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CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

History, Culture and Ethnography

History, Culture and Ethnography: Jack Goody, Clifford Geertz and Philippe Descola is a
collection of interviews that is being published as a book for the frst time. These interviews
have been conducted by one of England’s leading social anthropologists and historians,
Professor Alan Macfarlane.
Filmed over a period of several years, the three conversations in this volume are part
of the series Creative Lives and Works. These transcriptions form a part of a larger set of
interviews that cut across various disciplines, from the social sciences and the sciences to
the performing and visual arts. The current volume is on three of the world’s most eminent
social and cultural anthropologists.
These conversations focus primarily on feldwork experience in Ghana, Indonesia
and Amazonia and how new dimensions and interpretations were added to the discipline
of sociology and social anthropology. While Jack Goody and Clifford Geertz gave a new
turn and depth to the disciple through their experiences in West Africa and Indonesia,
Philippe Descola, who belongs to the succeeding generation of anthropologists, added
human-nature interactions into the mix.
This book talks about both overcoming and understanding the importance of taking
into account linguistic, historical, economic and cultural elements in the study of these
societies through engaging conversations and occasional anecdotes. Immensely riveting
as conversations, this collection gives one a favour of the many different societies and
cultures in far-fung reaches of the world encompassing several continents, often with
no knowledge of each other’s existence, and a taste of how expansive the discipline of
sociology and social anthropology are.
The book will be of enormous value not just to those interested in the felds of Sociology,
Social Anthropology and Ethnography, but also those with an interest in History, Philosophy,
Comparative Religion and Cultural Studies.

Alan Macfarlane was born in Shillong, India, in 1941 and educated at the Dragon School,
Sedbergh School, Oxford and London Universities where he received two Master’s degrees
and two doctorates. He is the author of over forty books, including The Origins of English
Individualism (1978) and Letters to Lily: On How the World Works (2005). He has worked
in England, Nepal, Japan and China as both an historian and anthropologist. He was
elected to the British Academy in 1986 and is now Emeritus Professor of Anthropology
at the University of Cambridge and a Life Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge. Professor
Macfarlane received the Huxley Memorial Medal, the highest honour of the Royal
Anthropological Institute in 2012.

Eric Hobsbawm was a British historian of the rise of industrial capitalism, socialism and
nationalism. A life-long Marxist, his socio-political convictions infuenced the character of
his work. Hobsbawm was born in Alexandria, Egypt, and spent his childhood mainly in
Vienna and Berlin. Following the death of his parents and the rise to power of Adolf Hitler,
Hobsbawm moved to London with his adoptive family. After serving in the Second World War,
he obtained his PhD in history at the University of Cambridge. In 1998, he was appointed
to the Order of the Companions of Honour. He was President of Birkbeck, University of
London, from 2002 until he died. In 2003, he received the Balzan Prize for European History
since 1900 ‘for his brilliant analysis of the troubled history of 20th century Europe and for
his ability to combine in-depth historical research with great literary talent’. His best-known
works include his trilogy about what he called the ‘long 19th century’ (The Age of Revolution:
Europe 1789–1848, The Age of Capital: 1848–1875 and The Age of Empire: 1875–1914),
The Age of Extremes on the short 20th century, and an edited volume that introduced the
infuential idea of ‘invented traditions’. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Hobsbawm
CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

History, Culture and Ethnography

Jack Goody, Clifford James Geertz
and Phillippe Descola

In conversation with
Eric Hobsbawm and Alan Macfarlane

Edited by
Radha Béteille
First published 2022
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2022 Social Science Press
The right of Alan Macfarlane and Eric Hobsbawm to be identified as authors of
this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any
information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the
publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered
trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent
to infringe.
Print edition not for sale in South Asia (India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh,
Pakistan or Bhutan)
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 9781032201320 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781003262374 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003262374
Typeset in Sabon Lt Std
by Manmohan Kumar, New Delhi 110020
Contents

Transcriber’s Note – Radha Béteille vii

Introduction – Alan Macfarlane ix

PART I
Jack Goody: Some Personal Memories – Alan Macfarlane 3
Jack Goody – In conversation with Eric Hobsbawm 12

PART II
My Encounter with Clifford Geertz – Alan Macfarlane 41
Clifford James Geertz – In conversation with Alan Macfarlane 49

PART III
My Encounter with Philippe Descola 93
Philippe Descola – In conversation with Alan Macfarlane 100

Appendix: Biographical Information 129

Transcriber’s Note

The transformation of videographed speeches into the written

word has been a riveting experience. Transcriptions, while retaining
the essence of a conversation, lend a new dimension to the oral
transmission, opening them up to a wider readership, including
those with diminished auditory functions.
This collection of transcripts tries to capture the engaging
interactions between Alan Macfarlane, one of Britain’s foremost
social anthropologists, and three eminent social anthropologists
– Jack Goody, Clifford Geertz and Philippe Descola. In fact, the
intellectual discourses in these interviews on social anthropology and
ethnography draw in the reader as a participant. And, while offering a
different order of internal cohesiveness, accentuates the ability of the
reader to retain information, in this case, knowledge and scholarship.
Here, it must however be noted that not being a subject expert
has been somewhat limiting because I have had to acquaint myself
with speech patterns, accents, diction and intonations in areas that
I was unfamiliar with when I began.
Furthermore, the transcribing of oral transmission leaves little
room to represent facial expressions and non-verbalized sounds such
as chuckles, laughs, sighs and for that matter exclamations, as well
as pauses and idiosyncrasies in actual speech. Thus, I have taken
the liberty to replace them with closely corresponding punctuations,
so as not to alter the meaning or import of what is being said.
Discrepancies in speech patterns have been isolated and addressed.
Any misrepresentation of words and phrases, is entirely inadvertent.
The trust and generosity of Professor Macfarlane in sharing his
wealth of scholarship with Social Science Press cannot be adequately
expressed in words.

– Radha Béteille
Introduction
Alan Macfarlane

There have been many autobiographical accounts of the creative

process in science as well as in the arts, humanities and social
sciences. Yet these tend to concentrate on one level, and within that
one aspect, the cerebral, intellectual working of a single thinker’s
mind. If we are to investigate further the connections between the
levels of civilization, institution, network and individual, and the ffth
dimension of chance or random variation, we need to supplement
these accounts, in particular by letting scientists and others talk in a
relaxed way about what they think has been important in their lives
and works. Over the years I have been collecting such data and here
I would like to describe how this happened and what opportunities
it opens up for further understanding of the springs of creativity.

***
There is a puzzle as to why I have spent so much time and effort (and
expense) on interviewing (on flm) a large number of academics and
others over the years. No one else has done this as far as I am aware
and it has few tangible rewards except the occasional gratitude of
one’s colleagues. Why and how did this project build up over the
years to a point where I now have about 250 lengthy interviews,
almost all of them on the web?
One factor is clearly my anthropological training and the
experience of anthropological feldwork. Although some social
historians of the recent past began to become interested in oral history
and the tape-recording of memories from the late 1960s, for example
x INTRODUCTION

Paul Thompson, Brian Harrison and others, on the whole historians

deal with dead people who cannot be interviewed. Certainly, as a
17th century historian I was not interested in interviews.
Anthropologists on the other hand deal with the living and the
‘life history’ or in–depth study of one or two ‘informants’ naturally
leads into the use of recording devices – again usually tape-recorders,
but also sometimes flm cameras, to record interviews. So, from my
frst feldwork in 1968–70 in Nepal, I was aware of the potential
of interviews. Alongside the interviews with intellectuals described
below, I have made in–depth interviews with my anthropological
subjects, in particular a 10-part interview with Dilmaya Gurung in
1992. I also taped and flmed members of my family talking about
their lives, especially my grandmother in 1978.
My interest in biographical details as a source of social
history was also stimulated by the accident of moving through a
number of different intellectual landscapes in my early years. My
grandmother’s stories of Burma and India and then my mother’s
vivid autobiographical writings in her letters and when she visited
me from India were early infuences which led to an interest in
listening to older people talking about their lives. So, when I became
an undergraduate and then a graduate at Oxford (1960–66) I spent
some time listening to elderly academics, particularly my history
tutor Lady Rosalind Clay with her deep immersion in the world
of Oxford life through her father A.L. Smith (Master of Balliol),
Sir Henry Clay her husband and links to the Mitchison an Mitford
families. She seemed to know personally many of the people whose
books I was reading – Namier, Tawney, Trevelyan, Hill, Habakkuk,
and she told me about their lives and personalities. I also began
to hear about the folklore and gossip of historians from my other
teachers – Harry Pitt, Keith Thomas and others.
The world of the historians was brought into relief by being on
the edge of another group of academics, the social anthropologists.
As I did my D.Phil. on witchcraft, I began to meet the older
members of the distinguished school of anthropologists, the
Lienhardts, John Beattie and above all E.E. Evans–Pritchard. This
was a particularly intense and gossip–connected tribe and I heard
 INTRODUCTION xi

their stories of the great feuds and friendships and how they had
survived their feldwork.
The interest in biography was also strengthened by my early
apprenticeship in history at Oxford where I was taught how
important it was to study not only the works but also the lives of
great historians – Gibbon, Macaulay, Tocqueville, Bede and others.
This led me much later in my life to write detailed studies of other
major fgures in books on Montesquieu, Adam Smith, De Tocqueville,
Maitland, Fukuzawa and others which put a strong emphasis on
the biography as well as the ideas.
As a social historian I wanted to get inside the mentality as well as
the social structure of the past. As an undergraduate I had discovered
that letters (Pastons, Stonors) and diaries (Pepys, Kilvert) were
wonderful sources for social history. So, my frst book was a study
of the life of one individual The Family Life of Ralph Josselin, based
on the diary of a 17th century clergyman. Henceforth I collected
letters, autobiographies, diaries, travellers’ journals and made a great
deal of use of this biographical material in a number of my books.
The early experience of eavesdropping on what appeared to be a
disappearing world of a certain academic endeavour in the pre-war
world of Oxford history and anthropology, was reinforced by moving
to the London School of Economics for two years, where giants of
the post-Malinowski generation, Raymond Firth, Isaac Schapera,
Lucy Mair, were on the point of retiring. Then when I moved to the
School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) I met another group of
giants from a previous age, particularly Adrian Mayer and Christoph
von Fürer–Haimendorf who became my supervisor.
When I moved as a research fellow to Cambridge in 1971, I
encountered again several oral worlds which intrigued me. There
were a new set of older anthropologists, Meyer Fortes, Audrey
Richards, G.I. Jones, Edmund Leach, S.J. Tambiah, Jack Goody
among them. And there were a group set of historians, in particular
Peter Laslett and Tony Wrigley. A third world was that of King’s
College, where memories of the Bloomsbury era lingered on with
Dadie Rylands, Peter Avery, Christopher Morris, Richard Braithwaite
and others.
xii INTRODUCTION

With six or seven sets of oral history washing through my

life by the age of 30, it would have been a rather insensitive and
myopic young scholar who did not realize that he was experiencing
something special and perhaps something that should be recorded
for posterity. I did not want to write a conventional history of
academic disciplines, yet I had a sense that there were webs of ideas
and connections which were carried by elderly individuals which
should be recorded. They should be treated with the same respect and
desire to save and document as was accorded to small oral cultures
around the world whose myths, legends, rituals and folklore was
carefully recorded by anthropologists.
It was perhaps a jumble of such motives, combined with
friendship with the Director of the Cambridge University Audio-
Visual Unit, Martin Gienke, which led to the frst experiment to
record academics on flm. I had been asked to organize a series of
seminars in history and anthropology in 1976–77 for the Economic
and Social Research Council and this I knew would be a chance to
gather together some of the leading thinkers in both felds. If they
were coming for several days to Cambridge, might it not be an idea
to flm them, both as an archive for future generations and to show
to students and colleagues who could not come to the meetings?
So, I organized the seminars and two were flmed. Amongst those
attending were many younger scholars who would become well
known – Maurice Bloch, Raphael Samuel, Keith Thomas, Keith
Hopkins, Peter Burke, and a number of more senior fgures in their
prime such as E.P. Thompson, Edmund Leach, Maurice Godelier,
Jack Goody, Arnaldo Momigliano and Ernest Gellner.
I had assumed that this experiment, which is up on the web
would be repeated by others as the technology became better. Yet,
to my knowledge, it has hardly ever been duplicated. One of the
few instances when something similar was done was again an idea
I had. When making a six-part series for Channel 4 on the history
of the world over the last 10,000 years, we assembled fve leading
historians and they talked for two days about various aspects of the
past. The whole was flmed and is also up on the web.
 INTRODUCTION xiii

The next step was probably infuenced by this early flming

attempt. Jack Goody had been involved in the flmed seminar and
fve years later, with the help of the Cambridge linguist Stephen
Levinson, he arranged three seminars where Meyer Fortes, Audrey
Richards and M.N. Srinivas would be flmed talking about their lives
and work. Jack Goody then retired, but continued to take an interest
in the project and interviewed several others for me, including John
Barnes and Jean La Fontaine.
In 1982 a portable video camera which took low-band U-matic
was available and so I founded the Rivers Video Project with several
of my Ph.D. students, to experiment with the use of flm in teaching
and research in anthropology. Among the early projects were several
biographical and archival flms, including a flm of Brian Hodgson
and a long interview in June 1983 of my supervisor Christoph von
Fürer-Haimendorf. The group also flmed my undergraduate lectures
and some of the students made a flm as part of their course on
T.R. Malthus.
Now that I had started to flm interviews, I could see the way in
which my early interest in the gossip and interconnections of what
was in effect a small tribe of British social anthropologists could
be turned into a permanent record. The frst interviews tended to
be done by someone who knew the subject well – Goody in the
cases above, Jean La Fontaine interviewing Lucy Mair, Caroline
Humphrey interviewing Owen Lattimore. But gradually this faded
away and I did nearly all the interviews and all the flming. About
ten of the interviews were however done by friends and colleagues
abroad and sent to me.
At frst the focus was almost exclusively on anthropologists
– with some sociologists who were also anthropologists such as
André Béteille, John Barnes, Ronald Dore. Later it was extended
to others in the general area of social sciences, more sociologists
and some historians.
The flming continued to be done for the next 10 or 15 years on
low-band U-matic and the tapes were stored away. It was not easy or
necessary to edit them, but nor was it easy to show them, so very few
xiv INTRODUCTION

were ever shown to students or colleagues. I looked at the collection

as an archival collection, a time capsule of a vanishing world, which
might be interesting in a hundred years’ time. That was assuming that
it would be possible to play them. Already 20 years after they were
made the tapes of the ESCR seminars were unplayable in Cambridge
and had to be saved by the National Film Council.
Then a set of interconnected technological changes occurred
which affected many of my projects. The internet and high-speed
broadband made it possible to send flms across the world. Large
external hard discs and new compression techniques made it possible
to store and edit the flms. The arrival of a digital repository in
Cambridge in 2004 made it possible to put up the interviews we
had done until that date in June of that year, an idea frst suggested
by Mark Turin.
This development, which meant that the material could be
appreciated by many more people, and the arrival of better cameras
for the flming, meant that I began to increase the number of my
interviews. By 2004, I had done about 30 interviews, by 2006
there were about 70 interviews and lectures. I described my project
in relation to the Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences to some
colleagues in King’s College. The scientists Patrick Bateson and
Herbert Huppert were excited by the idea and asked whether I
could extend the flming to cover the natural and physical sciences.
I was surprised that very few people or organizations appeared
to be doing the in-depth ‘lives and works’ kind of interviews I had
undertaken for the immensely larger felds of the sciences. (Two
sites which did have interviews on were that at globetrotter.berkeley
and the Vega project at Sussex initiated by Harry Kroto). I was also
hesitant about my ability to interview in felds about which I knew
nothing. But they urged me to try and introduced me to a number
of distinguished scientists. Shortly afterwards Gabriel Horn became
an active advisor on the project as well.
I started gingerly with the scientists, flming Dan McKenzie
with whom I shared a room in King’s, the co-discoverer of tectonic
plates and continental drift. It went well and I greatly enjoyed it. Pat
Bateson then interviewed Gabriel Horn and I flmed another session
 INTRODUCTION xv

with them talking about their partnership, and I interviewed Pat

Bateson himself. So, I was now suffciently confdent to interview
other scientists. Having broadened it beyond arts and social sciences,
there was all the world which lay between, such as economics,
psychology, philosophy and so on. There were also other interesting
people I wanted to flm – the Vice Chancellor Alison Richard, the
ex–Cabinet Secretary Richard Wilson, the musician John Rutter, the
sculptor Anthony Gormley.
In fact, the series broadened out not only into politicians and
civil servants, but into many other felds. There are interviews on
the performing and visual arts, crafts and skills (pottery, gardening,
sculpture), law, journalism, literary criticism, business, exploration,
publishing, the military, filmmaking, classics, archaeology,
architecture and linguistics. Whenever I heard of or met someone
who seemed to have made a creative contribution to the world,
whether they were a road sweeper or a College butler, up to some of
the most distinguished thinkers in the world, I would try to interview
them. It is a wide spread.
So, from May 2007 when the frst scientists were flmed, until
September 2009 when I formally retired as Professor, I flmed
something like another 80 interviews and the total now stands at
about 200 flms.
As far as I know this archive is unique and as a number of
the major fgures are dead and others are getting very old, so the
interviewing cannot now be done. There are some small projects,
sometimes infuenced by our experiments, in Germany, the London
School of Economics and elsewhere. Yet on the whole there is
nothing quite like this.

***
Naturally the way in which I have done the interviews refects both
my own interests and my experience of what works. My central aim
has been to let the speakers tell their own story, present themselves
as they wish to do, without threatening or probing or adversarial
questioning. Yet in doing so, and with a roughly chronological
xvi INTRODUCTION

approach, I have been particularly interested in the question of what

accidents, historical contingencies, or personal traits have infuenced
the subjects and sent them towards a particular career. In particular,
what they do has contributed to their more creative and sometimes
inspired work and innovation in their various felds.
From the very start of my interest in the oral history of my seniors
and contemporaries, I have been keen to learn what I should do to
make me as good an anthropologist and historian as possible. What
are the craft skills and what are the ways of thinking and ordering
one’s life which will maximize the chance of making a serious
contribution to our knowledge of the world? This early interest
was heightened when I found myself in the incredibly privileged
surroundings of Cambridge for 40 years, surrounded by the ghosts
of Newton, Darwin, Rutherford and many others.
The following describes the topics I have tried to cover in my
interviews. On the surface, the interviews are almost unstructured
and I avoid referring to a written questionnaire as this can distract
from the spontaneity of the occasion. I encourage the interviewee
to talk about whatever they would like. My role is similar to a
psychiatrist’s, that is to say to let the subject narrate their life,
in particular in relation to the obstacles and encouragements to
creativity and discovery. We tend to cover the following:

when and where born

ancestry – going back as far as they like, including occupation
and temperament and possible effects of grand – parents, parents
and siblings
frst memories and hobbies as a child
frst and subsequent schools, with important teachers, hobbies,
subjects which gripped them, sports and games, music, special
books
university and those who taught and studied with them and
interests there
frst research, supervisors, mentors, infuences
jobs and career and travels through life, work abroad
colleagues, friends and network of workers, partners and children
 INTRODUCTION xvii

methods of working and thinking

major achievements and problem – solving during life, how they
occurred, including especially important bursts of activity
administrative tasks
teaching and supervising of students
effects of their work environment (laboratories, departments,
Colleges etc)
philosophy and religion
political views and activities
advice for a young person starting out in their feld
specifcally ask if there is anything which they would like to have
talked about and I have omitted to ask about

Yet if the subject does not want to follow this order, or to answer
all of these, or to add further subjects, that is fne. What I want the
viewer to see is the inside of a life, told in a conversational and
personal way.

***
The interviews are an intimate probing of personal experience,
usually by a complete stranger who is holding a potentially
threatening video camera. The subjects know that this may be seen
by almost anyone in the world – friends, students, competitors, and
enemies, now and in the future. This could be intimidating, especially
to older subjects and for those who share a widespread reserve and
distaste for talking about themselves.
I have therefore developed a number of techniques for putting
the subjects at their ease. These have contributed, I believe, to the
rather startlingly honest and trusting conversations which I have
managed to have with a wide range of near strangers. It is worth
briefy summarizing these since they could be helpful for others who
help to extend this project.

1. It is important to have a fairly small and unostentatious camera

that does not dominate or frighten the subject. The less intrusive
xviii INTRODUCTION

the microphone the better – which is one reason why I have

given up using lapel microphones. I place the camera on my
knees and do not use a tripod, which can again be intimidating.
2. The room in which the interview is done is important. I avoid
formal settings if possible – lecture theatres, ‘offces’, and
seminar rooms. A room with gentle furnishings, an easy chair
for both interviewee and interviewer, books and pictures and
objects in the background, a pleasant view all helps. And of
course, absolute silence and absence of telephones, mobiles,
computers and interruptions is essential. I do not sit too close,
or too far away. I sit at the same level, as I would do in any
normal relaxed conversation between friends.
3. I try to develop the sheepdog technique. When gently moving
a fock of sheep to its destination, a good sheepdog is mostly
silent and still. Each time the sheep move in a satisfactory
direction, the dog creeps forward. And then sinks onto the
grass and waits attentively. It does not bark, just guides. So, if
possible, I try to help the interviewee along, but only interrupt
when they need encouragement or direction. I never shut them
off (though I occasionally warn them if the conversation is
getting into the realms of damaging speech and check that
they are aware of this), but try to bring them to subjects as
they are needed.
4. I always try to show interest, however little I know, or even
care about the subject being discussed. What is being said is
often important to the subject and has a depth which I, or
others, may only realize later. They deserve serious attention
and respect for what is often a summary of a life. Of course, I
may verbally disagree a little, or query things, but I try always
to do so in the pursuit of a common goal of understanding.
Curiosity is the most important attribute.
5. It is important for there to be no sense of rush. If I want an
hour of flm, I allow 90 minutes, which gives time for general
conversation, a cup of tea etc.
6. I used to prepare carefully for the interviews. With people in
my own subjects, this was possible. With scientists, beyond
 INTRODUCTION xix

reading a brief life in an encyclopaedia, I cannot really prepare.

It seems to work as well without preparation.
7. I used to think that it would be good if the ‘subjects’ prepared
themselves in some detail, and when they asked me, I would
advise this. In fact, I have found that spontaneity, even if it
leads to some confusion, forgetting of names etc., is better and
I advise people not to think about the interview – just that it
will be chronological and they can say what they like (though
they can look at one or two of the earlier interviews on the
web if they would like to do so).
8. The fact that there is no commercial side to the endeavour has
an effect. That I am doing it without specifc pay for the job
and not as part of a well-funded project, is usually obvious
and helps. That all the materials are freely available on the
web, can be downloaded for free anywhere in the world and
used in teaching and research, all adds to the trust and spirit
of altruistic collaboration.
9. The absence of any bureaucracy is important. We enter into an
implicit contract. I have no paper for them to sign, assigning
copyright, intellectual property rights etc. It is all agreed
verbally and informally in the act itself. And hence the bond
of friendship is not broken.
One of the things that has developed over the years and has
greatly increased the interest and usability of the interviews is
the possibility of putting up a summary with some time codes to
help viewers navigate to an area that particularly interests them.
The summaries are often very detailed and the development
of the web has again made them more interesting and reliable
since one can check names, theories, and connections. It is an
art form in itself, combining considerable synthetic skills, a
jigsaw ability and great concentration. It is not easy, but the
website gives many examples of highly professional examples
which have won high praise from the interview subjects who
are often amazed at how accurate and complete they are. The
obvious comprehension shown in the summary further adds
to the sense of trust.
xx INTRODUCTION

10. Before the interview it is important to explain that anything

that is said can be retracted or glossed later. People should
not censor themselves too much. Candour and a relaxed fow
of ideas are important and trying to avoid things detracts
from this. I explain that while flming – before or after saying
something – the interviewee can easily say ‘this is not for public
dissemination’, ‘this is confdential’ or whatever. Any such
passage is then excised from the version that becomes publicly
available – but the original tapes are kept for posterity. I also
explain that we will send them the full summary which needs
to be checked for accuracy (especially names and technical
terms), interpretations of statements, and also gives the person
a chance to withdraw any section or passage if they wish. They
may, as has sometimes happened, feel that they want to add
something – some more autobiography, a clearer exposition
of something technical. It is not diffcult to put this into the
summary either in square brackets or as an appendix.
11. The duration of time people can concentrate varies. Most people
can manage an hour, and then, with a break, another hour.
When the tape ends, I allow a few minutes for revival – but it
is important not to lose the momentum. Some people prefer to
do an hour, go away and come back some days later. This is
alright, but can lead to repetition. But for older subjects (and
many of mine are in their later eighties and older) it may be
necessary. The older subjects also often feel more comfortable
in their own homes amongst their books and belongings. This
often gives an added dimension to the interviews.

If the subjects do reveal things which should be kept private for

some years or even decades, these are edited out of the versions
that go on the web, but the original tapes and full interviews will
be preserved for posterity. Meanwhile the edited versions are put up
on DSpace at Cambridge and on other websites, including YouTube,
and now increasingly on websites all over the world – Scandinavia,
America, China and elsewhere. The value of the interviews is
enormously enhanced by the excellent and thorough summaries
 INTRODUCTION xxi

which Sarah Harrison has made of most of them, taking much more
time and skill to do than the interviews themselves.
What has been created, through a set of accidents, is a resource
for the study of a number of academic disciplines, from anthropology
to molecular biology, from history to astronomy, from sociology to
mathematics. It also provides rich material for the study of British
academic life and institutions in the 20th century. Furthermore, for
those interested in the conditions of creativity and discovery, it is
a unique archive.
The project has developed as a result of a set of accidents and
through the help and support of many people, in particular Sarah
Harrison, Mark Turin, Jack Goody, Gerry Martin and many others.
This project to publish the full interviews of selected individuals
was the idea of Esha Béteille, whose support and advice have been
indispensable. I would particularly like to thank Radha Béteille who
it has been a great pleasure to work with. Her transcripts and editing
have been extraordinarily well done and I am deeply impressed
and grateful for her contribution. Institutions such as Cambridge
University (DSpace and the Streaming Media Service in particular)
and King’s College, as well as the British Academy, the Leverhulme
Trust, the Firebird Foundation and others have also made all this
possible. It is hoped that others will take the task on through the
21st century.
PART
one
Jack Goody
Some Personal Memories
Alan Macfarlane

Some people have infuenced me through the force of their ideas,

some through the force of their personality. The distinguished
Cambridge anthropologist, Professor Jack Goody has combined
these. He has undoubtedly been the strongest infuence on my career
as an anthropologist.
When I applied for my frst teaching job in the Department of
Social Anthropology, in 1974, the post until lately held by Jack’s
former wife Esther, he not only encouraged me to apply, but clearly
backed me strongly for the post.
For the rest of his tenure as Professor (to 1983) Jack was always
a wonderful mentor and friend. A few examples will suffce.
Whenever we needed equipment for our various computer
projects, he supported the application. On one occasion I remember
him pulling out his own cheque book and paying for a piece of
equipment and muttering that he would somehow fnd some money
later. It was this ‘can do’ attitude which I appreciated so much. He
was always optimistic, believing that anything was possible.
Jack himself was always intrigued by new technologies and
was among the very frst to recognize the value of computers and
video. For instance, his indexing of the large offprint collection
in the department, his computer version of the west African
Bagre myths, his purchase of the Human Relations Area Files, all
showed this interest. As did the very early recordings he organized

Alan Macfarlane wrote this article for the Jack Goody Memorial Seminar that
was held on 2 July 2016.
4 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

of off-air television programmes which gave the Department the

basis for its excellent video library. Or again his early realization
that we should video-tape sessions with senior, retiring or retired
anthropologists. He did this with Meyer Fortes, Audrey Richards
and M.N. Srinivas.

Jack Goody and Alan Macfarlane at Jack’s

retirement party in 1984. Photograph courtesy
Alan Macfarlane.
 JACK GOODY: SOME PERSONAL MEMORIES 5

His enthusiasm and energy meant that not only did he build up a
large department in a short time, but early acquired through grants,
and then the University, a technician post. These technicians have
been invaluable for many projects in the Department.

***
Jack’s drive and political skills made the Department of Social
Anthropology a really exciting place to be from 1975 to 1983. He
prevented feuding and stopped the Department from narrowing down
to selected specialisms. He encouraged all forms of anthropology
and in all areas of the world. Cambridge became the main exporter
of good graduates to teach in European universities.
One of the many things I learnt from Jack was how to approach
local academic politics. Watching Jack at work through a long
day of teaching and administration was an education in itself. He
was occasionally over aggressive, took up lost causes, and fought
unnecessary battles. But on the whole his immense energy and deep
cunning (he reminded me of a bear, apparently clumsy, but lethal and
quick thinking) and many ties of friendship and reciprocal networks
made him a formidable operator.
Observing and talking to Jack gave me many practical hints.
Don’t waste too much time on lectures; make them spontaneous
and rough rather than too polished. Don’t waste time going up to
London during term. Don’t waste time on formality – a quick note
on the back of an envelope will usually do the trick. Don’t be seduced
by the idea of American think-tanks. If one has ideas they will come
out in any setting and teaching is an encouragement to creativity.
Don’t waste time on administration, but try to achieve the maximum
amount with the minimal effort. Be courteous and encouraging to
assistant staff, secretaries and others, and make them feel valued.
Through Jack I learnt how the University and Department
worked, which has since stood me in great stead. I could not have
had a better guide to the extraordinary complexity of Cambridge.
Intellectually Jack’s written work and conversations with him
had an enormously enlivening effect. Part of his breadth of vision
6 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

arose from the fact that he was interested in and encouraged inter-
disciplinary work with many disciplines. He had read English as an
undergraduate, but fortunately for me a particular interest was in
history and its relationship to anthropology. So we discussed themes
and overlaps, in particular in relation to the history of European
kinship and marriage, about which we were both writing in those
years. Much of his work was set in a long historical time frame, often
covering thousands of years. He was practising an early form of global
history and maintaining the honourable tradition in anthropology of
A.L. Kroeber in looking at long sweeps of civilizations.
Another stimulation was Jack’s interest in technology and
material life. Not only was he interested in the practicalities of
computers and machines, but he again maintained an earlier
(and somewhat unfashionable) anthropological tradition in being
interested in material technologies. Thus he wrote books and
articles exploring technologies of production, destruction and
communication and their effects. This was all the more suggestive
because it was broadly comparative, always coming back to the basic
contrast which informed his work, that is the difference between
the post-Neolithic civilizations of Eurasia, and the pre-Neolithic
technologies of sub-Saharan Africa.
So a whole set of areas of our interests overlapped, demography,
kinship, communication and technology. And the idea of speculating
at a broadly historical and comparative level, taking India, China,
Europe and Africa all as grist to the mill, was a constant inspiration.
Listening to Jack at seminars, talking to him and reading his stream
of works was a constant source of new ideas and themes to pursue.
He was constantly suggesting new links, expanding the borders of
what anthropology might be. And this was based on a large library
and much travel and experience.

***
Jack was enormously productive. By the time he retired, he had
published seven single-authored books, and several co-authored and
edited ones and many articles. In the thirty years since his retirement
 JACK GOODY: SOME PERSONAL MEMORIES 7

he published another sixteen, many of them very long. This set me

a target, something to exceed in friendly competition.
In particular I was interested in how he managed to write so
much, always based on meticulous reading and research, and to
bring together so many diverse ideas. I picked up various hints.
Jack seemed to be working in parallel on half a dozen books or
articles at once. If one became bogged down, he switched to another.
Furthermore, he was always observing and writing, on journeys, in
meetings, even in the shortest period. The blight of busy people is that
they have only small bits of time and are tempted to put off producing
something worthwhile because of distractions or feeling that they
will be interrupted. This did not affect Jack. Great self-discipline and
concentration as well as enormous energy and curiosity lay behind
this. One aid to his creativity was that he wrote as if he was making
a mosaic. At frst he would write a few scraps of ideas on a sheet of
paper and have it typed. Then he would add in a few more sentences.
So a book would be built up as if it were cross-word or jigsaw puzzle.
Another key was moving every two or three years to a fresh
subject. He did not, like so many of his colleagues, become stale.
This made for great creativity and a freeing of the mind in order
to make connections. The fact that Jack was constantly exploring
new subjects, and then darting back to old ones, always with the
backdrop of deep feldwork in West Africa and a constant low-key
ethnography wherever he went, made his writing very rich. One
learnt alongside him and new worlds were opened up.
Whereas Jack’s lecturing and speaking style was sometimes
awkward, pausing in the middle of sentences, going back, long ‘oh’
and ‘ah’ pauses (it seemed to me that his speech could not keep up
with the lightning speed of his mind) his writing is very clear and
easy to follow and in some of his books very good indeed.
He wrote fast and in an almost unreadable hand, using a memory
stuffed with information and following his swift and connecting
intuitions to bring together ideas from disparate felds. The result
are books of great energy and insight.
There are those who have felt that he wrote too much, too
fast, and that some of the work is not easy to read because there
8 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

has been too little attention to the fnal polishing. There are others
who feel that his project to fnd deep similarities between East
and West is fawed because he did not suffciently distinguish
between Renaissance and renaissance, Capitalism and capitalism,
Industrialization and industrialization, Science and science,
Enlightenment and enlightenment.
Yet there can be no doubt that in a period of what he described
as The Expansive Moment (1995), when a small group of
anthropologists contributed more to our understanding of the world
than many larger disciplines, he was one of the great fgures.

***
There was a certain core to all his work which gives it consistency
and unity. This is the question of why Eur-Asia had developed
through the Neolithic and post-Neolithic revolutions of many kinds,
while Africa had not done so (a theme he had early encountered
in Gordon Childe’s work). His fexibility arose out of the fact that
he did not become constrained by a particular academic fashion.
Jack was a materialist, yet not a Marxist, interested in myth and
communication, but not a structuralist. He was no faddist and
because of his interests in his later years he was more famous perhaps
in France than in England. Likewise, his reputation was as great in
neighbouring disciplines, particularly history and literary studies, as
it was in social anthropology.
One way to approach the very large corpus of his writing is to see
it under four main themes. One is the area of kinship and marriage.
He wrote seven books in this feld, including Death, Property and
the Ancestors (1962), Production and Reproduction (1976) and The
European Family (2000). Kinship is the toughest and most technical
part of anthropology and one where the discipline has contributed
most profoundly. Goody’s work on descent, inheritance, bridewealth
and dowry, incest and adultery, is a signal achievement.
A second theme was orality, writing and representation, covered
in further books; among them are The Logic of Writing and the
Organization of Society (1986), The Domestication of the Savage
 JACK GOODY: SOME PERSONAL MEMORIES 9

Mind (1977) and The Interface Between the Written and the Oral
(1987). His work in transcribing and editing The Myth of the Bagre
(1972), was ground-breaking. He was one of the major fgures in
this feld.
A third theme was material culture and technology on which he
published half a dozen books, including Technology, Tradition and
the State in Africa (1971), Cooking, Cuisine and Class (1982), Food
and Love (1998) and his last book, written in his nineties, Metals,
Culture and Capitalism (2012). Goody opened up an area which
is often overlooked by social scientists, namely the intersection of
material and cultural worlds.
A fourth theme was an attempt to balance what he considered
to be the Eurocentric vision concerning the differences between
western Europe and Asia. There were another six books including
The East in the West (1996), Islam in Europe (2004), The Theft
of History (2006) and The Eurasian Miracle (2010). In an age
when global history is expanding fast, the breadth of Goody’s
knowledge, rooted in both history and anthropology, with a deep
understanding of African and Islamic civilizations, and a keen
interest in India and the Far East, made a major contribution to the
attack on Euro-centric bias and arrogance of western triumphalism
in the Cold War years.

***
I cannot end without noting that he was enormously kind and
supportive to many of those he encountered, from children to
elderly dons. He would put his hand on your shoulder and draw
you into his world, and you knew you could depend on him in any
contingency. He was a warm and rounded human being and always
exciting to be with.
Jack Goody was a big man in every sense. He was fnally
knighted, as he should have been earlier. Perhaps he had to wait
because there was an ‘Again the Government’, contrarian, streak in
him which annoyed some in the Establishment, a characteristic he
shared with Edward Evans-Pritchard.
10 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

Jack was an excellent ethnographer, a wide ranging and

innovative thinker, and bridged the diffcult years when anthropology
was changing fast from the late colonial period into post-modernity
with style and wit.
I have met many fascinating people in my ffty years in Oxford,
London and Cambridge and elsewhere, and interviewed several
hundred of them. Jack stands up there as the man who has shaped
my life most and as a constant inspiration. He was a major thinker,
innovator and institution builder and a remarkable man.
Jack Goody. Photograph courtesy Alan Macfarlane.

A more legible letter from Jack Goody.

Photograph courtesy Alan Macfarlane.
Jack Goody

Sir John Rankine Goody, FBA (1919–2015), known as Jack Goody,

was an English social anthropologist. He was a prominent lecturer
at Cambridge University, and was William Wyse Professor of Social
Anthropology from 1973 to 1984.
Born on 27 July 1919, Goody grew up in Welwyn Garden City
and St Albans, where he attended St Albans School. He went up to St
John’s College, Cambridge to study English literature in 1938, where
he met leftist intellectuals like Eric Hobsbawm. His parents were
Harold Goody (1885–1969) and Lilian Rankine Goody (1885–1962).
Goody left university to fight in World War II. Following
offcer training, he was commissioned into the Sherwood Foresters
(Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Regiment), British Army, on 23
March 1940 as a second lieutenant. Fighting in North Africa, he was
captured by the Germans and spent three years in prisoner-of-war
camps. At the end of the war he held the rank of lieutenant. Following
his release, he returned to Cambridge to continue his studies. He
offcially relinquished his commission on 19 January 1952.
Inspired by James George Frazer’s Golden Bough and the
archaeologist V. Gordon Childe, he transferred to Archaeology and
Anthropology when he resumed university study in 1946. Meyer
Fortes was his frst mentor in Social Anthropology. After feldwork
with the LoWiili and LoDagaa peoples in northern Ghana, Goody
increasingly turned to comparative study of Europe, Africa and Asia.
Between 1954 and 1984, he taught social anthropology at
Cambridge University, serving as the William Wyse Professor of
Social Anthropology from 1973 until 1984. He gave the Luce
Lectures at Yale University – Fall 1987.
In 1976, Goody was elected Fellow of the British Academy (FBA).
He was an associate of the US National Academy of Sciences. In
14 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

the 2005 Queen’s Birthday Honours, he was appointed a Knight

Bachelor ‘for services to Social Anthropology’, and therefore granted
the use of the title sir. In 2006, he was appointed Commandeur dans
l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by the French Republic.
Jack Goody explained social structure and social change primarily
in terms of three major factors. The frst was the development of
intensive forms of agriculture that allowed the accumulation of
surplus – surplus explained many aspects of cultural practice from
marriage to funerals as well as the great divide between African and
Eurasian societies. Second, he explained social change in terms of
urbanisation and growth of bureaucratic institutions that modifed
or overrode traditional forms of social organisation, such as family
or tribe, identifying civilization as ‘the culture of cities’. And third,
he attached great weight to the technologies of communication as
instruments of psychological and social change. He associated the
beginnings of writing with the task of managing surplus and, in
a paper with Ian Watt (Goody and Watt 1963), he advanced the
argument that the rise of science and philosophy in classical Greece
depended on the invention of the alphabet. As these factors could be
applied to any contemporary social system or to systematic changes
over time, his work is equally relevant to many disciplines.
Goody has pioneered the comparative anthropology of literacy,
attempting to gauge the preconditions and effects of writing as a
technology. He also published about the history of the family and
the anthropology of inheritance. More recently, he has written on
the anthropology of fowers and food.
Among his main publications were Death, Property and the
Ancestors (1962), Technology, Tradition, and the State in Africa
(1971), The Myth of the Bagre (1972) and The Domestication of
the Savage Mind (1977).1
 JACK GOODY 15

I
Eric Hobsbawm (EH): Guided partly by your little autobiographical
memoir of anthropology in the Annual Review of Anthropology I
would like to ask you a few questions. Let us start off with, if you
like, a bit of autobiography, no doubt we are not suffciently post-
modern to think that anthropology is an autobiographical genre,
nevertheless, it might help with your background. You do compare
your background with that of Meyer Fortes2 and Edmund Leach,3
you just say that it was more modest in the home counties. Could
you perhaps elaborate a bit more about where you came from and
who your parents were and where you went to school.
Jack Goody (JG): My father was a Londoner. My mother was from
the borders of two adjoining towns in Scotland, but she met my
father in London. After the First World War, they moved out to
Welwyn Garden City, which is where I grew up. I went to primary
school there. There was no secondary school in Welwyn Garden
City at that time, so I went to school at St Albans. I travelled there
by train every day. Eventually my parents moved out to St Albans
because my brother and I were going to school there.
EH: What sort of profession was your father in?
JG: My father was an advertising manager in London. His
background, however, was that of an electrical engineer, though
he became a technical journalist in the early days of electricity and
later on worked as an advertising manager for a frm in London.
EH: And your mother, was just at home, or was she…?
JG: My mother used to work in the central post offce administration
in London before she came down from Scotland. She did not work
after her marriage. She was at home, but my father went out to the

This interview was conducted by Eric Hobsbawm on 18 May 1991. The

transcription for this interview was provided by Radha Béteille, for this volume.
These interviews are available for viewing on:
https://www.sms.cam.ac.uk/media/1117872
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ITRrAbns5D0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CZBSAIUCmc
16 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

city. We lived in Hertfordshire in the outskirts of London. It was not

very far from where I am now. It was halfway between London and
Cambridge. In fact, I used to cycle up to Cambridge, at one stage,
in the days when the roads were slightly less encumbered than they
are now. It is my home country.
EH: Let me move quickly to Cambridge – it is a logical connection.
Could you say a little bit more about the intellectual atmosphere,
your friends, infuences, and your impression of Cambridge when
you came because, obviously, I observed that at least two or three of
the people you have collaborated with, were people you must frst
have known in the days that we met – Ian Watt4 and Peter Laslett5….
JG: That is absolutely true. I read English when I came up to
Cambridge. When I was in school, I was much infuenced by a
schoolmaster who had worked with the Leavis School. A number of
my friends, got scholarships to Downing [College, Cambridge] in that
crowd. The English school, if I recall, was organizing its own teaching
and seminars, at that time. I was also into the Socialist Club, that
too, was organizing its own seminars. In fact, there were all sorts of
alternative activities going on when I came up to university. So, I did
not go to many lectures because there were so many other interesting
things to be done. This was towards the end of the Spanish Civil War
and one was much involved with political activity. There were a series
of events leading up to the war which required knowledge of the
political feld, so one’s activities included politics. Therefore, it was
natural to take seminars in the Socialist Club on a variety of topics.
The atmosphere in Cambridge was extremely lively in those days.
EH: The faculty groups I seem to remember. There were faculty
groups….
JG: There were faculty groups of one kind or another. But the English
students were organizing various things and there were some people
who were very vigorous about that at the time. As I said earlier, I
did not go to many lectures in my frst year.
EH: Other than Leavis?6
JG: I went to Leavis’s seminars in Downing. I went to Hugh Sykes
Davies’s7 lectures because he was my supervisor. Though I went to
 JACK GOODY 17

other seminars as well, very few were connected with what I was
actually meant to be doing then. At that particular time, you had to
fll up a piece of paper at the beginning of term which was then sent
to the Director of Studies which had a list indicting that you were
attending a certain course of lectures. I remember I got reprimanded
for not attending suffcient lectures. I do not think that I either went
to or listened to any lectures of anyone above the age of 30. It seemed
to me as if there was so much else to do other than attend lectures,
this was in part because of the great intellectual atmosphere that
prevailed at the time. And partly because people were going off to
Spain to be involved in the Spanish Civil War. One felt very close to
what was happening outside Cambridge – a real world experience
– as opposed to how one felt being in school.
EH: Presumably, of course, the infuence of Marx8 through the
Socialist Club and the Communist Party must also have been
noticeable at that time, at least that was so in my case.
JG: The Communist Party was very noticeable. I did read a certain
amount of communist literature while I was still in school. I was a
member of a Left Book Club9 while still at school before I ever came
up to Cambridge. It was the time of publishing and of the Left Book
Club which was important to a lot of people. It gave them access to
cheap, inexpensive books before the paperback era. I read the works
of Marx and Engels10 because it interested me and that naturally
led on to the Socialist Club and Left-wing politics in Cambridge.
EH: It is very interesting because you know your case was typical.
I, myself, was the pupil of one of these young English teachers who
had come from Cambridge – Leavis. I put down Downing as one
of my colleges….
JG: I did not get into Downing. I would have loved to get into
Downing, it was the height of my ambition.
EH: But you see, when I came up to Cambridge, I decided that
English was not my thing. Did you ever consider not studying English
and studying something else?
JG: I should have done history. I was much better at it than I was in
English. But English was the peak ambition for so many of us at the
18 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

time. I did not realize that then, but Edward Thompson and others,
so many people did English. It was years after the war. It was said
English was the most diffcult subject to get in to and it remains
true to this day – it required the highest A Levels to get in. Even
though I would have been better at history, I somehow did not have
the drive to get into it. It was English literature that I wanted to do.
EH: Who were the chief people who infuenced you, if any? Or
whom do you think you infuenced?
JG: A lot of people in Cambridge infuenced me, especially those
who were slightly senior to me, including me, were the signifcant
ones. There were people who were two or three years older and
gave me receptions – Ian Watt with whom I worked later on. And
people who were giving seminars. My friend R.O.C. Winkler11 was
at the same school as I was. He read English at school. He got the
scholarship to Downing, became a philosopher, but he died young.
EH: There is no question about it that in our days it was mutual
education much more than it was from top to bottom.
JG: That is absolutely right. That was the vigour of Cambridge. It was
those kinds of circles that I got my education from and that is where
I talked about the books I had read or the books that other people
had read and exchanged ideas – it was in that kind of ambience.
EH: Did you at that time have any particular relationship with non-
European students, Third World students as you would say today,
colonial students as people would have said in those days?
JG: My relationship with ‘colonial’ students was pretty minimal.
My frst introduction to anthropology was through the notes in T.S.
Eliot’s12 The Waste Land13 – references to Frazer and so on. It was
Leavis’s references to Lord Raglan14 – that is where I frst got the
name from – it was mediaeval drama. When I was in prison camp in
Germany later on, there was a very good library run by Tim Munby
– in Stalag 7B which had been accumulated by these people since
Dunkirk – and it was a rather extensive one. That is where I read
two volumes of Frazer and Chamber’s Medieval Stage, which I had
always wanted to read. My own contact with Indian students was
during and after the war.
 JACK GOODY 19

EH: This does get us to the war. It seems to me that the war had
quite a big impact on you intellectually in many ways through your
experiences in Italy, what you were reading and the rest of it. What
did it teach you, what ideas did you derive from it? Tell us a little
bit about that.
JG: The war years had a great infuence on me. I went to the Middle
East for the frst time, and spent some time in Cyprus. Seeing the
use of the Mediterranean plough in the villages in Cyprus and then
visiting the museum there to see the same kind of plough being used
4000 years earlier is what got me interested in anthropology. My
interest in the ancient Middle East was aroused after being camped
under the pyramids in Giza, visiting Cairo, in Egypt, which in turn
got me interested in works of [V.] Gordon Childe and archaeology.
I remembered from when I was a child, Sir Mortimer Wheeler
unearthing a part of the hypocaust in Verulamium, which has a
magnifcent Neptune mosaic on top. All this piqued my interest in
archaeology. Experiencing the Middle East, walking up to the Disney-
like crusader castles and going into a Gothic cathedral in the middle
Nicosia [capital of Cyprus] being transformed into a mosque was
what got me interested in the history and the cultures of that region.
But more specifcally, as far as anthropology was concerned, my
interest in it grew after being captured at Torbuq in 1942 when
we were taken to Italy. I was in a camp in Italy where university
courses were arranged, and I got involved in teaching modern English
literature with a friend of mine, Stuart Hood,15 who later went on
to become Director of ITV. At the end of the war, when I had done
one year of university, I even thought of becoming a professional
bridge player! It was the only thing I could do that qualifed me for
anything as far as I could see.
Later, I got interested in social interaction with small groups,
living with people in a confned space. This was when I escaped and
spent time in Ubruzzi, up in the hills with peasants, and then again in
Rome after I escaped again and was hiding out. It was more Europe
and the Middle East that interested me than Africa.
EH: That actually leads to the question why do you think you settled
down in Africa?
20 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

JG: I did not really settle down in Africa. Besides, the economic base
was not far away. What I did frst, when I came back to Cambridge,
was to fnish off my degree in English very quickly. Thereafter, I took
a year and did a diploma in anthropology.
EH: Why in anthropology? It wasn’t an obvious choice.
JG: If there had been sociology, I would probably have taken
that, except that sociology would not have led me on to business
studies. Not that anthropology led me on to business studies
either. But Evans-Pritchard16 was lecturing in Cambridge, on Africa
and he was a very infuential lecturer and fgure at the time. He
inspired many people in Cambridge to go in for anthropology. I
did not take up anthropology immediately, instead, I went into
education for a while. After getting a certifcate, I realized I wanted
to do something active so became an adult education offcer in
Hertfordshire. I would have liked to have done sociological work
at the Tavistock Clinic in London and in aiding the adjustment
of returning prisoners of war. Instead, I applied for the job of a
researcher at Dartington Hall which I did not get because the job
required more qualifcations than I had. It was then that I decided
to do a PhD in anthropology. My decision was partly prompted by
the fact that there was government funding, for which I applied
through the Colonial Social Science Research Council, and in part
because I knew a lot of Africans by then and I wanted to work
in Ghana – Ghana was at the front of changes having become
a newly independent territory. This led me to go to Oxford and
work in African Studies. Besides, all the grants and scholarships
were essential for going to African territories. These grants did
not cover work on peasants in Italy, perhaps because there was
no work on peasants in Italy.
EH: I would like to read something that you wrote yourself – here
are some fragments…

I saw post-war Britain under the Labour government of ’45 as the

national outcome of many lives like my own. …grown up between
the two wars with an interval of only 20 years from one terrifying
 JACK GOODY 21

destruction to the next and lived our adolescence under the shadow
of continental fascism and so on. This period began as the Japanese
attacks. They followed my generation for six and a half years of
life under arms during which time all one could look forward to
was post-war reconstruction through the national government
and through the United Nations and this obviously involved the
dissolution of earlier empires.

It is important for people now who did not recall this and are
not in a position to remember the general state. For instance, it
seems to me worth mentioning that when you decided to go into
adult education, you were not doing something that Goody thought
of, but there were several other people including academics were
doing this at that time.
JG: Adult education, after all, was associated with the outcome of
the war. It was stimulated by Army Board of Current Affairs which
was very much involved in adult education. A number of people
like Raymond Williams17 and Thomas Hodgkin were working in
the adult education feld and my friend George Schofeld also went
into it. It was for a specifc reason. The 1944 Education Act had
been passed. The universities were opening up and one felt that one
could do something in the feld of education.
EH: Academic life was not self-contained. It was not just a job.
It had to be in some ways useful to people both here and abroad.
JG: I wanted to do something in education at that time. It was also
the time when independence was obviously coming. It had already
come to India and to Africa and one wanted to be a part of this
change. A lot of people went into adult education, a great number of
whom became academics and later on went into adult education in
Africa – Nigeria and Ghana with various WEA [Workers’ Education
Association] and associations for education support.
University life did not hold any particular attraction for me. I saw it
as a place where all the fuddy-duddies were and everything exciting
was happening outside that. What was much more likely was, as
many of my friends did, to teach in overseas universities during that
period rather than get a job here.
22 CREATIVE LIVES AND WORKS

EH: Let me take you back to Ghana where you did your feldwork
there and paid your dues as an anthropologist. You have kept up
contact there, you still go. What did you get out of going to northern
Ghana, apart from, as you say, it somewhere forced you to keep
contact with French literature?
JG: I got an enormous deal out of my feldwork in Ghana. I was
forced to sit in a place for two years and simply observe. I had not
thought very much about the law or religion in any concrete way
except going to church. This was a kind of a revelation to me, to be
involved in all these aspects of life including the whole productive
process. Living in the towns and villages in Ghana, I learnt how to
make beer, bread and porridge. It got me interested in a number of
felds of social life which I would not have thought that I would
be interested in before. Those things that I was interested in at
an intellectual level it made me take them up on another one, for
instance, my friendship with Ian Watt, his work on The Rise of the
Novel which he was preparing at the time. I was interested in Q.D.
Leavis’s Fiction and the Reading Public and the kind of changes
involved with printing and printing presses and the general feld of
the sociology of literature. Having looked at medieval literature,
popular culture, oral and literate cultures, what particularly intrigued
me, was the idea of being in a society without any reading matter
and what this really meant to people inside it – what they could or
could not do without a book – without reading and writing. The
reason for this could have been because as prisoners of war, we were
not always with libraries and we had nothing at all to read. I was,
therefore, drawn to subjects of oral and written discourse. Besides,
I also got interested in the transmission of property in Ghana and
property relations. Overall, being in Ghana gave me the chance
to examine two adjacent communities and try and fnd out their
differences and similarities.
EH: How would your work have changed if, instead of going to the
LoDagaa in northern Ghana, you had gone to Uganda or Borneo
or to Ceylon? It is a counter-factual question.
JG: I did think of what I would have done in Italy if I had gone
there. I was, at that time, worried about anthropologists going to
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
Silence reigned, save for the murmur of voices down-stairs—far,
indistinct.
The hall was glorious with indirect rays of the sun. It had wonderful
spaciousness, too. Bonnie May gazed down the broad stairway,
duskily bright and warm and silent, and her expression was quite
blissful. She turned and looked up to the landing above—reached by
a narrower flight of stairs. It seemed splendidly remote, and here the
sunlight fell in a riotous flood.
Her sensations must have been something akin to those of a
mocking-bird that inspects the vernal world in May. She released the
folds of the nightgown and “paraded” to and fro in the hall, looking
back over her shoulder at the train. She had put the garment on
again, after Flora’s advent with the gingham dress, primarily for the
purpose of making the journey from her room to her bath. But there
had been a distinct pleasure in wearing it, too. She thought it made
her look like a fairy queen. She felt the need of a tinsel crown and a
wand with a gilded star at its end.
She was executing a regal turn in the hall when her glance was
attracted upward to some moving object on the landing above.
A most extraordinary ancient man stood there watching her.
Realizing that he had been discovered, he turned in a kind of panic
and disappeared into regions unknown. His mode of locomotion was
quite unusual. If Bonnie May had been familiar with nautical terms
she would have said that he was tacking, as he made his agitated
exit.
As for Bonnie May, she scampered into the bathroom, the flowing
train suddenly gripped in her fingers.
Down-stairs they were listening for her, though they pretended not to
be doing so. They heard her in the bathroom; later they heard
movements in her bedroom. And at last she was descending the
stairs leisurely, a care-free song on her lips.
She invaded the dining-room. Mr. Baron had been lingering over his
coffee. The various parts of the morning paper were all about him.
“Good morning,” was Bonnie May’s greeting. She nodded brightly. “I
hope I’m not intruding?”
“Not at all!” Mr. Baron glanced at her with real friendliness. It had not
occurred to him that her dress was fantastic. What he had noticed
was that her face was positively radiant, and that she spoke as he
imagined a duchess might have done.
“You might like to look at the colored supplement,” he added, fishing
around through the various sections of the paper at his feet.
“I thank you, I’m sure; but isn’t it rather silly?” She added
deferentially: “Is there a theatrical page?”
Mr. Baron coughed slightly, as he always did when he was
disconcerted. “There is, I believe,” he said. He glanced over his
shoulder toward a closed door. “I’m not sure Mrs. Baron would
approve of your looking at the theatrical department on Sunday,” he
added.
“Really! And you don’t think she’d see any harm in looking at the
comic pictures?”
Mr. Baron removed his glasses and wiped them carefully. “She
would probably regard the comic pictures as the lesser of two evils,”
he said.
“Well, I never did like to be a piker. If I’m going into a thing, I like to
go in strong.” She made this statement pleasantly.
A most extraordinary ancient man stood there watching
her.
Mr. Baron put his glasses on somewhat hurriedly and looked hard at
the child. He perceived that she was looking at him frankly and with
a slight constriction at her throat, as was always the case when she
felt she must hold her ground against attack.
“I rather think you’re right,” he said reassuringly. “I’m not sure I know
how to find the theatrical page. Would you mind looking?”
But Flora interrupted here. She entered the room with the air of one
who has blessings to bestow.
“You’re invited to go to Sunday-school with us after a while,” she
informed the guest.
“You’re very kind, I’m sure. What’s it like?”
“Oh, there are children, and music, and—” Flora paused. She wished
to make her statement attractive as well as truthful.
“A kind of spectacle?” suggested the guest.
“Hardly that. But there’s somebody to tell stories. It’s very nice, I
think.”
“It certainly sounds good to me. If they’ve got any good people I
might like to get into it, until I find an opening in my own line.”
Mr. Baron removed his glasses again. “Flora, would you undertake to
tell me what she means?” he inquired.
Miss Baron pinched her lips and looked at him with a kind of ripple of
joy in her eyes. “Isn’t it plain?” she asked. She went out of the room
then, and he heard her laughing somewhere in the distance.
He coughed again and turned to his paper, and so, for the first time
in her life, Bonnie May was in a fair way of going to Sunday-school.
Victor didn’t approve of the idea at all, when it was presently made
known to him. He waylaid his mother in the dining-room at a time
when there was no one else about.
“Why not wait until she can get some things?” he asked.
“Victor,” replied Mrs. Baron, holding her head very high, “you’re
assuming that that extraordinary little creature is going to stay here. I
assure you, she’s not. This may be the only chance she’ll ever have
to place herself in the way of a helpful influence on Sunday. She’s
going to Sunday-school to-day.”
“Governess,” responded Victor, smiling steadily, “if you don’t quit
getting angry with me I mean to sue for separate maintenance. Mark
my words.” After which nothing more was said on the subject.
Victor betook himself to the library, however, and indulged in a
moment of fidgeting. Breakers were ahead—that was certain.
It was forcing things, anyway. He took down his Emerson and turned
to a passage which his mother long ago had pronounced a thing
holding low heathen sentiments. He read:
“And why drag this dead weight of a Sunday-school over the whole
of Christendom? It is beautiful and natural that children should
inquire and maturity should teach, but it is time enough to answer
questions when they are asked. Do not shut up the young people
against their will in a pew and force the children to ask them
questions against their will.”
He could not dismiss from his mind the picture of Bonnie May asking
questions in her elfin yet penetrating way, and he realized that the
answers she would get in that place of ordered forms and
conventions might be very far from satisfactory to one of her
somewhat fearful frankness and honesty.
But suddenly he smiled at the pictures he was drawing in his mind.
“She seems pretty well able to take care of herself,” he concluded.
He came upon the heaped sections of the newspapers he had
examined. That reminded him. The newspapers were not the only
source of information—nor perhaps the most likely source—so far as
his immediate needs were concerned.
No, there was a certain visit he must make that morning.
A little later he emerged from the mansion and stood for an instant
on the steps in the brilliant sunlight. Then he descended the steps
and was gone.
 CHAPTER VIII
STILL UNCLAIMED

Baron was on his way to see Thornburg.

On six days and seven nights Thornburg was one of the busiest men
in town. But there was one day in the week when he liked to pose as
a man of leisure. From ten or eleven o’clock on Sunday morning,
and until the latter part of the afternoon, there were few people about
the theatre to disturb him or to claim his attention. And during these
hours it was his practise to lean back in the comfortable chair in his
private office in the theatre and look through old letters and
souvenirs, if there were no callers, or to exchange current gossip or
old reminiscences with the people of his profession who dropped in
to see him. Usually these were managers or agents who happened
to be in town, and sometimes there were veteran players who were
retired, or who were temporarily unemployed. And occasionally there
were politicians who liked to keep on affable terms with the source of
free passes.
When Baron entered the manager’s presence he found that usually
engaged person quite at liberty.
The little office was a place which was not without its fascination to
most people. On the walls there were framed photographs of
Jefferson as Rip Van Winkle, of Booth as Richard III, of Modjeska as
Portia, and of other notable players. In many cases the pictures bore
sprawling autographs across their faces, low enough not to hurt.
Between these authentic ornaments there were fanciful sketches of
dancing girls in extravagant costumes and postures, and a general
ornamentation scheme of masks and foils and armor.
So complacent and open-minded was Thornburg when Baron
appeared that the latter came to a swift, seemingly irrelevant
conclusion.
“Nobody has claimed her! She’s going to stay!” were the words that
formed themselves in Baron’s mind. The dull, monotonous aspects
of the old mansion were to be changed. A new voice, like a melody
rising above droning chords, was to greet his ears at morning and
night. A thing of beauty was to take its place before the background
of dull, long-established things.
No one had come to Thornburg to demand of him the child who had
disappeared from his premises—Baron could read as much in the
manager’s expression. Wonderful! Truly wonderful!
“You haven’t had any word yet?” he began.
Thornburg was used to Baron’s ways. He had a friendly contempt for
the dilettante young man about town and newspaper writer who
could have made a place for himself, as everybody agreed, if he had
chosen to do so, but who indulged himself by following his own ill-
directed bent, merely because he was—well, because he was Baron
—or a Baron.
“Not a word,” he replied, smiling indulgently, as if the matter were
really not at all surprising.
Baron read the other’s thought. “But a child like that!” he exclaimed.
“People are sometimes strange,” said Thornburg. “Now, if she had
been a trained dog, or a cat with an unusual pedigree, or a horse
with power to draw loads—then she would have been hunted up
quick enough. But you see, she’s only a child.”
Baron shook his head. He was rejecting all this as inadequate.
“She’s still with you?” continued the manager.
“Yes. I’m hoping she’ll remain with us.”
“She like it there?”
“Like it?” echoed Baron. He couldn’t answer the question. He
thought of something more pertinent to say. “It means that she will
have a home—if we can keep her.”
Thornburg nodded slowly. “I don’t think anything better could happen
to her than for you to keep her,” he said. “I suppose she’ll get the
kind of care a little girl of her kind needs. If she’s just a waif of the
theatre she probably has a lot to learn about—oh, about life and real
things.”
“Very likely,” Baron agreed. He added: “I was hoping you might throw
some light on the case—as to who she is and where she came
from.”
Thornburg shook his head. “No, I couldn’t,” he said.
“About her coming to the theatre——”
“A woman brought her to the theatre and asked to be admitted. She
belonged to the profession—the woman. We usually pass them in if
there’s any room. There happened to be just one seat left down-
stairs—in the back row—and I told her she could have that. I
supposed she would hold the little girl on her lap. I was provoked
when I saw she had let her wander up into the box where you were.
In fact, I spoke to her about it.”
“And you don’t know who the woman was—even by reputation?”
“Oh, there are thousands of such people—people who are ‘of the
profession.’ Vaudeville people, circus performers, members of little
stock companies, third-rate travelling troupes—they all ask for free
seats.”
Baron reflected. “I suppose,” he said at length, “such people are
often in financial straits?”
“My goodness, yes! Almost always.”
“If she—this actress—had really wanted to find the child, she surely
would have made inquiries here at the theatre before now, wouldn’t
she?”
“It would seem so—certainly.”
“What I’m getting at is this: It looks a good deal like deliberate
desertion, doesn’t it?”
“Yes, I should say so.”
“And that’s what I simply can’t believe,” declared Baron. “Still,” he
added, “under the circumstances, I ought to be justified in not saying
anything—in assuming that I have a right to keep what has come
into my possession?”
“Well, for the time being, certainly. Of course, there may be
developments sooner or later. She must belong to somebody; I
mean, she must have a home somewhere.”
“No, she hasn’t.”
“But of course you can’t be sure of that.”
“I am. She’s my authority.”
“You mean she told you that? It was probably a childish fancy—or a
downright falsehood. You have to take into account all manner of
possible circumstances.”
“I think she told me the truth. She doesn’t seem fanciful, in that way.
She has the most remarkable sort of intelligence—of frankness.”
Thornburg’s eyes brightened with interest. “Has she, really?” he
asked. There was an interval of silence and then the manager
laughed. “It strikes me that you’re an odd sort of a chap, Baron,” he
said. “What was your idea in taking her home—a stray child like
that?”
“I don’t think it was so very remarkable. She wanted to go with me,
for one thing. She seemed quite delighted at the prospect of having
a real home.”
The manager turned this statement over in his mind so long that
Baron supposed he was thinking of something else. He sat, his
hands clasped behind his head, regarding one of the pictures on the
wall, well over Baron’s head. Then he aroused himself abruptly.
“What’s your plan regarding her?” he asked.
“I don’t know that I’ve got that far yet. She’ll have the usual schooling
and the sort of training that is customary. When she’s grown—Well,
it’s hard to look far ahead, where a child like that is concerned. Of
course, if Miss Barry ever turns up.... She would have claims we
couldn’t ignore.”
“Who’s Miss Barry?”
“She’s the woman who brought Bonnie May to the theatre. If you
know of an actress by that name——”
“I don’t.”
“She probably hasn’t very much standing. From what Bonnie May
said I judge she belongs to that vast army we never hear much
about in the cities.”
“It’s like this, Baron,” said the manager, with the air of a man who
hasn’t time for useless speculations, “I’m thinking, and I suppose
you’re thinking, that under the circumstances I ought to assume
some of the responsibility for a waif who was lost on my premises.
I’d want to be fair about it, you know.”
“But I wasn’t thinking anything of the kind,” declared Baron.
Thornburg frowned impatiently. “She’ll be a burden to you, of
course,” he argued. “And there’s clearly my share of the
responsibility——”
“I didn’t say anything about a burden. The word was yours. Of
course I had to take her home with me. Or at least that’s the way I
felt about it. You simply couldn’t turn a child like that over to an
orphan asylum, or to the police. You would as readily think of asking
some grand dame to turn a handspring as to expect Bonnie May to
put on a uniform with a lot of other unclaimed children, and go
through the usual order of childish occupations. Somebody has got
to look after her in a different way: somebody who understands. But I
wouldn’t think of her being a burden any more than I would think of
pigeons or flowers being a burden.”
Again Thornburg laughed. “Still, most people are pretty willing not to
have white elephants thrust upon them.”
Baron regarded him steadily, in silence. There was a sort of threat in
that—or a prophecy. And there was indicated that attitude of mind
which sees no beauty in a generous deed. And these were
reflections which Baron did not care to put into words.
The manager became uncomfortable under that glance. “You see,”
he explained, “I can’t help thinking.... Is it possible that a little
footlight butterfly will be comfortable very long in a home like—in a
home where everything is—is just so?” He flushed a little from the
effort to avoid offensive inferences or words. “Won’t she be
lonesome and out of place after the novelty of the thing passes?”
Baron liked that. It was frank and honest. “I don’t think she’ll be
lonesome,” he declared. “Mother will see that she gets interested in
things: in music, probably, or anything she manifests a taste for.
She’s too bright to feel out of place, if she’s helped in the right way.”
“It might work out all right.” Thornburg nodded. “I’ll tell you,” he
added, “suppose you let me help with the job.”
“Help!” echoed Baron. “You mean——”
“By writing a little check once a month.”
“That won’t be necessary. So far as the expense is concerned that
will scarcely be worth considering.”
“Nonsense! You could use it, if only for extra dresses and trinkets.
I’ve no doubt she’ll want a lot of things.”
That was exactly like a theatrical man’s ideas, Baron thought. But he
couldn’t tell Thornburg that his mother would be sure to oppose
anything that would tend to promote childish vanity, especially in the
case of one who was already inclined to overestimate mere
appearances. The gewgaws of the average petted and spoiled child
would have to give place to simplicity and true childishness. Still, he
didn’t wish to offend Thornburg, whose suggestion had doubtless
been based upon a generous impulse.
“It might be managed,” he said. “We’ll speak of that another time.”
He arose and began to shape a casual exit. “There’s nobody now to
take their places,” he said, indicating the portraits of Jefferson and
Booth and the others.
“Not by a thousand miles,” agreed Thornburg. His thoughts seemed
to have been transferred easily to the players who were gone.
But when Baron emerged from the theatre and lost himself in the
throng which the fine May forenoon had attracted from hotels and
side streets, his face brightened with the joy which he felt he need no
longer conceal.
“She’s ours!” were the words that sang within him. “We’re going to
keep her!”
 CHAPTER IX
A DISAPPOINTING PERFORMANCE

Baron looked at his watch twice as he climbed the stairs. Yes, the
family had had time to return from church; but they had not done so.
Mrs. Shepard was busy in the dining-room, but otherwise the house
was unoccupied. Silence reigned in the upper regions.
Thomason, the houseman, was looking impatiently down from the
upper landing; but Thomason didn’t count. He was probably hungry.
Baron realized that he, too, was hungry.
He went into the cheerful sitting-room and looked down upon the
street, and instantly his attitude changed.
There they came! And something was wrong. Oh, plainly, something
was wrong.
Mrs. Baron’s head was held high; she was pale; her lips were
compressed. There was nothing gracious in her carriage. She was
marching.
By her side walked Flora, keeping step with difficulty. She appeared
to be fighting off all realization of her mother’s state.
Mrs. Shepard was no longer present to lend her support to Bonnie
May. The faithful servitor had come home immediately after Sunday-
school to look after the dinner, and the child walked alone, behind
her silent elders. Her whole being radiated defiance. She was
apparently taking in every aspect of the street, but her casual
bearing was obviously studied; the determined effort she was
making was not to be concealed.
Baron hurried down-stairs so that he might meet them in the hall,
and engineer a temporary dispersement. He was affecting a calm
and leisurely demeanor when the door opened and Mrs. Baron,
followed by the others, entered.
There was an ominous silence. Bonnie May caught sight of Baron
and approached him with only a partial concealment of eagerness
and hurry.
Mrs. Baron and Flora ascended the stairs: the former leading the
way sternly; the latter moving upward with wan cheeks and bowed
head.
Baron led the way into the sitting-room, Bonnie May following. He
pretended not to see or to apprehend anything unusual. “Well, what
do you think of Sunday-school?” he began gayly.
“I think it’s fierce!” This took the form of an explosion. “It wouldn’t do
even for one-night stands!”
Baron felt the need of an admonitory attitude. “Bonnie May,” he said,
“you should have discovered that it wasn’t a play. It was something
real. It’s a place where people go to help each other.”
“They certainly need help all right enough.” This with a quite unlovely
jeering laugh.
“I wonder what you mean by that?”
“I suppose I meant the same thing you meant yourself.”
Baron paused, frowning. “I meant,” he explained patiently, “that they
are people who want to be as good as they can, and who want to
give one another encouragement.”
The child was conscious of his wish to be conciliatory. She tried to
restrain herself. “Well,” she asked, “if they want to be good, why
don’t they just be good? What’s the use of worrying about it?”
“I’m afraid it isn’t quite so simple a matter as all that.”
Bonnie May’s wrath arose in spite of herself. She was recalling
certain indignities. “I don’t see anything in it but a bum performance.
Do you know what I think they go there for?”
“That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
“I think they go there to watch each other—to find out something bad
about each other.”
“Bonnie May!”
“I do! And I’ve had pretty near enough, too. You asked me and I told
you. You’re all asking me to do things, and asking me questions; and
then if I don’t agree with you in every way I’m wrong. That may look
all right to you, but it doesn’t to me. If I’ve got to take everything, I
mean to be on my way.”
Baron remained silent a full minute. When he spoke again his voice
was persuasive, gentle. “I’m anxious to understand your difficulties,”
he said. “I’m anxious to have you understand ours. I’m sorry I
criticised you. I’m sure you mean to be fair.”
She looked at him with a light of gratitude in her eyes, a quiver of
emotion passing over her face. She had an intense desire to justify
herself—at least to him.
“Do you know what was the first thing they asked me?”
“Your name, probably.”
“No, Mrs. Shepard told them that. They asked me if I was a good
little girl!”
“But I don’t see any harm in that. Why shouldn’t they have asked
you?”
“You don’t! Do you suppose that I was going to tell them that I was—
or that I wasn’t? What nonsense! Are you ‘a good young man’? How
does a question like that sound?”
Baron pondered. “Well—” he suggested.
“Well, I wouldn’t stand it. I asked her if she was ‘a good old
woman’—and the frowzy old thing stared at me just as ugly! She
walked way down into the parquet without looking back. She’d been
grinning when she asked me. I’ll bet she won’t grin like that very
soon again.”
Baron walked to the window and looked out dully, to gain time.
How extraordinary the child’s attitude was! And yet.... He could
understand that she might have been the only child in the troupe with
which she travelled, and that her older companions, weary of
mimicry and make-believe when their work was done, might have
employed very frank, mature speech toward each other and their
young companion.
He turned away from the window with a sigh. “Won’t you take my
word for it, Bonnie May, that these people mean well, and that one
should speak of them with respect, even if one cannot speak of them
with affection?”
“But they don’t mean well. What’s the good of stalling?” She turned
until her back was toward him, and sat so, her cheek in her hand,
and her whole body eloquent of discouragement.
An instant later she turned toward him with the first evidence of
surrender she had shown. Her chin quivered and her eyes were filled
with misery. “Did you tell the man where I was, so they can come for
me if they want me?” she asked.
Here spoke the child, Baron thought. His resentment fled instantly.
“Truly I did,” he assured her. “I have been doing everything I could
think of to help. I want you to believe that.”
“Oh, I do; but you all put too much on me. I want to go back to where
things are real——”
“Real, child? The theatre, and plays, and make-believe every day?”
“It’s the only thing that’s real. You’d know that if you were an artist. It
means what’s true—that’s what it means. Do you mean to tell me
there’s anything real in all the putting on here in this house—the way
you hide what you mean and what you believe and what you want?
Here’s where the make-believe is: just a mean make-believe that
nothing comes of. The theatre has a make-believe that everybody
understands, and so it really isn’t a make-believe, and something
good and true comes of it.”
Her eyes were flashing. Her hands had been clasped while she
spoke until she came to the final clause. Then she thrust her arms
forward as if she would grasp the good and true thing which came of
the make-believe she had defended.
When Baron spoke again his words came slowly. “Bonnie May,” he
said, “I wish that you and I might try, like good friends, to understand
each other, and not to say or think anything bitter or unkind. Maybe
there will be things I can teach you. I’m sure there are things you can
teach me! And the others ... I honestly believe that when we all get
better acquainted we’ll love one another truly.”
She hung her head pensively a moment, and then, suddenly, she
laughed heartily, ecstatically.
“What is it?” he asked, vaguely troubled.
“I’m thinking it’s certainly a pretty kettle of fish I’ve got into. That’s
all.”
“You know I don’t quite understand that.”
“The Sunday-school, I mean, and your mother, and everything. They
put me in with a lot of children”—this somewhat scornfully—“and a
sort of leading lady asked us riddles—is that what you call them?
One of them was: ‘How long did it take to make the world?’”
“But that wasn’t a riddle.”
“Well, whatever it was; and they caught one Smart Alec. She said,
‘Forty days and forty nights,’ and they all laughed—so you could see
it was just a catch. As if anybody knew! That was the only fun I could
see to the whole performance, and it sounded like Rube fun at that.
One odious little creature looked at my dress a long time. Then she
said: ‘I’ve got a new dress.’ Another looked at me and sniffed, and
sniffed, and sniffed. She wrinkled her nose and lifted her lip every
time she sniffed. It was like a kind of signal. Then she said: ‘My papa
has got a big store, and we’ve got a horse and buggy.’ She sniffed
again and looked just as spiteful! I had to get back at that one. ‘Don’t
cry, little one,’ I said. ‘Wait until it’s a pretty day and I’ll come around
and take you out in my automobile.’”
“But you haven’t any automobile!”
“That,” with great emphasis, “doesn’t make any difference. There’s
no harm in stringing people of a certain kind.”
“Oh, Bonnie May!” cried Baron reproachfully, and with quickly
restored calm he added: “Surely one should tell the truth!”
“Yes, one should, if two would. But you can’t afford to show your
hand to every Bedelia that gets into your troupe. No, you can’t,” she
repeated defiantly, reading the pained look in his eyes.
Baron knew that he should have expressed his disapproval of such a
vagrant philosophy as this; but before he had time to frame a tactful
response the child continued:
“Then the leading lady turned to me, thinking up another question. I
made up my mind to be on hand if I had to sleep in the wings. ‘Why
were Adam and Eve driven out of the garden?’ was mine. I said:
‘Because they couldn’t make good!’ She looked puzzled, and I
patted her on the knee. ‘You can’t put over anything on me,’ I said. I
think I shouted it. That stopped the whole show for a minute, and an
old character man up near the stage got up and said: ‘A little less
noise, please.’ Then your mother came back.” (Baron had
anticipated this detail.) “She had been taking the leading part in a
little sketch up in front.” (Teaching her class, Baron reflected, and
smiled wryly in spite of himself.) “She had got through with her
musical turn, and—well, I don’t want to talk about her. She told me I
must sit still and listen to what the others said. Why? I’d like to know.
I couldn’t agree with her at all. I told her I was a professional and
didn’t expect to pick up anything from a lot of amateurs. And then,”
she added dejectedly, “the trouble began.”
Baron groaned. He had hoped the worst had been told. What in the
world was there to follow?
“Your mother,” resumed Bonnie May, “spoke to the woman who had
been asking questions. She said—so that the children could hear
every word—‘She’s a poor little thing who’s had no bringing up.
She’ll have to learn how to behave.’”
She hung her head in shame at the recollection of this. For the
moment she seemed unwilling to proceed.
“And what happened then?” Baron asked persuasively.
“Oh—I was getting—rattled! She had no right to work in a line like
that.”
“But what did you do?”
“I told her.... You know I am sorry, don’t you?”
“Maybe you’d rather not tell me?”
“You’d better know. I told her that when it came to doing the nasty
stuff I had seen pupils from the dramatic schools that looked like
headliners compared with her.”
Baron stiffened. “Goodness! You couldn’t have said that!”
“Yes, I did. And I didn’t have to wait to hear from any prompter,
either. And she—you know she won’t take anything. The way she
looked! She said she was glad to say she didn’t have any idea what I
was talking about. Just a stall, you know. Oh, these good people!
She called Flora and said I was to be taken into a corner, and that I
was to sit there until we went home. And Flora led me into a corner
and the others looked back as if they were afraid of me. They all
sang after a while—a kind of ensemble affair. Flora held the music
over and invited me to sing. I told her musical turns were not in my
line. She just kept on holding the music for me—honestly, she’s the
dearest thing!—and singing herself. It was a crime, the noise she
made. Isn’t it awful when people try to sing and can’t? As if they had
to. Why do they do it? I felt like screaming to her to stop. But she
looked as if she might be dreaming, and I thought if anybody could
dream in that terrible place it would be a crime to wake them, even if
they did make a noise. They had an intermission, and then a man
down in front delivered a monologue.... Oh, me! Talk about the
moving-picture shows! Why, they’re artistic....”
What, Baron wondered, was one to say to a child who talked in such
a fashion?
Nothing—nothing at all. He groaned. Then, to his great relief, Flora
appeared.
“Dinner is ready,” she said, standing in the doorway. There was a
flush on her cheeks and an odd smile on her lips.
Baron took Bonnie May by the hand—he could not quite understand
the impulse which prompted him to do so—and led her into the
dining-room.
He saw that she bore her face aloft, with a painful effort at
unconcern. He was glad that she was given a place next to him, with
the elder Baron on her right, and Flora across the table from her.
He was dismayed to note that his mother was quite beside herself.
He had expected a certain amount of irritation, of chagrin, but not
this ominous, pallid silence. She avoided her son’s eyes, and this
meant, of course, that her wrath would sooner or later be visited
upon his head.
He sighed with discouragement. He realized sadly that his mother’s
heaviest crosses had always come to her from such trivial causes!
She was oddly childish—just as Bonnie May was strangely
unchildlike. Still, she had all the traditions of propriety, of a rule-made
demeanor, behind her. Strange that she could not have risen to the
difficulty that had confronted her, and emerged from a petty
predicament without so much of loss!
The meal progressed in a constrained silence. Bonnie May
concerned herself with her napkin; she admired the design on the
china; she appeared to appraise the dishes with the care of an
epicure. And at last, unfortunately, she spoke.
“Don’t you think, Mr. Baron”—to the master of the house—“that it is a
pretty custom to converse while at table?”
Mr. Baron coughed. He was keenly aware that something had gone
wrong; he was shrewd enough to surmise that Bonnie May had
offended. But he was in the position of the passenger below decks
who senses an abnormal atmosphere but who is unadvised as to the
nature of the storm.
“I’m afraid I’m not a very reliable hand at small talk,” he said
guardedly. “I think my idea is that you ought to talk when you have
something to say.”
“Very good!” agreed Bonnie May, nodding brightly. She patted her
lips daintily with the corner of her napkin. “Only it seems like