A Time of Gifts – 17. Another Summer

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Cornwall, France, Iceland, Italy, Oxford, Switzerland, USA

This was another idyllic term, with little pressure of work. But I also record my first disillusionment with politics, as well as the difficulties of unreserved devotion to one cause or another. And it notes again the fact that, though I relished the hectic social life, I was also extremely happy on my own.

 

4^th April 1973

I must confess my own determination to come back has weakened slightly and, my results having just come out today, with a 2^nd, I’ve decided in any case to do a postgraduate somewhere, before returning, though unfortunately I probably shan’t be able to do it here. Five of us here got 2^nds, though the sixth failed completely, which is a bit upsetting.

Having spent days at Clara’s, I came here last week partly to finish my work as I shall have to be free in London for Thatha, partly because I can’t bear to be away from here. I had various people around last week, including Aruna, and this week the Opera twice, once with the only Don left in College, and yesterday I found myself next to the Junior Dean and his wife who’ve asked me for dinner tomorrow. But even the weekend, when I was practically alone in College except for the barman in the Beer Cellar, was marvelous – I hope I have the energy to escape from Oxford next summer.

The Dean and Chaplain return tonight from the Schools’ men reading party to Cornwall, and I hope to get them to lunch to meet Thatha at Pam’s – I hope they’ll be satisfied with the 2^nd – my tutor seemed delighted.

This morning I spent at the Union and, being now trusted by the Higher Echelons, witnessed the opening of the President’s correspondence, and subsequent resealing – done at Balliol, of course – which was fascinating, but quite disillusioning, as there were the Senior Members of our side, which considers the other dishonest. I think I shall find the Union elections fun next term, but I can’t quite see myself fitting into one side or the other sufficiently dedicatedly enough to get very high. Besides, the complete unmasking of left–wing intentions in the Labour Club was quite upsetting. I shall try to write more often, and it wasn’t only politics that prevented frequent writing. I did do some work, as the results show.

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New Horizons – 4 The Rockefeller Centre at Bellagio

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Acts of Faith, Alberta Fabris Grube, Bellagio, Chelva Kanaganayakam, Copenhagen, Days of Despair, Dorakumbura, Graz, Harold Acton, Italy, Kurunegala, Linda Hutcheon, Meenakshi Mukherjee, Old Place, Padua, Richard de Zoysa, Rockerfeller Centre, The Current Crisis in Sri Lanka, The Limits of Love, Tony Judt, Venice

Notwithstanding all this new and exciting work, I went away in the middle of 1993 for a month. Dorakumbura, by now Vice-Chancellor, was not pleased, but I had confidence in the new staff I had recruited and the systems now in place. It was good to give them a chance to work on their own, but of course the principal reason for going away was entirely selfish, namely that I had received an honour that I felt could not be turned down.

This was a residency at the Rockefeller Centre at Bellagio, on the Italian lakes. The Villa Serbelloni, as it is called, provides a month’s board and lodging, in a beautiful setting, to scholars and artists to get on with their work as they please. Initially it was mainly Americans who participated, but gradually other Westerners too were accepted, and in the nineties there was a conscious effort to expand the pool of beneficiaries to include the Third World too. This meant that one could apply to have one’s airfare paid, and also receive a small stipend. This helped with additional costs, such as travel before and after, and the occasional trip down to the village or excursion on the lake.

I was introduced to the programme by an enterprising American academic called Bruce King, to whose book on the Commonwealth Novel in English I had contributed the chapter on Sri Lanka. It turned out that I was in fact the first Sri Lankan to go to Bellagio, though Michael Ondaatje had been there a couple of years earlier and Yasmine Gooneratne was to follow. I was also happy to introduce Jean Arasanayagam to the programme, though I am not sure that anyone else resident in this country has participated since.

I took advantage of the trip also to attend the Conference of the European branch of the Association of Commonwealth Literature and Language Studies. I had been to the triennial international ACLALS Conferences previously, in Singapore and Canterbury and most recently in Jamaica, and by then I was seen as an old hand. So the ebullient Austrian who was organizing the European Branch Conference the next year was able to sponsor my attendance.