Being in the basement

Entertaining thoughts of comfort in the wake of a nuclear war should not really feature in our everyday lives, but yet here I am, in the second of four basements in a university library, searching for Woolf's Moments of Being. Both the text and its housing in the cushioned, eerie silence of this second of four basements are apt in that I'm seeking Woolf's book out for its reflections on trauma (in 'A Sketch of the Past'). What a strange thought it is, then, to consider being surrounded by thousands of books, unmoved by the reality of the world outside, up there, in the event of a man-made catastrophe. Odder still to think of emerging from this highly cultivated bunker with its universe of knowledge into a universe of an altogether more ravaged nature.

Back down to earth with disappointment at the way in which the librarians have ruined a once-handsome hardback copy of a text by Woolf, with a hasty elastoplast binding in institutional blue and a wonkily-cut printed label serving as a substitute for the former gold embossing, topped off with sellotape. A travesty! But in thinking such things (a text is a functional tool for a literature student rather than an ornament to be fetishised), I may fall into that category of person whom Woolf questions herself as being in the final essay of this collection, 'Am I Snob?'

I don't think so. I love Woolf's work and I love books. Librarians should take more care!

Butterfly Man

Ingerlind

A boy pulls back on his bike and pedals furiously on one wheel. He could be on a horse, charging in battle. Perhaps like St George. On the other side of the road a Conservative social club. The England flag (the customary red cross and, in the tautological trend to be observed almost everywhere these days, the word 'England' emblazoned across the horizontal bar) is upside down, flying at half mast. The boy looks frustrated, hard at work on his one wheel; on the other side of the road ironic, perhaps even tongue-in-cheek, mourning.

Something tells me many will see the disallowed goal and subsequent playing as an allegory of the state of the nation.

cum laude

Yes - she was saying - the whole affair of the thesis had gone better than she'd dared hope. In the viva for graduation, she'd 'held forth' for a good hour, 'orating unstoppably'. In the end they'd sent her out, and happily ensconced behind the examination hall's frosted-glass door, she'd been easily able to hear everything the gaggle of professors had said about her work. The majority were opting for cum laude, but there was one, the Professor of German (a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi!) who wouldn't hear of it. He'd made himself very clear, the 'worthy gentleman'. In his view, the cum laude could not be given her without provoking a serious scandal. What were they thinking! - he had shouted. The Signorina was Jewish, and not even excluded as she ought to have been, and now they were talking of awarding her this distinction. What a disgrace! She should be thankful they'd let her graduate at all . . . The chairman, who taught English, also supported by others, had energetically countered by saying the school was a school, intelligence and hard work (so kind of him!) had nothing whatsoever to do with blood relations, etc. etc. However, when the moment came to do their sums, obviously, the Nazi carried the day. And she'd had no other consolation, apart from the apologies which later, running after her down the stairs of Ca' Foscari, the Professor of English had given to her - poor thing, his chin was trebling, he had tears in his eyes . . . - she'd had no other consolation apart from greeting the verdict with the most impeccable Roman salute. In the very act of giving her the title of 'Doctor', the President of the Faculty raised his arm. How was she supposed to have reacted? Limited herself to a charming little nod of the head? Not a chance.

Giorgio Bassani, The Garden of the Finzi-Continis, translated by Jamie McKendrick, pp. 160-61.