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'I have seen much to hate here, much to
forgive. But in a world where England is
finished and dead, I do not wish to live.'
ALICE DUER MILLER: The White Cliffs
the reception given to this book when it first appeared in the autumn
of 1946, was at once a pleasant surprise and a disappointment for me. A
surprise, because the reception was so kind; a disappointment for the same
reason.
Let me explain.
The first part of this statement needs little amplification. Even
people who are not closely connected with the publishing trade will be able
to realize that it is very nice - I'm sorry. I'd better be a little more
English: a not totally unpleasant thing for a completely unknown author to
run into three impressions within a few weeks of publication and thereafter
into another twenty-one.
What is my grievance, then? It is that this book has completely changed
the picture I used to cherish of myself. This was to be a book of defiance.
Before its publication I felt myself a man who was going to tell the English
where to get off. I had spoken my mind regardless of consequences; I thought
I was brave and outspoken and expected either to go unnoticed or to face a
storm. But no storm came. I expected the English to be up in arms against me
but they patted me on the back; I expected the British nation to rise in
wrath but all they said, was: 'quite amusing'. It was indeed a bitter
disappointment.
While the Rumanian Radio was serializing (without my permission) How to
be an Alien as an anti-British tract, the Central Office of Information rang
me up here in London and asked me to allow the book to be translated into
Polish for the benefit of those many Polish refugees who were then settling
in this country. 'We want our friends to see us in this light,' the man said
on the telephone. This was hard to bear for my militant and defiant spirit.
'But it's not such a favour able light,' I protested feebly. It's a very
human light and that is the most favourable,' retorted the official. I was
crushed.
A few weeks later my drooping spirit was revived when I heard of a
suburban bank manager whose wife had brought this book home to him remarking
that she had found it fairly amusing. The gentleman in ques tion sat down in
front of his open fire, put his feet up and read the book right through with
a continually darkening face. When he had finished, he stood up and said:
'Downright impertinence.'
And threw the book into the fire.
He was a noble and patriotic spirit and he did me a great deal of good.
I wished there had been more like him in England. But I could never find
another.
Since then I have actually written about a dozen books; but I might as
well have never written anything else. I remained the author of How to be an
Alien even after I had published a collection of serious essays. Even Mr
Somerset Maugham complained about this type of treatment bitterly and
repeatedly. Whatever he did, he was told that he would never write another
Of Human Bondage', Arnold Bennett in spite of fifty other works remained the
author of The Old Wives' Tale and nothing else; and Mr Robert Graves is just
the author of the Claudius books. These authors are much more eminent tlian
I am; but their problem is the same. At the moment I am engaged in writing a
750-page picaresque novel set in ancient Sumeria. It is taking shape nicely
and I am going to get the Nobel Prize for it. But it will be of no use: I
shall still remain the author of How to be an A lien.
I am not complaining. One's books start living their independent lives
soon enough, just like one's children. I love this book; it has done almost
as much for me as I have done for it. Yet, however loving a parent you may
be, it hurts your pride a little if you are only known, acknowledged and
accepted as the father of your eldest child.
In 1946 I took this manuscript to Andre Deutsch, a young man who had
just decided to try his luck as a publisher. He used to go, once upon a
time, to the same school as my younger brother. I knew him from the old days
and it was quite obvious to me even then, in Budapest, when he was only
twelve and wore shorts, that he would make an excellent publisher in London
if he only had the chance. So I offered my book to him and as, at that time,
he could not get manuscripts from better known authors, he accepted it with
a sigh. He suggested that Nicolas Bentley should be asked to 'draw the
pictures'. I liked the idea but I said he would turn the suggestion down.
Once again I was right: he did turn it down. Eventually, however, he was
persuaded to change his mind.
Mr Deutsch was at that time working for a different firm. Four years
after the publication of this book, and after the subsequent publication of
three other Mikes-Bentley books, he left this firm while I stayed with them
and went on working with another popular and able cartoonist, David Langdon.
Now, however, Andre Deutsch has bought all the rights of my past and future
output from his former firm and the original team of Deutsch, Bentley and
myself are together again under the imprint of the first named gentleman. We
are all twelve years older and Mr Deutsch does not wear shorts any more, or
not in the office, at any rate.
'When are you going to write another How to be an Alien?' Deutsch and
Bentley ask me from time to time and I am sure they mean it kindly.
They cannot quite make out the reply I mutter ill answer to their
friendly query. It is: 'Never, if I can help it.'
London, May 1958 GEORGE MIKES
I believe, without undue modesty, that I have cer tain qualifications
to write on 'how to be an alien.' I am an alien myself. What is more, I have
been an alien all my life. Only during the first twenty-six years of my life
I was not aware of this plain fact. I was living in my own country, a
country full of aliens, and I noticed nothing particular or irregular about
myself; then I came to England, and you can imagine my painful sur prise.
Like all great and important discoveries it was a matter of a few
seconds. You probably all know from your schooldays how Isaac Newton
discovered the law of gravitation. An apple fell on his head. This incident
set him thinking for a minute or two, then he ex claimed joyfully: 'Of
course I The gravitation constant is the acceleration per second that a mass
of one gram causes at a distance of one centimetre.' You were also taught
that James Watt one day went into the kitchen where cabbage was cooking and
saw the lid of the sauce pan rise and fall. 'Now let me think,' he murmured
- let me think.' Then he struck his forehead and the steam engine was
discovered. It was the same with me, although circumstances were rather
different.
It was like this. Some years ago I spent a lot of time with a young
lady who was very proud and conscious of being English. Once she asked me -
to my great sur prise - whether I would marry her. 'No,' I replied, 1 will
not. My mother would never agree to my marrying a foreigner.' She looked at
me a little surprised and irri tated, and retorted: I, a foreigner? What a
silly thing to say. I am English. You are the foreigner. And your mother,
too.' I did not give in. In Budapest, too?' I asked her. 'Everywhere,' she
declared with determination. 'Truth does not depend on geography. What is
true in England is also true in Hungary and in North Borneo and Venezuela
and everywhere.'
I saw that this theory was as irrefutable as it was simple. I was
startled and upset. Mainly because of my mother whom I loved and respected.
Now, I suddenly learned what she really was.
It was a shame and bad taste to be an alien, and it is no use
pretending otherwise. There is no way out of it. A criminal may improve and
become a decent member of society. A foreigner cannot improve. Once a
foreigner, always a foreigner. There is no way out for him. He may become
British; he can never become English.
So it is better to reconcile yourself to the sorrowful reality. There
are some noble English people who might forgive you. There are some
magnanimous souls who realize that it is not your fault, only your
misfortune. They will treat you with condescension, understanding and
sympathy. They will invite you to their homes. Just as they keep lap-dogs
and other pets, they are quite prepared to keep a few foreigners.
The title of this book. How to be an Alien, consequently expresses more
than it should. How to be an alien? One should not be an alien at all. There
are certain rules, however, which have to be followed if you want to make
yourself as acceptable and civilized as you possibly can.
Study these rules, and imitate the English. There can be only one
result: if you don't succeed in imitating them you become ridiculous; if you
do, you become even more ridiculous.
1. How to be a general Alien
in England * everything is the other way round. On Sundays on the
Continent even the poorest person puts on his best suit, tries to look
respectable, and at the same time the life of the country becomes gay and
cheerful; in England even the richest peer or motor-manufacturer dresses in
some peculiar rags, does not shave, and the country becomes dull and dreary.
On the Continent there is one topic which should be avoided - the weather;
in England, if you do not repeat the phrase 'Lovely day, isn't it?' at least
two hundred times a day, you are considered a bit dull. On the Continent
Sunday papers appear on Monday; in England - a country of exotic oddities -
they appear on Sunday. On the Continent people use a fork as though a fork
were a shovel; in England they turn it upside down and push everything -
including peas - on top of it.
On a continental bus approaching a request-stop the conductor rings the
bell if he wants his bus to go on without stopping; in England you ring the
bell if you want the bus to stop. On the Continent stray cats are judged
individually on their merit - some are loved, some are only respected; in
England they are universally worshipped as in ancient Egypt. On the
Continent people have good food; in England people have good table manners.
On the Continent public orators try to learn to speak fluently and
smoothly; in England they take a special course in Oxonian stuttering. On
the Continent learned persons love to quote Aristotle, Horace, Mon taigne
and show off their knowledge; in England only uneducated people show off
their knowledge, nobody quotes Latin and Greek authors in the course of a
conversation, unless he has never read them.
On the Continent almost every nation whether little or great has openly
declared at one time or another that it is superior to all other nations;
the English fight heroic wars to combat these dangerous ideas without ever
mentioning which is really the most superior race in the world. Continental
people are sensitive and touchy; the English take everything with an
exquisite sense of humour - they are only offended if you tell them that
they have no sense of humour. On the Continent the population consists of a
small percentage of criminals, a small percentage of honest people and the
rest are a vague transition between the two; in Eng land you find a small
percentage of criminals and the rest are honest people. On the other hand,
people on the Continent either tell you the truth or lie; in Eng land they
hardly ever lie, but they would not dream of telling you the truth.
Many continentals think life is a game; the English think cricket is a
game.
*When people say England, they sometimes mean Great Britain, sometimes
the United Kingdom, sometimes the British Isles - but never England.
this is a chapter on how to introduce people to one another. The aim of
introduction is to conceal a person's identity. It is very important that
you should not pronounce anybody's name in a way that the other party may be
able to catch it. Generally speaking, your pronunciation is a sound
guarantee for that. On the other hand, if you are introduced to someone
there are two important rules to follow.
1.If he stretches out his hand in order to shake yours, you must not
accept it. Smile vaguely, and as soon as he gives up the hope of shaking you
by the hand, you stretch out your own hand and try to catch his in vain.
This game is repeated until the greater part of the afternoon or evening has
elapsed. It is extremely likely that this will be the most amusing part of
the afternoon or evening, anyway.
2.Once the introduction has been made you have to inquire after the
health of your new acquaintance. Try the thing in your own language.
Introduce the persons, let us say, in French and murmur their names. Should
they shake hands and ask: бЂComment aliez-vous?' 'Comment aliez-vous?' - it
will be a capital joke, re membered till their last davs. Do not forget,
however, that your new friend who makes this touchingly kind inquiry after
your state of health does not care in the least whether you are well and
kicking or dying of delirium tremens. A dialogue like this:
he: 'How d'you do?'
You: 'General state of health fairly satisfactory. Slight insomnia and
a rather bad corn on left foot. Blood pressure low, digestion slow but
normal.' - well, such a dialogue would be unforgivable. In the next phase
you must not say 'Pleased to meet you.' This is one of the very few lies you
must never utter because, for some unknown reason, it is considered vulgar.
You must not say 'Pleased to meet you,' even if you are definitely disgusted
with the man. A few general remarks:
1. Do not click your heels, do not bow, leave off gymnastic and
choreographic exercises altogether for the moment.
2. Do not call foreign lawyers, teachers, dentists, commercial
travellers and estate agents 'Doctor.' Everybody knows that the little word
'doctor' only means that they are Central Europeans. This is painful enough
in itself, you do not need to remind people of it all the time.
this is the most important topic in the land. Do not be misled by
memories of your youth when, on the Continent, wanting to describe someone
as exceptionally dull, you remarked: 'He is the type who would discuss the
weather with you.' In England this is an ever-interesting, even thrilling
topic, and you must be good at discussing the weather.
For Good Weather
'Lovely day, isn't it?' Isn't it beautiful?' 'The sun . . .' 'Isn't it
gorgeous?' 'Wonderful, isn't it?' It's so nice and hot. . .' 'Personally, I
think it's so nice when it's hot- isn't it?' 1 adore it - don't you?'
For Bad Weather
'Nasty day, isn't it?' Isn't it dreadful?' 'The rain . . . I hate rain
. . .' 1 don't like it at all. Do you?' 'Fancy such a day in July. Rain in
the morning, then a bit of sunshine, and then rain, rain, rain, all day
long.' I remember exactly the same July day in 1936.' 'Yes, I remember too.'
'Or was it in 1928?' 'Yes, it was.' 'Or in 1939?' Tes, that's right.' Now
observe the last few sentences of this conversation. A very important rule
emerges from it. You must never contradict anybody when discussing the
weather. Should it hail and snow, should hurricanes uproot the trees from
the sides of the road, and should someone remark to you: 'Nice day, isn't
it?' - answer without hesitation: Isn't it lovely?' Learn the above
conversation by heart. If you are a bit slow in picking things up, learn at
least one conversation, it would do wonderfully for any occasion. If you do
not say anything else for the rest of your life, just repeat this
conversation, you still have a fair chance of passing as a remarkably witty
man of sharp intellect, keen observation and extremely pleasant manners.
English society is a class society, strictly organized almost on
corporative lines. If you doubt this, listen to the weather forecasts. There
is always a different weather forecast for farmers. You often hear
statements like this on the radio: 'To-morrow it will be cold, cloudy and
foggy; long periods of rain will be interrupted by short periods of
showers.' And then: 'Weather forecast for farmers. It will be fair and warm,
many hours of sunshine.' You must not forget that the farmers do grand work
of national importance and deserve better weather.
It happened on innumerable occasions that nice, warm weather had been
forecast and rain and snow fell all day long, or vice versa. Some people
jumped rashly to the conclusion that something must be wrong with the
weather forecasts. They are mistaken and should be more careful with their
allegations. I have read an article in one of the Sunday papers and now I
can tell you what the situation really is. All troubles are caused by
anti-cyclones. (I don't quite know what anti-cyclones are, but this is not
important; I hate cyclones and am very anti-cyclone myself.) The two
naughtiest anti-cyclones are the Azores and the Polar anti-cyclones. The
British meteorologists forecast the right weather - as it really should be -
and then these impertinent little anti-cyclones interfere and mess up
everything. That again proves that if the British kept to themselves and did
not mix with foreign things like Polar and Azores anti-cyclones they would
be much better off.
foreigners have souls; the English haven't. On the Continent you find
any amount of people who sigh deeply for no conspicuous reason, yearn,
suffer and look in the air extremely sadly. This is soul. The worst kind of
soul is the great Slav soul. People who suffer from it are usually very deep
thinkers. They may say things like this: 'Sometimes I am so merry and
sometimes I am so sad. Can you explain why?' (You cannot, do not try.) Or
they may say: 1 am so mysterious. . . . I sometimes wish I were somewhere
else than where I am.' (Do not say: 1 wish you were.') Or 'When I am alone
in a forest at night-time and jump from one tree to another, I often think
that life is so strange.' All this is very deep: and just soul, nothing
else. The English have no soul; they have the understatement instead. If a
continental youth wants to declare his love to a girl, he kneels down, tells
her that she is the sweetest, the most charming and ravishing person in the
world, that she has something in her, something peculiar and individual
which only a few hundred thousand other women have and that he would be
unable to live one more minute without her. Often, to give a little more
emphasis to the statement, he shoots himself on the spot. This is a normal,
week-day declaration of love in the more temperamental continental
countries. In England the boy pats his adored one on the back and says
softly: 1 don't object to you, you know.' If he is quite mad with passion,
he may add: 'I rather fancy you, in fact.' If he wants to marry a girl, he
says:
I say . . . would you? . . .' If he wants to make an indecent proposal:
'I say . . . what about . . .'
Overstatement, too, plays a considerable part in English social life.
This takes mostly the form of someone remarking: 1 say ...' and then keeping
silent for three days on end.
the trouble with tea is that originally it was quite a good drink. So a
group of the most eminent British scientists put their heads together, and
made complicated biological experiments to find a way of spoiling it. To the
eternal glory of British science their labour bore fruit. They suggested
that if you do not drink it clear, or with lemon or rum and sugar, but pour
a few drops of cold milk into it, and no sugar at all, the desired object is
achieved. Once this refreshing, aromatic, oriental beverage was successfully
transformed into colourless and tasteless gargling-water, it suddenly became
the national drink of Great Britain and Ireland - still retaining, indeed
usurping, the high-sounding title of tea. There are some occasions when you
must not refuse a cup of tea, otherwise you are judged an exotic and
barbarous bird without any hope of ever being able to take your place in
civilised society. If you are invited to an English home, at five o'clock in
the morning you get a cup of tea. It is either brought in by a heartily
smiling hostess or an almost malevolently silent maid. When you are
disturbed in your sweetest morning sleep you must not say: 'Madame (or
Mabel), I think you are a cruel, spiteful and malignant person who deserves
to be shot.' On the contrary, you have to declare with your best five
o'clock smile: 'Thank you so much. I do adore a cup of early morning tea,
especially early in the morning.' If they leave you alone with the liquid,
you may pour it down the washbasin.
Then you have tea for breakfast; then you have tea at eleven o'clock in
the morning; then after lunch;then you have tea for tea; then after supper;
and again at eleven o'clock at night. You must not refuse any additional
cups of tea under the following circumstances: if it is hot; if it is cold;
if you are tired; if anybody thinks that you might be tired; if you are
nervous; if you are gay; before you go out; if you are out; if you have just
returned home; if you feel like it; if you do not feel like it; if you have
had no tea for some time; if you have just had a cup. You definitely must
not follow my example. I sleep at five o'clock in the morning; I have coffee
for breakfast; I drink innumerable cups of black coffee during the day; I
have the most unorthodox and exotic teas even at tea-time. The other day,
for instance - I just mention this as a terrifying example to show you how
low some people can sink -1 wanted a cup of coffee and a piece of cheese for
tea. It was one of those exceptionally hot days and my wife (once a good
Englishwoman, now completely and hopelessly led astray by my wicked foreign
influence) made some cold coffee and put it in the refrigerator, where it
froze and became one solid block. On the other hand, she left the cheese on
the kitchen table, where it melted. So I had a piece of coffee and a glass
of cheese.
continental people have sex life; the English have hot-water bottles.
I heard of a distinguished, pure-minded English publisher who adapted
John Steinbeck's novel. The Grapes of Wrath, so skilfully that it became a
charming little family book on grapes and other fruits, with many
illustrations. On the other hand, a continental publisher in London had a
French political book. The Popular Front, translated into English. It became
an exciting, pornographic book, called The Popular Behind.
when I arrived in England I thought I knew English. After I'd been here
an hour I realized that I did not understand one word. In the first week I
picked up a tolerable working knowledge of the language and the next seven
years convinced me gradually but thoroughly that I would never know it
really well, let alone perfectly. This is sad. My only consolation being
that nobody speaks English perfectly.
Remember that those five hundred words an average Englishman uses are
far from being the whole vocabulary of the language. You may learn another
five hundred and another five thousand and yet another fifty thousand and
still you may come across a further fifty thousand you have never heard of
before, and nobody else either. If you live here long enough you will find
out to your greatest amazement that the adjective nice is not the only
adjective the language possesses, in spite of the fact that in the first
three years you do not need to learn or use any other adjectives. You can
say that the weather is nice, a restaurant is nice, Mr Soandso is nice, Mrs
Soandso's clothes are nice, you had a nice time, and all this will be very
nice. Then you have to decide on your accent. You will have your foreign
accent all right, but many people like to mix it with something else. I knew
a Polish Jew who had a strong Yiddish-Irish accent. People found it
fascinating though slightly exaggerated. The easiest way to give the
impression of having a good accent or no foreign accent at all is to hold an
unlit pipe in your mouth, to mutter between your teeth and finish all your
sentences with the question: 'isn't it?' People will not understand much,
but they are accustomed to that and they will get a most excellent
impression.
I have known quite a number of foreigners who tried hard to acquire an
Oxford accent. The advantage of this is that you give the idea of being
permanently in the company of Oxford dons and lecturers on medieval
numismatics; the disadvantage is that the permanent singing is rather a
strain on your throat and that it is a type of affection that even many
English people find it hard to keep up incessantly. You may fall out of it,
speak naturally, and then where are you? The Mayfair accent can be highly
recommended, too. The advantages of Mayfair English are that it unites the
affected air of the Oxford accent with the uncultured flavour of a
half-educated professional hotel-dancer.
The most successful attempts, however, to put on a highly cultured air
have been made on the polysyllabic lines. Many foreigners who have learnt
Latin and Greek in school discover with amazement and satisfaction that the
English language has absorbed a huge amount of ancient Latin and Greek
expressions, and they realize that (
a) it is much easier to learn these expressions than the much simpler
English words;
(b) that these words as a rule are interminably long and make a simply
superb impression when talking to the greengrocer, the porter and the
insurance agent. Imagine, for instance, that the porter of the block of
flats where you live remarks sharply that you must not put your dustbin out
in front of your door before 7.30 a.m. Should you answer 'Please don't bully
me,' a loud and tiresome argument may follow, and certainly the porter will
be proved right, because you are sure to find a dause in your contract
(small print, of last page) that the porter is always right and you owe
absolute allegiance and unconditional obedience to him. Should you answer,
however, with these words: 1 repudiate your petulant expostulations,' the
argument will be closed at once, the porter will be proud of having such a
highly cultured man in the block, and from that day onwards you may, if you
please, get up at four o'clock in the morning and hang your dustbin out of
the window. But even in Curzon Street society, if you say, for instance,
that you are a tough guy they will consider you a vulgar, irritating and
objectionable person. Should you declare, however, that you are an
inquisitorial and peremptory homo sapiens, they will have no idea what you
mean, but they will feel in their bones that you must be something
wonderful. When you know all the long words it is advisable to start
learning some of the short ones, too. You should be careful when using these
endless words. An acquaintance of mine once was fortunate enough to discover
the most impressive word notalgia for back-ache. Mistakenly, however, he
declared in a large company: 'I have such a nostalgia.' 'Oh, you want to go
home to Nizhne-Novgorod?' asked his most sympathetic hostess. 'Not at all,'
he answered. 'I just cannot sit down.' . Finally, there are two important
points to remember:
1. Do not forget that it is much easier to write in English than to
speak English, because you can write without a foreign accent.
2. In a bus and in other public places it is more advisable to speak
softly in good German than to shout in abominable English.
Anyway, this whole language business is not at all easy. After spending
eight years in this country, the other day I was told by a very kind lady:
'But why do you complain? You really speak a most excellent accent without
the slightest English.'
'You foreigners are so clever,' said a lady to me some years ago.
First, thinking of the great amount of foreign idiots and half-wits I had
had the honour of meeting, I considered this remark exaggerated but
complimentary. Since then I have learnt that it was far from it. These few
words expressed the lady's contempt and slight disgust for foreigners.
If you look up the word clever in any English dictionary, you will find
that the dictionaries are out of date and mislead you on this point.
According to the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, for instance, the word means
quick and neat in movement .. . skilful, talented, ingenious. Nuttall's
Dictionary gives these meanings: dexterous, skilful, ingenious, quick or
ready-witted, intelligent. All nice adjectives, expressing valuable and
estimable characteristics. A modern Englishman, however, uses the word
clever in the sense: shrewd, sly, furtive, surreptitious, treacherous,
sneaking, crafty, un-English, un-Scottish, un-Welsh. In England it is bad
manners to be clever, to assert something confidently. It may be your own
personal view that two and two make four, but you must not state it in a
self-assured way, because this is a democratic country and others may be of
a different opinion.
A continental gentleman seeing a nice panorama may remark: 'This view
rather reminds me of Utrecht, where the peace treaty concluding the War of
Spanish Succession was signed on the 11 th April, 1713. The river there,
however, recalls the Guadalquivir, which rises in the
Sierra de Cazoria and flows south-west to the Atlantic Ocean and is 6^0
kilometres long. Oh, rivers. . . . What did Pascal say about them? "Les
rivieres sont les chemins qui marchent. . . ." ' This pompous, showing-off
way of speaking is not permissible in England. The Englishman is modest and
simple. He uses but few words and expresses so much - but so much - with
them. An Englishman looking at the same view would remain silent for two or
three hours and think about how to put his profound feeling into words. Then
he would remark: 'It's pretty, isn't it?' An English professor of
mathematics would say to his maid checking up the shopping list: 'I'm no
good at arithmetic, I'm afraid. Please correct me, Jane, if I am wrong, but
I believe that the square root of 97344 is 312.' And about knowledge. An
English girl, of course, would be able to learn just a little more about,
let us say, geography. But it is just not 'chic' to know whether Budapest is
the capital of Roumania, Hungary or Bulgaria. And if she happens to know
that Budapest is the capital of Roumania, she should at least be perplexed
if Bucharest is mentioned suddenly. It is so much nicer to ask, when someone
speaks of Barbados, Banska Bystrica or Fiji: 'Oh those little islands. . . .
Are they British?' (They usually are.)
it is easy to be rude on the Continent. You just shout and call people
names of a zoological character.
On a slightly higher level you may invent a few stories against your
opponents. In Budapest, for instance, when a rather unpleasant-looking
actress joined a nudist club, her younger and prettier colleagues spread the
story that she had been accepted only under the condition that she should
wear a fig-leaf on her face. Or in the same city there was a painter of
limited abilities who was a most successful card-player. A colleague of his
remarked once: 'What a spendthrift! All the money he makes on industrious
gambling at night, he spends on his painting during the day.'
In England rudeness has quite a different technique. If somebody tells
you an obviously untrue story, on the Continent you would remark 'You are a
liar, Sir, and a rather dirty one at that.' In England you just say 'Oh, is
that so?' Or 'That's rather an unusual story, isn't it?'
When some years ago, knowing ten words of English and using them all
wrong, I applied for a translator's job, my would-be employer (or
would-be-not-employer) softly remarked: 1 am afraid your English is somewhat
unorthodox.' This translated into any continental language would mean:
employer (to the commissionaire) : 'Jean, kick this gentleman down the steps
I '
In the last century, when a wicked and unworthy subject annoyed the
Sultan of Turkey or the Czar of Russia, he had his head cut of without much
ceremony; but when the same happened in England, the monarch declared: 'We
are not amused'; and the whole British nation even now, a century later, is
immensely proud of how rude their Queen was.
Terribly rude expressions (if pronounced grimly) are: 1 am afraid that
. . .' 'unless . ..' 'nevertheless . . .' 'How queer . . .' and 1 am sorry,
but . . .'
It is true that quite often you can hear remarks like: 'You'd better
see that you get out of here I ' Or 'Shut your big mouth I ' Or 'Dirty pig!
' etc. These remarks are very un-English and are the results of foreign
influence. (Dating back, however, to the era of the Danish invasion.)
wise compromise is one of the basic principles and virtues of the
British.
If a continental greengrocer asks 14 schillings (or crowns, or francs,
or pengoes, or dinars or leis or <!-- [ПґЯЂП°Я…ПјП° - ПїПѕ ПіЯЂПµЯ‡.]-- > or
П»ПµПІП°, or whatever you like) for a bunch of radishes, and his customer
offers 2, and finally they strike a bargain agreeing on 6 schillings,
francs, roubles, etc., this is just the low continental habit of bargaining;
on the other hand, if the British dock-workers or any workers claim a rise
of 4 shillings per day, and the employers first flatly refuse even a penny,
but after six weeks strike they agree to a rise of 2 shillings per day бЂ"
that is yet another proof of the British genius for compromise. Bargaining
is a repulsive habit; compromise is one of the highest human virtues - the
difference between the two being that the first is practised on the
Continent, the latter in Great Britain.
The genius for compromise has another aspect, too. It has a tendency to
unite together everything which is bad. English club life, for instance,
unites the liabilities of social life with the boredom of solitude. An
average English house combines all the curses of civilisation with the
vicissitudes of life in the open. It is all right to have windows, but you
must not have double windows because double windows would indeed stop the
wind from blowing right into the room, and after all, you must be fair and
give the wind a chance. It is all right to have central heating in an
English home, except the bath room, because that is the only place where you
are naked and wet at the same time, and you must give British germs a fair
chance. The open fire is an accepted, indeed a traditional, institution. You
sit in front of it and your face is hot whilst your back is cold. It is a
fair compromise between two extremes and settles the problem of how to burn
and catch cold at the same time. The fact that you may have a drink at five
past six p.m., but that it is a criminal offence to have it at five to six
is an extremely wise compromise between two things (I do not quite know
between what, certainly not between prohibition and licentiousness),
achieving the great aim that nobody can get drunk between three o'clock and
six o'clock in the afternoon unless he wants to and drinks at home.
English spelling is a compromise between documentary expressions and an
elaborate code-system; spending three hours in a queue in front of a cinema
is a compromise between entertainment and asceticism; the English weather is
a fair compromise between rain and fog; to employ an English charwoman is a
compromise between having a dirty house or cleaning it yourself; Yorkshire
pudding is a compromise between a pudding and the county of Yorkshire.
The Labour Party is a fair compromise between Socialism and
Bureaucracy; the Beveridge Plan is a fair compromise between being and not
being a Socialist at the same time; the Liberal Party is a fair compromise
between the Beveridge Plan and Toryism; the Independent Labour Party is a
fair compromise between Independent Labour and a political party; the
Tory-reformers are a fair compromise between revolutionary conservatism and
retrograde progress; and the whole British political life is a huge and
noncompromising fight between compromising Conservatives and compromising
Socialists.
if you want to be really and truly British, you must become a
hypocrite.
Now: how to be a hypocrite?
As some people say that an example explains things better than the best
theory, let me try this way.
I had a drink with an English friend of mine in a pub. We were sitting
on the high chairs in front of the counter when a flying bomb exploded about
a hundred yards away. I was truly and honestly frightened, and when a few
seconds later I looked around, I could not see my friend anywhere. At last I
noticed that he was lying on the floor, flat as a pancake. When he realized
that nothing particular had happened in the pub he got up a little
embarrassed, flicked the dust off his suit, and turned to me with a superior
and sarcastic smile.
'Good Heavens I Were you so frightened that you couldn't move?'
it is important that you should learn to enjoy simple joys, because
that is extremely English. All serious Englishmen play darts and cricket and
many other games; a famous English statesman was reported to be catching
butterflies in the interval between giving up two European states to the
Germans; there was e.ven some misunderstanding with the French because they
considered the habit of English soldiers of singing and playing football and
hide and seek and blind man's buff slightly childish.
Dull and pompous foreigners are unable to understand why ex-cabinet
ministers get together and sing 'Daisy, Daisy' in choir; why serious
business men play with toy locomotives while their children learn
trigonometry in the adjoining room; why High Court judges collect rare birds
when rare birds are rare and they cannot collect many in any case; why it is
the ambition of grown-up persons to push a little ball into a small hole;
why a great politician who saved England and made history is called a 'jolly
good fellow.'
They cannot grasp why people sing when alone and yet sit silent and
dumb for hours on end in their clubs, not uttering a word for months in the
most distinguished company, and pay twenty guineas a year for the privilege.
queueing is the national passion of an otherwise dispassionate race.
The English are rather shy about it, and deny that they adore it.
On the Continent, if people are waiting at a bus-stop they loiter
around in a seemingly vague fashion. When the bus arrives they make a dash
for it; most of them leave by the bus and a lucky minority is taken away by
an elegant black ambulance car. An Englishman, even if he is alone, forms an
orderly queue of one.
The biggest and most attractive advertisements in front of cinemas tell
people: Queue here for 4s 6d; Queue here for 9s 3d; Queue here for 16s 8d
(inclusive of tax). Those cinemas which do not put out these queueing signs
do not do good business at all.
At week-ends an Englishman queues up at the bus-stop, travels out to
Richmond, queues up for a boat, then queues up for tea, then queues up for
ice cream, then joins a few more odd queues just for the sake of the fun of
it, then queues up at the bus-stop and has the time of his life.
Many English families spend lovely evenings at home just by queueing up
for a few hours, and the parents are very sad when the children leave them
and queue up for going to bed.
if you go for a walk with a friend, don't say a word for hours; if you
go out for a walk with your dog, keep chatting to him.
There is a three-chamber legislation in England. A bill to become law
has to be passed by the House of Commons and the House of Lords and finally
approved by the Brains Trust.
A fishmonger is the man who mongs fish; the ironmonger and the
warmonger do the same with iron and war. They just mong them.
2. How to be a Particular Alien
they all hate uniforms so much that they all wear a special uniform of
their own: brown velvet trousers, canary yellow pullover, green jacket with
sky-blue checks.
The suit of clothes has to be chosen with the utmost care and is
intended to prove that its wearer does not care for suits and other petty,
worldly things.
A walking-stick, too, is often carried by the slightly dandyfied
right-wing of the clan.
A golden chain around the ankle, purple velvet shoes and a half-wild
angora cat on the shoulders are strongly recommended as they much increase
the appearance of arresting casualness.
It is extremely important that the B.I. should always wear a three-days
beard, as shaving is considered a contemptible bourgeois habit. (The
extremist left-wing holds the same view concerning washing, too.) First one
will find it a little trying to shave one's four-day beard in such a way
that, after shaving, a three days old beard ration should be left on the
cheeks, but practise and devoted care will bring their fruits.
A certain amount of rudeness is quite indispensable, because you have
to prove day and night that the silly little commonplace rules and customs
of society are not meant for you. If you find it too difficult to give up
these little habits - to say 'Hullo' and 'How d'you do?' and 'Thank you,'
etc. - because owing to Auntie Betty's or Tante Bertha's strict upbringing
they have become second nature, then join a Bloomsbury school for bad
manners, and after a fortnight you will feel no pang of conscience when
stepping deliberately on the corn of the venerable literary editor of a
quarterly magazine in the bus.
Literary opinions must be most carefully selected. Statements like this
are most impressive. 'There have been altogether two real poets in England:
Sir Thomas Wyatt and John Ford. The works of the rest are rubbish.' Of
course, you should include, as the third really great, colossal and
epoch-making talent your own friend, T. B. Williams, whose neo-expressionist
poetry is so terribly deep that the overwhelming majority of editors do not
understand it and refuse to publish it. T. B. Williams, you may proudly
claim, has never used a comma or a full stop, and what is more, he has
improved Apollinaire's and Aragon's primitive technique by the fact that he
does use question marks. (The generous and extravagant praise of T. B.
Williams is absolutely essential, otherwise who will praise you?)
As to your own literary activities, your poems, dramas and great novels
may lie at the bottom of your drawer in manuscript form. But it is important
that you should publish a few literary reviews, scolding and disparaging
everything and everybody on earth from a very superior and high-brow point
of view, quoting Sir Thomas Wyatt and anything in French and letting the
reader feel what you would be able to do if you could only find a publisher.
(Some practical advice. It is not difficult to have a few literary reviews
published. Many weeklies and monthlies would publish anything in their
so-called literary columns, if it costs nothing. You must not call your
action unfair competition with qualified reviewers; call it devotion to the
'cause.' Almost every paper has a cause - if yours has not, invent one, it