The last time I saw Barry, I spent five days with him in his smoky lair in Norwich, East Anglia. During a few visits I slept on the floor of his study where you could find a layer of oxygen. On this trip he asked me to write something about him for him, a most unusual request.
For Barry ...
Whose friendship, ideas, and democratic ideals have enriched my personal and professional life; whose courage and integrity in the face of political pressures and payoffs have inspired, and whose wit, wordplay, and originality epitomize style and eloquence. My evaluation novel is a tribute to forty years of our friendship.
Ernie House
4 October 2010
He seemed happy with this statement. What he really liked was the bit about his wit, style, and eloquence. Of course, this little dedication barely touched his influence on hundreds of people.
We spent considerable time together in 1975, my first extended trip abroad. He explained the intricacies and nuances of British culture, especially the class system. From that time onward, we became very close friends, as did our families, sharing each other’s ups and downs, and personal disasters.
He was unparalleled in his observations of people, a key to his powerful influence. His observations could be acerbic and ruthless. Of a late life romance between an elderly pair, he said, “She acts like a reptile that’s captured a small mammal.” He spent hours inventing clever sayings and looking for places to insert them in conversations, as if they were impromptu. Maintaining an image of wit and cleverness was important to him.
He had a tendency to manipulate. If there was a direct or indirect way to do something, he much preferred the indirect. It was important to achieve by guile and persuasion. Some of his harshest criticisms were reserved for abuses of power, like bullying or forcing others to do something through the power you had over them. And this ethic played into his principles about how evaluations should be conducted.
Over four decades we met and talked about people, politics, movies, books, countries, life, and, occasionally, even evaluation. He was ever the critic. The last decade or so we met in Melbourne each year during the northern winters. On the veranda of Tracey’s house, at sidewalk cafes where he could smoke, and at the Ingvarson’s, we continued talking about people, including everyone he knew. And, of course, ourselves and our lives. He was just as scathing when we were the topic, even more so. Commenting on my work, he might say, “Ah, well, another scorched earth evaluation of yours?”
He was a superb writer and considered himself an expert in the personal memoir. During the last years, before he became too ill to work, I asked him to review a childhood memoir I had written. He read it, suggested changes, and said he considered it a masterpiece, for once letting his friendship override his critical judgment. His key comment was, “There is no hint of self-pity or sentimentality in it.” From him, that’s as high praise as you could obtain.
I said, ”You’ve had a more dramatic life than I have. Why don’t you write a memoir about your life?” Many of us had been trying to get him to write more for decades.
He said, “I don’t know who I am. I have no position from which to write it.”
I knew that was true. I had heard him say it before. Incredibly, here was one of the most brilliant, flamboyant, and unusual personalities any of us had known, a man with tremendous insight and influence. And he didn’t know who he was. I can only speculate why. One aspect was that he was so skilled at observing, charming, and persuading people, he partly created himself. What was real?
I do have a good idea who he was. For one thing he was a Scottish moralist, or perhaps what Scottish moralism had become, criticisms of people and society without the religious trappings. He said to me on several occasions, “We should have been journalists,” usually after some big newspaper expose. He loved noir detective writers like Chandler, who exhibited wit and style while exposing corruption among the elite.
He once took John Nisbet and me to dinner at a fancy hotel. Barry much admired Nisbet, his long-time mentor at the university. Barry said, “I wanted to show my admiration for the two of you, the most principled people I know, whom I have tried to emulate.” Nisbet, aware of young Barry’s adventures in Aberdeen, was so astonished at being a role model for Barry he almost fell off his chair.
Actually, Barry was highly principled, in his own inimitable way, of course. I once asked him, “Why are we such close friends? We live on different continents and see each other only every year or two.” His ready answer was, “If I were in trouble and needed you to come, I know you would come right away.” Of course, the 100% reliability worked the other way as well.
When a long-term romantic relationship broke up, he said, “That’s my last woman.” I said, “Come on, man. You’ll have another woman within a year, two at most.” “No,” he said, “I’ve done enough damage.” Betting against this pledge cost me an expensive bottle of whiskey. Self-criticism and self-abnegation were among his deepest principles. I learned a lot from him in that regard, though not enough.
In his final illness, as the disease progressed, I marked the differences year by year. He behaved as you would expect, frustrated at losing his ability to converse, but no self-pity. That’s how life was. On Tracey’s veranda one afternoon, just the two of us, in a contemplative mood, he said, “ I should have stayed in my social class. I would have been happier.” That startled me, so much that I argued with him. I’m still thinking about his remark.
If he were here now to read this tribute, he would likely say, “Why are you in this document so much? This is about commemorating me and my life, not yours.” And I would reply, “Well, I am trying to put the most positive spin on your life as I can, and I don’t have that much to work with. I have to bring in material from the outside.” And he would chuckle, take a drag from his cigarette, and say, “Maybe so, Maybe so.”
I have often thought that when someone very close to you dies, part of you dies with them, the relationship, all the times you spent with them, the conversations only you and they knew about will never occur again. In a sense, you die piece by piece as your closest friends and family die. I have to say that with Barry’s death, I’ve lost a pretty big chunk. I hope that’s not too sentimental.
16 April 2013
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