John Bayley is dood

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John Bayley (89) is op 12 Januarie oorlede. Hy is in 1925 in Lahore, Indië, gebore. Hy het veral as die eggenoot van Iris Murdoch (1919-1999) bekendheid verwerf. Hulle is in 1956 getroud. Die huwelik was kinderloos. Reeds voor Murdoch se dood het Bayley begin om 'n trilogie oor haar te skryf: Iris: a memoir (1998), Iris and friends (1999) en Widower's house (2001). Later is hierdie boeke as The Iris trilogy (London: Ababus, 2003, 659p) in 'n enkele slapband gepubliseer. Hieronder haal ek daaruit aan. Bayley kon so ietwat voortydig oor sy vrou skryf omdat sy sedert 1995 aan Alzheimer se siekte gely het. In 2001 is die film Iris, gebaseer op die 1998-boek, uitgereik. Die rolprent het hierdie paartjie wêreldbekend gemaak.

Murdoch was 'n filosofie-dosent en romanskryfster. Ek het via Murdoch met Bayley bekend geword. Hy was 'n professor in Engelse letterkunde aan die Universiteit Oxford. Ek wens ek kon so duidelik soos Bayley formuleer en so vloeiend soos hy skryf. In 2001 is hy met Audi Villiers, wat 'n huisvriendin van hulle was, getroud. Hulle het op Lanzarote, 'n Kanariese eiland, gewoon, waar Bayley dood is.

Murdoch se seksualiteit het sommige mense gefassineer. Sy was seksueel aangetrokke tot sowel mans as vroue. Vir Bayley, daarenteen, was seks nie 'n prioriteit nie. Hulle was 'n eienaardige paartjie wat in uiters onhigiëniese omstandighede gewoon het. Murdoch se drie jare lange verhouding met Elias Canetti (1905-1994), wat die Nobel-prys vir letterkunde in 1981 gewen het, is legendaries. Daaroor is reeds baie geskryf.

Een van die onsmaaklikste boeke, maar wat tog ook insiggewend is, is AN Wilson se Iris Murdoch as I knew her (London: Hutchinson, 2003, 275p). Wilson was 'n student van Bayley. Hy beeld Bayley nydig uit as bv 'n onbeholpe hakkelaar wat glad nie vir Murdoch tydens haar siekte so mooi versorg het soos hy in die genoemde trilogie voorgee nie. Wilson dink Bayley het Murdoch eintlik gehaat en was jaloers omdat sy so bekend en suksesvol as romanskryfster was. Wilson bewonder Murdoch terwyl hy Bayley kwalik kan verdra. Peter J Conradi se biografie, Iris Murdoch: a life (2011), is 'n betroubaarder inligtingsbron as Wilson se boek.

Oor hulle lewenswyse skryf Bayley: "Neither of us ever attempted, from our earliest married life, to do much about the house. A routine of chores never existed. Neither of us felt any need to keep it clean, and we were bothered by the notion of somebody coming in to do it for us. Now I suppose the house has reached what seems a comfortable point of no return" (p 62). "For the thirty years and more we lived at Cedar Lodge we had no help in the house or garden, and both were presently in a state in which help of any kind would have come too late" (p 106). Daar was rotte in die huis. "They led their lives and we led ours ... They must have been in residence for many generations" (p 116). "Our habits have never been exactly hygienic" (p 181). "Rubbish becomes relaxing if there is no will to disturb it" (p 200). "Overgrown as the front garden is, you would hardly guess from the outside of the house what a mass of debris lurks within" (p 545). Bayley het by voorkeur in sy bed gelewe: gelees, getik en geëet. Onder die bed "it looked like the ocean floor round the wreck of the Titanic, littered with indeterminate objects coated with dust" (p 409).

Dit was vir Bayley moeilik om Murdoch te peil. Sy het 'n lig bewoon wat vir hom ontoeganklik was. "The more I got to 'know' Iris ... the less I understood her. Indeed I soon began not to want to understand her ... it was like living in a fairy story ... [she was] always disappearing into some unknown and mysterious world, about which she will reveal nothing" (p 35). Hulle verhouding was ongewoon: "We were separate but never separated ... Apartness in marriage is a state of love" (p 96).

Murdoch het op 8 Februarie 1999 kalm heengegaan. Bayley: "Dying had been so quiet that I found myself saying ... 'I wouldn't mind doing that myself'" (p 438). "In widowhood you lose not only your loved one but yourself. And there was no new self to take its place" (p 447). "I realised ... how extremely self-centred I seemed to have become. With Iris gone there was no other centre" (p 552). Mettertyd kom hy tot verhaal: "Something inside is putting things together, laboriously stitching a presence out of an absence ... Closer and closer apart" (p 600).

Wilson bied 'n ander perspektief. Oor die toestand van die huis stem hy egter met Bayley saam. Dit was "ankle-deep in filth" (p 6). Bayley en Murdoch "mess everything they touch" (p 187). "The house had a Sleeping Beauty air of neglect" (p 232).

Oor Bayley se trilogie en die rolprent is Wilson bitter: Murdoch was "an intensely private person and couldn't bear the idea of her life ... being publicised" (p 52-53). Wilson dink die boeke en film "have done so much to demean her in dignity" (p 102). Daar is glo 'n "Bayleyesque blurring of fact and fiction" (p 257). By geleentheid Murdoch se "imagination appeared to be wondering whether the blissfully happily married Bayleys of legend were in fact not prisoners of something rather hellish" (p 97). "It was easy to be a 'perfect couple' if you weren't really a couple" (p 122).

Oor Murdoch se seksualiteit skryf Wilson: Sy was "prepared to go to bed with almost anyone" (p 59). "Though a bisexual who was largely lesbian in approach, Murdoch had a rather simple idea of 'what men wanted' and was happy to share it with them as long as the man in question was able to provide friendship and/or intellectual stimulus" (p 73). Murdoch "fantasised in her inner life that she was a male homosexual" (p 164). Sy het Bayley "Princess" genoem (p 196).

Wilson beeld Bayley erg negatief uit. "He sounds like an excited macaw" (179). Bayley word beskryf as "a screaming hate-filled child ... his version of Murdoch's memory could now be viewed as a kind of revenge" (p 260). "Normally if you said, 'Shakespeare was a Dutchman', he'd have been happy to say, 'Quite so', and then agree with the next person who said he was a Hottentot" (p 193).

Wat is filosofie? Let op hoe netjies en oorspronklik het Murdoch geformuleer. Wilson haal haar soos volg aan: "Philosophy ... is life mirrored and heightened ... It's life framed" (p 104).

Johannes Comestor

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Kommentaar

  • George Bekker

    Wil net vir SêNetters daarop wys dat hierdie die tipe resensie is wat almal behoort te lees – ook diegene wat nie in letterkunde belangstel nie.

  • Reageer

    Jou e-posadres sal nie gepubliseer word nie. Kommentaar is onderhewig aan moderering.


     

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