Last Day in London

Wednesday, September 17, 2008

Today was our last day in London. We took the Overground out to Hampstead Heath and climbed up Parliament Hill. It was a gorgeous view of the city. I’m glad we went there last so that I could look over the entire city and be able to recognize everything and remember the time I had spent at each place. I really am quite sad to have to leave.After a while, we walked down the Heath to the village and were treated to lunch at The Holly Bush, a very nice, rather expensive pub. Then we had the rest of the day free to finish our trip in London.

I ran back to the Arran House to change for the Milton Evensong, then took the Tube to St. Giles’. The service was a bit awkward since everyone there knew the hymns and prayers, and everyone but me, it seemed, sang along with the choir. The music was beautiful, though. And the Archbishop of Canterbury gave a fantastic sermon. I wish I had copy of it to reference if I ever write another Milton paper.
Of course it was a very religious reading of the text (obviously), but basically he said that, even though Milton believed in the power of words to explain and influence everything, his later works show a resignation to God’s will, to just stand still quietly and wait for what is to come rather than wasting time with words. He cited the final line of Milton’s Sonnet XIX, titled “On His Blindness.” The line is “They also serve who only stand and waite.” This, he argued, was Milton’s acceptance of the fact that, though you want to try to influence the course of events through action, God’s will can sometimes be best achieved by simply standing quietly and awaiting the future. The Archbishop then reference the selection of Paradise Lost that had been read during the service, Book XII lines 485 to 504, in which Michael tells Adam of the coming of Christ who will save all people. The usually longwinded Adam here is speechless at the thought of his progeny being saved, even better off, because of his sin. Like Milton when considering his future, Adam has only to sit back quietly and wait for the Savior to come. The Archbishop made one more reference, perhaps his most poignant, to Paradise Regained, when Satan takes Jesus to the pinnacle and dares him to cast himself down and trust that God will break his fall. The climax of the piece, though, is Jesus’ brief reply: “Tempt not the Lord thy God; he said and stood.” Although he is quite talkative in earlier parts of the poem, here Jesus realizes that the best way to defeat Satan is to stand silent.
Milton, who strove his entire life to become a poet-priest and use his words to enforce God’s will, learns, like Adam and Jesus, simply to accept silence, thus explaining the style change between Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained, and Samson Agonistes. Although I read them, I’m not as familiar with the two later epics, but I remember them being very disappointing after Paradise Lost. Maybe the Archbishop is just trying to cover for Milton.

We leave for Norwich tomorrow. I’m very excited and also quite nervous. It’s going to be so different from Dickinson, even from this past month in London. I think that classes should be all right, but what I’m most nervous about is adjusting to the atmosphere of such a big school, and also the people. I want to meet people, but based on my limited and rather negative experiences with Londoners, I’m not sure how it’ll go.

So, to reflect on the past month…

I can’t decide whether I’m more surprised at how different things are or how much there is that I recognize. The aspect of London that I find most different is the people, which is strange, because I haven’t met any. Perhaps it’s a city thing, the same stereotype Americans hold of New Yorkers, but generally people I see in London aren’t really willing to interact with people they don’t know. They’re always in a hurry and expect you to be just as quick as they are, and they don’t have much patience if you’re a bit lost. That isn’t to say I haven’t met helpful people. They’re fine with offering directions, but no one goes out of their way to help. I was especially surprised to find that in big clothes shops like H&M or Urban Outfitters, no one once asked me if I needed help, and even looked affronted when I asked the simplest question. Again, I suppose this all most relate back to the idea of privacy. They aren’t risking invading my privacy by coming to talk to me, and, in turn, they don’t expect me to talk to them, either. I expect people to be a friendlier in Norwich, where there’s a bit more space and people can afford to be a bit more open.

Another thing I find interesting is they way “British” is defined. There’s the BNP member who defines being truly British against being a recent immigrant from Southeast Asia or Eastern Europe. Then of course, like America, Britain has pretty much always been a country of immigrants. So, on the one hand society practically deifies their royalty, and considers that there’s nothing more British than the aristocracy, even when their all from either Norman, Dutch, or German ancestry. England is also proud of its Roman heritage, considering itself the second Troy. Yet there is a large and valiant statue right off Westminster Bridge dedicated to Boadicea, the Iceni warrior queen who let an unsuccessful revolt against the Roman forces in London around 60AD. Even though the uprising was quelled and she, supposedly, poisoned herself in order to evade capture, she’s been a symbol for legendary British courage and strength since Victorian times. She represents the determination and courage of the British against invaders, which I can only imagine was particularly poignant during the Blitz. And yet the Norman kings are still considered very important to British culture, even though they were invaders just as were the Romans that Boadicea fought. Then again, as much as they respect the Norman kings, they hate the French.

That’s another aspect of British culture I find fascinating: general respect for the royal family. They might mock them, but since there is a separation between the queen as the head of state and the prime minister as the head of government, any dislike of the government is directed at the prime minister, and people generally love the queen. I remember in Salaam Brick Lane, when Hall is talking to his carp-smuggling friend, a man who openly defies the law but eagerly defends the queen. I wish I had met some more British people while in London because I would have loved to ask them their opinion of the queen. I once met a British woman on a plane and I remember her saying that most older Britons will have a picture of the queen somewhere in their houses, and that she herself will be “so sad when the queen dies.” I don’t think we have anyone analogous to this particularly type of celebrity in America. It’s hardly routine to have a picture of George Bush in your living room, and generally our anger at the government is displaced toward the current administration, although we respect the idea of a president. Pop icons have the same sort of following, but not universally. There’s no single person that the entire country can rally around. Here the queen is a source of national pride for many people, the embodiment of Great Britain and all she stands for. I’ll have to make sure to ask when I get to Norwich. I wonder if support for the queen varies the further you get from London. Or if it’s actually stronger the further you are away from the center of political upheaval.

I have thoroughly enjoyed my time in London. I’ve had so many experiences that no average tourist can claim, and I’ve even surpassed being a tourist because I feel so familiar with the city—its geography, its history, and some of its culture. Norwich should be a completely different atmosphere, and I’m curious to compare London to a smaller city.