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And Another Thing

Paul Johnson

Wednesday, 28th May 2008

Things that get into print and make us shudder

Hard to remember an occasion when an author has aroused such unanimous distaste as Cherie Blair’s revelation that the birth of her son Leo was due to her unwillingness to take her contraceptive kit to Balmoral, where the royal butler would unpack her suitcase and see it. ‘Ugh!’ or ‘Oh dear!’ were the universal responses; and ‘Poor Tony! How embarrassed/ashamed he must feel!’ To the dismay of her friends, and the delight of her enemies, Mrs Blair has been made to realise the sheer adamantine power of cold print. A tale which might be tolerable, even amusing — or touching — when told, mouth to ear, in gossip, becomes offensively leaden when spelt out on the page and read by countless firesides. All professional writers learn by bitter experience, or helpful censorship by their elders, that there is a rubicon which divides private speech from public print: cross it at your peril. Some would argue that Cherie, having made this woeful faux pas, should brazen it out. Should not truth come first, even in the marital quarters? Freddie Ayer used to say — or was it his witty wife, Dee Wells? — ‘If the Dutch cap fits, wear it.’ But I don’t think so. The clumsy author’s best bet is that it will all soon be forgotten. But not by poor Leo, I fear.

It is some consolation that most, perhaps all, authors, even the greatest, have committed comparable blunders, have put into irrevocable and perpetual texts phrases, whole sentences or even entire paragraphs which return to haunt them on sleepless nights, or blot records for good taste, fine judgment and literary decorum. Jane Austen is the perfect example, for no writer took more trouble to judge the exact power of words to bring a blush or pump up a heartbeat or plant a dangerous thought in delicate minds — and used words accordingly. I have no doubt that Jane, talking to her sister Cassandra, let her witty, sharp, even salacious and scandal-relishing tongue range freely, knowing she was safely on the discretionary side of the river, and all would be guarded in her sister’s sensible heart. And, when she put her naughty thoughts into epistolary words, Cassandra could be relied on to destroy the letters or cut it. But once or twice her vigilance slept. Thus cruel Jane has gone into print with her remark about the lady who had a miscarriage because she happened to glance inadvertently at her husband. Jane’s critics have pounced on this lapse as evidence of her malignity, though it is, rather, of the taste of Elizabeth Bennet, who says ‘Follies and nonsense, whims and inconsistencies do divert me, I own, and I laugh at them whenever I can.’

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Ken Munro

May 30th, 2008 7:59pm

Delicious snipe at Amis "in his anxiety to score a cheap point he sometimes talked like a red-brick don, which of course he had been". But perhaps makes one shudder?