A tribute to a life in letters
Higgins, 86, grew up in the decaying grandeur of Springfield House, Co. Kildare. His writing returns to the places, events, scents and sounds that made a deep impression on the child and have not left the man now.
Taught to read and write by a determined mother, Higgins began his future career early, by scribbling on walls.
“White-painted walls and that is what they are made for — to scribble on.” He didn’t talk much as a child, but noticed everything, storing it away for future reference. Schooling at Clongowes was an unpleasant experience. “Beatings, beatings all the time,” he says. Unsurprisingly, he has an aversion to the Jesuits. But aren’t they renowned for being clever, good at arguing? Nonsense, he says, robustly, disposing of the Jesuits in a couple of pithy epithets that do not bear repetition here. Religion, he says, is appalling.
To be fair, his teachers were dealing with a recalcitrant scholar who didn’t see the sense in studying Irish or mathematics. “What is the point of learning that two and two make four?”
Art and writing came naturally to the young Higgins. Also, surprisingly, sport (he only stayed on for his final year because he was captain of cricket). With uncharacteristic shyness, he says that he trounced all the older players at Greystones golf club, too. “They didn’t like that too much.”
What exactly is the attraction of golf? “I am certainly not going to explain. If you don’t know, then there isn’t the slightest point in my trying to convert you.”
Later, art college was tried and found wanting. “Teacher was no good. Then, I started to write, and once I got going, it just spewed out.”
First came Felo de Se, a collection of short stories published, by John Calder in 1960, on the recommendation of none other than Samuel Beckett.
Higgins has always admired Beckett. For several years, he lived next door to John Beckett, Samuel’s cousin, and it was John who first showed him a copy of Murphy, which, he says, “knocked my head off”.
Without warning, he recites perfectly the opening paragraphs of Beckett’s iconic novel: “The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” John Calder, that most accommodating of publishers, saw the rich promise in Higgins’ early work, granted the young writer a monthly allowance, and sent him off to write a full-length book. Accordingly, Higgins betook himself to an as yet undeveloped Andalucia, and spent several years writing Langrishe Go Down. The familiar theme of the ‘big house’, the decaying life of the old gentry, the enigmatic Irish landscape, love, despair and death, took on a strange new quality in his writing. Published in 1966, it attracted immediate attention, winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and being seized upon by Harold Pinter for a BBC production starring two upcoming young stars, Judi Dench and Jeremy Irons.
In 1972 came Balcony of Europe, followed by Scenes from a Receding Past, Bornholm Night-Ferry, Lions of the Grunewald, and several books of travel writings, including Images of Africa, Ronda Gorge and Other Precipices, Helsingør Station and Other Departures. The three volumes of his memoirs — Donkey’s Years (1995), Dog Days (1998) and The Whole Hog (2000) — have been reissued under the general title A Bestiary. Where would this man, who has travelled constantly and steeped himself in the essence of every country, every landscape he visits, live, given the choice?
Spain, for its hot, dry climate. “Although I like the Danes,” he says, thoughtfully. “They have a quietness about them.”
Higgins has a quietness now himself. Calm, relaxed, come to rest in peaceful Kinsale. But don’t be fooled.
Behind that gentle expression, that relaxed pose, the lion is still pacing. You venture the observation that you loved his latest book, Blind Man’s Bluff. Instantly, that venerable head swivels, the light shoots from those suddenly unhooded eyes. “You loved it, did you? Why?” And you find yourself stumbling, feeling all at once like a nervous student faced by a brilliant tutor.
It genuinely is attractive, though, this Blind Man’s Bluff. Slim, small, it contains not only the brilliant, almost haiku-like short pieces, but also sketches and collages of scenes and people intensely relevant to his thinking. You find yourself searching for clues and feeling a sense of triumph when you link one to another. Not that you will succeed all the time, of course. Higgins would probably be seriously disappointed if you did.
He’s disappointed with Blind Man’s Bluff (this, after all, is the man who famously withdrew Balcony of Europe from the shelves, feeling it lacked structural coherence, only reluctantly giving permission for republication much later). It’s too small, he says crossly, pushing it away. The next one is going to be bigger, longer.
He is working on it. Higgins never stops writing. Age and increasing sight-impairment must not be allowed to get in the way of the creative urge. ‘Heavy Mist’, isn’t that the title? “No, it isn’t. It was, but not now. Not strong enough. Doesn’t say what I want it to say,” Higgins says. He stares out of the window, perhaps seeing that perfect, all-encompassing title there.
‘Turning and turning in the widening gyre’… He speaks under his breath, pondering Yeats’ dark vision. And you wonder what images are surfacing in that creative crucible of his mind.
* Cork World Book Festival runs Tuesday, Apr 23 to Saturday, Apr 27, in Cork City Library, Triskel Christchurch, and on the Grand Parade.
As well as the tribute to Aidan Higgins (Tues, 8pm), the festival will feature Edna O’Brien; the life of the late Maeve Binchy; young US poets, Tracy K Smith and Michael Dickman; writers Pawel Huelle, Drago Jan ar and Kirill Kobrin, from central and eastern Europe; exciting upcoming writers published by Bradshaw Books, and more.
Full programme at http://www.corkcitylibraries.ie/.
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