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Jean-Yves Le Disez on the joys of gatecrashing Jan Morris’s
80th birthday party.

Jan Morris:
Around the World in Eighty Years

Ed. Paul Clements


Seren
£9.99 Paperback


It is difficult not to praise a book of praise: in his brief and powerful introduction to this collection of essays celebrating the literary achievement of Jan Morris, aptly entitled ‘The Complete Traveller’, Paul Theroux compares the book to ‘a big birthday card’. It is exactly that.

   Imagine, then, a birthday party with twenty-odd guests convened by Seren somewhere near Cricieth. Some, having travelled from afar – mostly across the Atlantic – give the impression of suffering a bit from jet lag, others of being perhaps a little too excited or nervous as they find themselves in this remote corner of Wales. Even the not too numerous locals don't seem to be feeling quite at home.

   But all is well, for nothing has been left to chance. Master of ceremonies Paul Clements has done his job well; he has, for example, tastefully chosen the card on which all the guests will have to scribble something before they leave – although he could have let us know exactly what instructions he gave them – and has invited guest star Paul Theroux to stand at the door to welcome each and every one. The card is a 120-page affair with enough room for each
guest to evoke in three to seven pages one aspect of their host's life
and/or works – one of her books, one outstanding quality or anecdote. The sober cover is a detail from a photograph by David Hurn, a close-up of the writer's face, with her name in big burgundy-coloured letters across her white hair. The top of the stylish grey back cover shows the portrait Arturo di Stefano made of her and Ibsen (her cat, not the playwright) for the National Portrait Gallery. Fittingly, both men happen to be among the guests. Clements has thoughtfully included a ‘James/Jan Morris Timeline’, bibliographical notes on the twenty-one guests and even an index.

   And yet the genre is almost an oxymoron: the contributors are required for the occasion to write something sincere (and sincerity is certainly, as Theroux points out, the book's forte), something intimate even, but there to be read by all. Luckily, like Jan Morris herself in Conundrum, they have managed to steer away from prurience, downright flattery or mawkishness. Many, Pico Iyer and Simon Winchester in particular, have written truly moving tributes to a person who clearly has the power to change people's lives.

   Because everybody is so sincere you don't feel too uncomfortable as a gatecrasher. You begin to play little games, to listen for answers to your questions:


Q: Which books are most often mentioned?
A: Venice; the imperial trilogy (Pax Britannica, Heaven's Command, Farewell the Trumpets); Conundrum; and Trieste and the Meaning of Nowhere.

Q: What are her most frequently mentioned qualities as a writer?
A: Her prose, her sense of place and detail, her almost magical ability to conjure up a place, person or moment with the mere power of her syntax and the musicality of her words.

Q: And her qualities as a person?
A: Courage, courage and courage.

Q: Any other quality?
A: Yes: kindness, intelligence, humour, style and professionalism
(and Welshness, most insist).

Q: A quotation to sum it all up?
A: ‘Hers is an instantly warming voice: alert, full-blooded, stylish, tolerant (except of cruelty and boredom) and benignly humorous’ (Colin Thubron).

Q: What makes her so unique?
A: ‘An imagination that refuses limits’ (Erica Wagner) – all limits of country, genre or, of course, gender.

Q: How good was she as a historian of Empire?
A: A quarter of a century after the publication of the last volume in the trilogy, Ned Thomas is struck by ‘how just and balanced most of its judgements are, on both the colonizers and the colonized’.

How nice for a foreigner and an admirer of Orwell to eavesdrop like
this on so many great names in Anglo-American journalism, reporting, travel writing, publishing and mountaineering. Yes, I certainly agree with Geoffrey Moorhouse that Jan Morris is proof that ‘genuine English literature can appear in journalism’ or with Robert McCrum when he remarks that ‘Jan is also part Anglo’ (but why did he have to say ‘like many passionate Celts’, the Celt in me wonders?). Have I had too much champagne already or did I hear him mention Jan entering her eighth decade? Still, what a great party this is. Not enough women, but still a great party. Not many people on earth get such a big birthday card. But then, not so many deserve it either.