The Pyramid by William Golding
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

All Clothed and Ashamed in Our Clothing

As I was reading The Pyramid, news was announced that someone had vandalised one of the Eric Gill carvings outside Broadcasting House in London. It had been well-known for several decades that Gill had sexually abused his daughters during the time he was living at the lay Dominican community in Sussex during the 1930’s. The thought that Gill had never been publicly condemned much less arrested for his crimes apparently incensed the vandal who wanted to spark some kind of public outrage.

For about ten years I taught and took care of the library for Blackfriars the Dominican-run Oxford College that happens to be the oldest (and youngest, but that’s another story) in the University. In the chapel of Blackfriars, the Stations of the Cross were also designed by Gill in his distinctive style. JRR Tolkien attended Mass there regularly and it is said that he got his inspiration for the Orcs in his Lord of the Rings from Gill’s portrayal of Pontius Pilate as a rather frightening bestial half-man.

Although a religious institution, and Catholic at that, Blackfriars resembles Golding’s village of Stilbourne (ah, the Goldingian sarcasm!) in its essential character. At whatever point in its history one chooses to investigate it it is just ‘there.’ Individual people and buildings may come and go but the continuity of the place is remarkable. It exists in a certain kind of timelessness (or perhaps deathlessness). And within it there prevails a formalised intimacy which means that everyone knows everyone else’s business but never discusses what that business is. The result is a sort of strained tolerance which is always on the edge of breaking down, but never quite does.

Part of this tolerance is the acceptance of eccentricity. I have never been among such a collection of diverse individuals - friars, teachers, and students - than at Blackfriars. As in Stilbourne, eccentricity reigns. From the oddness of professional interests to the sometimes outrageous personal habits, it is simply accepted that people are indeed strange creatures and that therefore considerable latitude must be given and judgment rarely voiced except when behaviour is obviously destructive to the community. The threshold leading from quirkiness to evil is left vague lest it resemble some kind of law which might have to be formally enforced, thereby causing communal disruption by outsiders.

As in village life there is also a strict hierarchy. The Dominican Order may be one of the first truly democratic institutions but it also has a very well defined power-structure which can react decisively to threat by expulsion of errant members. As in Stilbourne, everyone knows their place. The only real sin is undue pride, that is acting above one’s station. Everyone has their place and although the hierarchy of power is rarely discussed, its boundaries are known and respected by everyone without comment.

This sort of sociology produces calm. One might say that nothing ever really happens, or perhaps that when something does happen, it happens quickly and subsequently is not talked about. So if a novice leaves, for example, or a friar falls for an attractive English professor, the event causes a stir for a day or two but is communally forgotten. Eventually it will be assimilated into a ‘remember when’ kind of topic of discussion at the dinner table perhaps. It will have lost all poignancy, emotion, or import and become just a matter of innocuous history.

In Golding’s Stilbourne, the ability to contain some fairly horrible things like child abuse, misogyny, grinding poverty, incest, pedophilia, and rape as ‘merely the way things are’ is a consequence of the same mores of tolerance and peaceful co-existence. Anything is acceptable as long as the reputation of the community - to itself, not necessarily outsiders - is maintained. Often this requires active pretence that one likes or admires others when the truth is that others are very unlikeable and even despicable. This is, it seems to me, a functional psychosis. It allows people to live together in apparent harmony, but at some cost. As Golding’s protagonist says of Stilbourne, “We were our own tragedy and did not know we needed catharsis.”

I wonder what Blackfriars’ response to the growing anti-Gill movement will be. It is not dissimilar, although on a different scale, to the anti-Rhodes agitation that has swept through the University during the last year. Like the Rhodes statue at Oriel College and the Institute bearing the Rhodes name, the Gill Stations are part of the fabric of the place. They can’t be denied or re-formulated. They are either there as a persistent reminder of past events and associations, or they are not. And their presence may just prove sufficient to break up and through Blackfriars’ cosy village life. There is real danger of exposure to those outside the village - “All clothed but ashamed in our clothing.” We shall see.

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