In this part of my story, I focus on the French influences in my life. In “Of Hebrew Remnants and Greek Republics,” I mentioned that after failing my medical supplementary exams in February 1960, I registered for a B.A. I wanted to start “pure” philosophy courses straight away, but these could only be taken in the second year of the B.A. My first year subjects were Psychology I, Sociology I, Hebrew Special, Greek, and Roman Literature-and-Philosophy. I was having lunch with some friends in the cafeteria. The cafeteria was on the ground floor of the distant building in the picture. Its windows faced the side with the white pillars. Jameson hall is the large building on the left.
One of the students at the table was studying French Elementary. His French textbook (Brooks and Cook) were lying (French gisait) on the table in front of him like a dead thing Something was stirring within the being of my bowels. I picked it up, opened it at random and began to declame. I was amazed when someone said, very good. How is that posseeble?
I knew less French than Peter Sellars. And he only knew “minkey” and hotel phrases like “Have you got a rhume?” Flu). Was some kind of amniotic anamnesis (remembrance of things past – very past) going on. It was the Greek philosopher Plato who said you don’t learn anything new; you knew it all the time. It’s all recall. That is why, of course, I suddenly remembered Marcel Proust’s “Remembrance of things past” (a bad translation of À la recherche du temps perdu “In search of lost time”) whose existence only became known to me, in Platonic terms (nothing to do with being sexless), whose existence I only recollected a few years later in French literature class. I am reminded of those Jews who believe that in some mysterious way they were also present with Moses at Sinai. If they were not brought up in this tradition, this does not mean, according to this view, that they were not “at” Sinai but merely that they have no recollection of being there; they have merely forgotten and need to recollect. Some kind of reincarnation also seems to be involved (Reincarnation and Anamnesis (recollection) in Judaism).
The following year (1961) – my second year BA – I registered for courses in pure philosophy: ethics I, logic and metaphysics I (which went together) and political philosophy I. The second-year courses in these subjects were regarded as Majors (where the usual Major consisted of three courses). I added Hebrew “Special” (see here) and French Elementary to the academic year.
In the 1960s, foreign language courses were grammar based as they had been in the past. In the grammar approach you learn the elements of the language to build up sentences and progressively bigger chunks of language. Nowadays, foreign language courses are much more communicative where you start with using the language and then home in on the grammatical elements. The grammar approach is a much quicker way to learn a language but it has a major drawback: you have to learn lots of rules, which – without a well-oiled noggin – can be taxing. But not to worry; if you’ve got a high EQ (Emotional Intelligence Quotient) you can still learn a foreign language; it may just take a little longer, which is fine, because if you have a high EQ, you won’t mind waiting a little longer for your sweeties.
I threw myself into Brooks and Cook’s two French books for beginners; the green, volume 1, and the red, volume 2. The green was for “go; you can do it,” the red for “hmmm, are you sure French is your thing? Both books had to be completed in a single year. Grammar, grammar, grammar, grammargraph, gamaraph, raph gamaroff.
Because my focus is on the French influences in my life, I shall omit unrelated events and move on to the beginning of the following academic year, 1962. At the beginning of the year, after my third year at the University of Cape Town – the second year of the B.A. (I write about my first-year medicine here) – I decided to go to Europe with no plans to return soon. I would finish my B.A. when I returned. My parents, Issy and Fanny, were baffled about what I was doing the last two years. But Issy kindly continued to pay my fees. They knew I was doing “Feeloshofie”. So then, they possibly reasoned, maybe it’s possible to get a qualification in the philosophy of life at university, and work myself up, and maybe own the university one day. But isn’t it a bit meshugah (crazy) to have to pay for such a qualification? Issy put up with my meshugas. At least his son was at university. Issy did many kind things for me that I never appreciated enough. For one thing, he let me change my university course from Medicine to Philosophy, he not having much idea what Philosophy was except that it didn’t sound like you could make a good living from it. And now, he was paying – asking no questions – for me to go to Europe. I planned to spend six months in England and nine months in France. Issy would pay for the fare and give me a small monthly allowance of 14 pounds, which I would need to supplement with jobs in Europe.
The South African Airways fare from Johannesburg to London was expensive. The Overseas Visitors Club was offering a much cheaper fare. There was also the option of returning home by ship on the Union Castle Line. There was a snag though. In the Overseas Visitors Club option, you couldn’t fly Cape Town-Johannesburg-London but had to take a much more round-a-about route from Lourenço Marques (now called Maputo) in Mozambique to London. Included in the fare was a two-day train trip from Cape Town via Johannesburg to Lourenço Marques (Maputo) a distance of about 1800 kms The plane to London was medium-size grey propeller plane. The cabin was much narrower than modern planes with two seats on either side of the passageway. We made a stopover in Chad.
Train journey from Cape Town to Johnannesburg to Maputo (formerly Lourenço Marques)
Chad
In the Chad airport terminal, I saw a Chadian in flowing robes with two women in tow, who could have been his wives or daughters. I’d never been to a Muslim country before, or been out of South Africa. I was warned that one thing you never do is stare at the women. The two “wives” were covered from head to foot in flowing peacock blue. Only their eyes were showing. One of them had the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. I couldn’t stop staring at her. She was also staring at me; pleading for me to whisk her on to my white horse to escape her cruel husband – who was too busy to notice. It must have been a fleeting moment but seemed forever. Suddenly I swept her into my arms and onto my Arab stallion and made a dash for the exit, her father/husband in pursuit, slicing the air with his pearl-handle scimitar. We wrenched our eyes away from each other.
After a few hours wandering like a Jew round the markets outside the airport feeling blue, peacock blue, I boarded the plane for the next stage from Chad to London. The flight over the Sahara took half a day. I arrived in London in the middle of a very cold winter. The first thing I did was buy a dark blue duffle coat.
(To be continued)
Fascinating.