“This is an authentic 13th Century carving,” said Paul Hyams, “and I know it is because I saw it done myself.”
Authentic 13th century carving
The recently-retired Cornell professor has all the dryness of an hourglass, a sharply British wit that would’ve made him an excellent screenwriter, but instead led him (tragically) down the path of academia. Hyams was showing me around Oxford, his alma mater; we’d passed some fine architecture and stopped at a pub for lunch.
“Most old Jews retire to Florida,” I said, “I think you went the wrong direction.”
“In retirement as in every aspect of my life,” said Paul.
Hyams is a medievalist – and not the dice-rolling, dragonslayer wannabe breed I hang around, but the real McCoy – a scholar, the sort of man who can tell you over black pudding and faggots (“Faggots is meatballs, mate,” the bartender told your horrified narrator) all the perks of enserfing oneself to a Saint: “Not an imaginary person,” he corrected me, “a real dead person with supernatural powers.”
Not the type to actually retire, Hyams is writing another book and continuing to lecture around campus. “The only difference,” he said, “is now my wife won’t accept my work as an excuse not to take out the trash.”
We left the pub for a look at the Pembroke College Dining Hall, which Hyams still frequents as a Professor Emeritus.
Pembroke College Dining Hall
He pointed out the portraits of old headmasters above the dais in that high-vaulted room: “here, the first man to run a four-minute mile, and there, his predecessor, for some time the bane of my existence and a real shit.”
We moved on to Saint Mary’s. From its spire, one can see all of Oxford.
A view from St. Mary’s
This university is a monument, in stone, to learning. It stands against human time, and in the rays of the evening sun its turrets are beautiful. “And there,” Paul nodded,” is the former site of Campion Hall, home of many unhappy Jesuit scholars.”
“Unhappy because Jesuits or because scholars?”
“Some scholars must be happy,” Paul said with little conviction. “What about you?”
“Oh, I’ve long since turned my back on intelligence.”
“The happy choice.”
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