out. How many of you are not bored to death by what the so-called critics call “the intellectual and imaginative, working together”. How many of you believe with me that most of their work is a load of crap with nothing to say to any of us? How many of you really like these people? Let’s have a show of hands on this.’
Five hands went up slowly. ‘There you are. Five people. And most certainly they have been brainwashed. If there are only five people here who really like reading Donne and Shakespeare what conclusion do we draw from this? I’ll tell you: we’ve been conned. Lecturers tell us we’re stupid because we don’t like reading Troilus and Cressida. And yet are we really to believe that we are any stupider than any previous generation? Is this feasible? Is it likely that a whole generation of stupid people has suddenly emerged? Is this a reasonable assumption? I can’t believe it. It’s ridiculous. A much more reasonable assumption would be that for us these people, these writers, are dead, not only physically dead but spiritually dead. And after all what’s wrong with the comics? Our brothers outside read the comics. In factories, on the workshop floor, they read the comics, uncountable numbers of them. Soldiers in the army, airmen in the air force, read the comics. They read them in shops and offices. They are people exactly like us, they are human beings. Are we saying that we are better than them because we have read some of Shakespeare’s plays? Are we not separating ourselves fr
om our brothers? I say that Donne and Shakespeare are methods to separate us from our brothers, that in order to get back to them again we should return to the world of comics, that Donne and Shakespeare are divisive influences.
‘And furthermore I suggest that we hold a festival. I suggest that we have an open air festival in which we will have readings from the comics, dramatic performances based on the comics, an extravaganza of joy.’
At this suggestion there was a roar of approval, which died down when he raised his arm and said: ‘I think we should elect a committee here and now to organise this festival. And I mean my suggestion to be taken quite seriously. I suggest that Professor MacDuff be made Honorary President of this committee.’
The Professor signified that he accepted and rose to his feet. In perfect silence he continued with his lecture. ‘I was about to outline one of the episodes in the saga of Desperate Dan …’
TWO
The Principal of the University was a scientist (or rather an ex-scientist) with an M.Sc. and various other degrees from other universities. His main work had been done during the war when as a member of a chosen group, he had invented a method of distinguishing between the voices of European and Japanese soldiers in the jungles of Burma. It was a well-known fact that the Japanese had used techniques of imitation to entice British (and lesser) soldiers to their deaths by training some of their people to speak good English. Professor Carstairs had put a stop to that by showing that a tape recorder with a simple attachment could easily distinguish between Eastern and Western voices. It was according to his often repeated explanations at cocktails a simple matter of breath control and pace. These two, he remarked, are very different in different races. He had once been in the same swing door as Winston Churchill but to listen to him one might imagine that Churchill had hearkened with bated breath and composed intelligence for hours to his explanations of how inferior the breath control and pace of Japanese voices were to British ones. It was often remarked that he looked rather like Churchill with his great bald head, his smallish stature, the bulldog thrust of his jaw, his habit of jumping head first into situations from which he would later extricate himself with a sophisticated cunning and especially his trick of removing his glasses when he was making a speech. He had lately taken to attaching them to a piece of tape which swung on his breast and would put them on and remove them at regular intervals.
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