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A Time of Gifts. A hard read. Have I just had the wrong education?

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 Godwin 01 Apr 2022

I am coming to the end of Paddy Fermors, A Time of Gifts, and its been a tough journey. This must be my fourth or fifth attempt to read it over a period of maybe 10 years, and previously I have never left the Rhine with him.

I am constantly referring to my Chambers Dictionary, as he uses so many words that I just do not know.

It is beautifully written, however I do have to wonder if he is just showing off with some of the words he uses. Or am I not his intended audience.

Has anybody on here read it, and found it an easy read. If so, could I please ask, where, were you educated?

 DaveHK 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I didn't find the language particularly difficult but I found his long digressions into things like art history and politics tedious and indulgent. When he's writing about the landscape or events it is superb. I think it would have benefitted greatly from a harsher editor.

1
 Doug 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I've read it, plus the two other books in the trilogy. Don't remember it being a difficult read, just enjoyable.

OP Godwin 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

Fair enough, perhaps its me, but I have not a clue what irrefragable means, and sometimes I am coming across multiple words like this, per page. It just spoils the flow, for me.

Post edited at 12:56
 redscotti 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

Robert MacFarlane does exactly the same. Seems he's interested in keeping dying words alive...maybe Paddy Fermors was on a similar mission. Obfuscation I think.

 Doug 01 Apr 2022
In reply to redscotti:

I wonder if its a result of speaking several languages ? There's words I use in English which are rare in English but not really in French and also in the other direction. Irrefragable/ Irréfragable indisputable is one example.

 redpointillist 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I think its quite a hard read and that he was in part showing off his wide knowledge and classical education. But it is also beautiful in parts and very moving in its depiction of a world that was almost wholly destroyed, and many of the people he met dead, ten years later.

I tried many times to read his book The Mani and couldn't get on with it, until I went to the Mani in the Peloponnese and read it there and it completely made sense. I'm not sure it's much of a recommendation for a travel book that you have to go to the destination to enjoy the book, but again its a wonderful elegy about a lost world (although the deep Mani is still pretty unspoilt). But being Greece he really does go on about Classical civilisation, language, etc.

The book of his I enjoyed most, surprisingly to me, was A Time to Keep Silent. Its very short and about his stays in a number of French monasteries, including the entirely silent La Trappe. Its about monastic life and very atmospheric, almost eerie in parts. I'd recommend it, if want to go on with PLF.

 RobAJones 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Doug:

> I wonder if its a result of speaking several languages ?

I'd say that, generally that makes a massive difference. 

>There's words I use in English which are rare in English but not really in French and also in the other direction. Irrefragable/ Irréfragable indisputable is one example.

That certainly has an effect, but I also think speaking more than one language leads to you being more inquisitive. I still remember covering a top set year 11 English lesson containing kids who would go onto get a grade 9 later that year. I was surprised that when I remarked that a pupil had made an astute observation, the class didn't understand what I meant and thought I was taking the p*ss (generally not an unreasonable assumption). The disappointment was only a few seemed bothered. I discussed this with my niece who was 9 at the time and for whom English is her second language, she was more surprised than me. So I suppose the point I'm making is that because of her inquisitiveness about language, she was always asking questions, as a primary school kid her English vocabulary was more extensive than 16 year old English kids whose exam result  put them in the top 3% of their cohort. 

 Moacs 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I feel your pain. 4th attempt on Ulysses

OP Godwin 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Moacs:

> I feel your pain. 4th attempt on Ulysses

Not a book I have attempted, but have you watched the film, Brother, Where Art Though?. It might give you a way in, like reading the story of an opera, before you see it.

 Andy Clarke 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Moacs:

> I feel your pain. 4th attempt on Ulysses

Allow me to help:

https://www.ukclimbing.com/forums/culture_bunker/joyces_ulysses_a_climbers_...?

OP Godwin 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

The foreign language thing makes sense, was Jan Morris multilingual, thats the other writer I have read recently who had me reaching for the dictionary, but when reading Jan, I nearly always got the word from the context.

When I visit Prague, I for sure will re read his chapter about Prague when I am there.

The comment on youngsters is possibly sad, when I was young, I used to love reading Encyclopedias, and just generally hovering up knowledge, but nowadays, we do not need to retain knowledge as the whole of written human knowledge is on our phones, so no need to retain.

I wonder if human brains are evolving due to smart phones.
 

 RobAJones 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

> The comment on youngsters is possibly sad, when I was young, I used to love reading Encyclopedias, and just generally hovering up knowledge,

Not sure it has changed much. When I was at school '70's/80's I would do similar, but don't think more than half a dozen others did in a year group of 156, doubt it is any “worse" now. 

>but nowadays, we do not need to retain knowledge as the whole of written human knowledge is on our phones, so no need to retain.

But if you are inquisitive then accessing information is far, far easier. I'm more concerned that the information readily available now has had far fewer checks for accuracy than Encyclopaedias used to. Again inquisitive kids are more receptive to being taught to be skeptical about everything they read on the Internet. To many others seem to be very good at retaining misinformation. 

Post edited at 19:17
 petemeads 01 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I remember reading Nabokov's 'Bend Sinister' years ago and thinking "how can, any why, does this Russian use English words that an English speaker has never encountered? I just seemed like showing off, and put me off reading Lolita, which might have been more interesting..  I wasn't aware of any link between James Joyce and O Brother Where Art Thou (which is one of my favourite films of all time).

2
 Andy Clarke 01 Apr 2022
In reply to petemeads:

> I wasn't aware of any link between James Joyce and O Brother Where Art Thou (which is one of my favourite films of all time).

Both Ulysses and O Brother are based on the Odyssey.

 ben b 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I found the first two books fascinating but sometimes self-indulgent; his education was (in the standards of the time) unconventional but he was clearly a very gifted linguist and very sharp on art and history. The books seem the better for it overall for a different audience rather than solely as a work of travel literature. Much of it is an academic tour-de-force, but I have to admit to zoning out in some of the long swathes of (to me) obscure monarchic history, and some of the art and sculpture stuff, erudite as it may be. Overall I just didn't let it get to me too much and was happy to accept I am a luddite on these matters. 

Schooling wise I did English language up to O level and am faintly embarrassed by having GCSEs in ancient greek and latin, which are of precisely zero help when reading his books (and not much more help anywhere else for that matter). From 16 to 25 in my case it was all sciences. Unless you have degrees in Art History, Architecture and Theology then much of his account is going to be new ground, so I'm just happy to let it wash over me. 

Occasionally reading books where a dictionary is needed is quite a pleasant change; as long as it doesn't happen every time. Robert McFarlane is similarly afflicted as redscotti points out. 

There's a very good online resource about PLF (although every time I use that abbreviation I think of Bill Drummond and Jimmy Cauty).

https://patrickleighfermor.org

His brief but intense period of infatuation with Angela (in the second book) is just one area where the site leads to insights as to what happened in the war and subsequently to many of the players in the books. In Angelas case, tragically.  https://patrickleighfermor.org/tag/angela/

So in summary: I wouldn't worry too much about it. Enjoy the bits you enjoy (and some of it is pretty magical) and don't beat yourself up about the stuff that makes little sense to the rest of us, as you re in excellent company!

b

 felt 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

> It is beautifully written, however I do have to wonder if he is just showing off with some of the words he uses. Or am I not his intended audience.

Will Self is the master at this.

> If so, could I please ask, where, was he educated?

The University of the West of Thesaurus

 petemeads 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Andy Clarke:

Joyce studied the Odyssey, and built Ulysses around it. The Coen brothers had not read it but used some of the characters/stories they had picked-up second-hand from the Odyssey (Sirens, Cyclops). I stand by my statement that there is no link between Joyce and O Brother.

 Andy Clarke 02 Apr 2022
In reply to petemeads:

>  I stand by my statement that there is no link between Joyce and O Brother.

Next you'll be telling me Fargo wasn't inspired by Finnegans Wake!

OP Godwin 02 Apr 2022
In reply to petemeads:

> Joyce studied the Odyssey, and built Ulysses around it. The Coen brothers had not read it but used some of the characters/stories they had picked-up second-hand from the Odyssey (Sirens, Cyclops). I stand by my statement that there is no link between Joyce and O Brother.

You did not state the is no link, you just said " I wasn't aware of any link between James Joyce and O Brother Where Art Thou (which is one of my favourite films of all time)." 

Any roads up, I loved the film and as I am poorly sick with Covid, might watch it later, but Ulysses does not sound so ace, so will not be going on my reading list, as I read for pleasure.

OP Godwin 02 Apr 2022
In reply to ben b:

>

> Schooling wise I did English language up to O level and am faintly embarrassed by having GCSEs in ancient greek and latin,. 

>

I am surprised by that, I  thought that studying Latin would give a person a feel for the structure of words. But I have never studied any Latin ¯_(ツ)_/¯

 

 ben b 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I suspect it’s down to how you study it... I never got the tenses sorted, just translated words en masse and stuck them together to make sense. It was enough for GCSEs but nothing else. The ability to tortuously translate Thucydides into English has never hugely helped me. Actual Latin grammar passes me by. As does quite a lot of English grammar, too! 

 I’m usually reasonably competent in spotting Greek and Latin derivations; but overall I’m a lousy linguist. I probably did French for 10 years and then struggle beyond a little light shopping and discussing where the station is. The kind of level Fermor  reached in an unfamiliar language in a week or so. 
 

b

 flaneur 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

> Has anybody on here read it, and found it an easy read. If so, could I please ask, where, were you educated?

Bog standard comprehensive. I needed to use a dictionary at times but I see that as a feature rather than a problem. I am curious about language and it's not an Andy McNab. 

I enjoyed the book. It seemed incredible to me how Fermor managed to charm his way into the houses and lives of Central European aristocracy but the rest of his life suggests this was just a warm-up. A friend was very taken by the story and set off to retrace the steps in the early 90s. He got as far as Rotterdam before realising the world was a very different place and he was not Paddy Leigh Fermor.  

In reply to petemeads:

Ulysses is a daughter of The Odyssey, O Brother Where Art Thou a grand nephew. Part of the same family, albeit distantly related.

 seankenny 02 Apr 2022
In reply to ben b:

>  I’m usually reasonably competent in spotting Greek and Latin derivations; but overall I’m a lousy linguist. I probably did French for 10 years and then struggle beyond a little light shopping and discussing where the station is. The kind of level Fermor  reached in an unfamiliar language in a week or so. 

According to an article in The Times the other day on learning languages as an adult there is no such thing as a bad linguist - we can all learn a new language if we have to. The same article also said knowing one language helped with learning another, hence why PLF could pick up new ones easily. I suspect language teaching here is just bad, and in general British people don’t like to risk looking foolish. I live in a bi-lingual household and can do in the other language roughly what you can in French without ever having done any formal study. I do however get listening practice every day! French was always my weakest subject at school so it’s not as if I’m particularly gifted at languages or anything. 

Post edited at 14:11
 RobAJones 02 Apr 2022
In reply to seankenny:

>  I suspect language teaching here is just bad

I'd say there were other factors that have a far greater effect. I agree nearly anyone can learn a second language, but it is hard work and in 50 to 100 minutes a week in lessons isn't a lot of time. The exposure other students have to English and the motivation to be able to communicate in it are far greater. One of my brothers teaches English in Italy, yes the standard is far, far higher than in the UK, but he has never suggested it is down to his superior teaching. 

>I live in a bi-lingual household 

How many British kids do, compared to say Dutch? All the kids I know who have bilingual parents are fluent in at least two languages before the start secondary school. If that was more common we could teach subjects like geography and history in a foreign language. I know of one local school that attempted this, but not enough kids could cope to make it successful. 

 Andy Clarke 02 Apr 2022
In reply to seankenny:

> I suspect language teaching here is just bad, and in general British people don’t like to risk looking foolish. 

I suspect you'll suspect I'm in deformed professional mode, but the real issue isn't the quality of language teaching or the aversion of Brits to looking foolish, it's Empire legacy anachronistic exceptionalism. Back in the olden days when I worked I was head of a specialist language college (aka community comp) which taught French, German, Spanish and Mandarin. Languages was the least popular specialism for schools to go for because of the widespread British cultural unwillingness to see the relevance and usefulness of MFL and hence the difficulty of raising the necessary sponsorship. I drove it forward because of my deep belief in the need for an internationalist approach. I lost count of how many businesses didn't see the point, despite a former head of BMW famously saying, "If you want to chat about the weather, English is fine, but if you want to sell me a car, German would be best." In the end I had to give up on local/regional business and we got funding from HSBC as one of their international family of schools. As you'd expect in a specialist school, we generally had high quality MFL teaching and it didn't take long for any initial doubts in the community to disappear. Expecting a country that voted for Brexit to have positive attitudes towards MFL would require the kind of blind optimism I could muster in a professional capacity, but not in the cold light of retirement.

ETA: Our PM is supposedly fluent in French, but does he ever let it show? No, it's comedy franglais all the way to keep the country happy.

Post edited at 15:14
 RX-78 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

I loved it, I either looked the words up, ignored them or assumed a meaning given the context. Educated in ireland in the state school system, no Latin, greek. I have a science background rather than arts snd mainly read sci-fi.

 Doug 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Andy Clarke:

> ETA: Our PM is supposedly fluent in French, but does he ever let it show? No, it's comedy franglais all the way to keep the country happy.

I've heard him being interviewed in French on FranceInter (similar to BBC R4) & he managed OK although he speaks French with a strong English accent. Didn't he go to school in Brussels for a while ?

OP Godwin 02 Apr 2022
In reply to flaneur:

> Bog standard comprehensive.

Truly, I see thats as rather provocative, I went to a bog standard comprehensive, and read, a lot, and there are often two or three words per page that have me reaching for the dictionary. A good writer, if using unusual words, would give the meaning in the context. I think Paddy was an intellectual snob, and showboating. 

> I enjoyed the book. It seemed incredible to me how Fermor managed to charm his way into the houses and lives of Central European aristocracy but the rest of his life suggests this was just a warm-up.  

>

I suspect he was a product of the Public School system, and used the charm and charisma he learnt there, along with a couple of letters of introduction, to blag his way across Europe. 
Good on him, if he can get away with it.

 CantClimbTom 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

> ... but I have not a clue what irrefragable means.. 

It's from the Latin, and means the author is a smartarse

1
 Matt Podd 02 Apr 2022
In reply to Godwin:

One of the finest 20th century travel writers. He was a war hero, read his stuff about Crete. Buried in Dumbledon, Worcestershire- I’ve been to pay my respects by his graveside. 


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