| Introduction |
Here is a book that falls into no recognisable category. We
may call it if we like, a book of memoirs, but only with the
proviso that these are memoirs of a very particular kind. There
is no chronological life history, and very little specification
of times and places. The setting of the early part is simply
childhood, where time and place have little relevance. In the
episodes of the grasshopper, the old dog, the school play, in
the contacts with the forest and with animals, the revelations
of music and dance and fairy stories ... in all these we have
the universal process by which a child learns. Learns of the
world's callousness and spite, of the reality of death, and
also of the possibilities of beauty and love. What is remarkable
is the perceptiveness of this child's response to such learning,
and the vividness with which it is described.
Yolanthe Leigh's first language is not English, but Polish.
She writes English as one who is well aware of its capacities,
but has never settled for its clichés. Often she produces
a term or turn of phrase that is all the more apt for being
unexpected. And there are passages where her prose quite naturally
quickens into poetry. |
| Her growing away from childhood is overshadowed by two catastrophes,
one personal, the other national and indeed global. She falls
victim to a serious illness and for several years is in constant
pain and confined to bed. All idea of a career as a dancer has
to be abandoned; indeed she feels that all idea of ever doing
anything of value has to be abandoned. But the anguish is kept
secret - "I told no-one" is her refrain at this time.
There are poignant memories of the devotion of her parents;
and also of the devotion of the tiny dog Lei, who becomes her
companion and almost her confidante, and is instrumental in
saving her life during the war. |
| The impact of the war, and the Nazi occupation of Poland,
on someone so sensitive and vulnerable is not something that
we can comprehend. |
| But here we can at least glimpse the hardship and the horror;
glimpse also the gentle but unyielding spirits who keep their
culture alive in spite of everything. It is about this time
that Yolanthe discovers philosophy, which becomes thereafter
her main preoccupation. She tells of university classes carried
on in secret, sometimes in her own room, even though the participants
were putting their lives at risk just by being there; of young
people calmly and studiously discussing Kant and Aristotle despite
the danger and the hunger and cold; of reading textbooks at
night during a bombardment, when there is a real risk of not
surviving to finish the page that one has turned ... Her accounts
are brief and matter of fact; but their very starkness and immediacy
convey more effectively that any detailed history just what
it was like to live through such a time. |
| Her whole book is marked by an intense and abiding spirituality.
We might well be tempted to borrow a title from St Theresa of
Lisieux and call it the story of a soul. An even better alternative
might be the title of Simone Weil's essay, Spiritual Autobiography.
For there are striking parallels with the experience of Simone
Weil - the encounters with affliction; the deeply-felt need
for God, and at the same time the integrity that rules out any
easy compromise with received beliefs; the respect for a sincere
and sympathetic priest, respect that still falls short of acceptance
... She can seriously question the existence of God; and yet
seriously consider entering the religious life. Even when she
is persuaded that God does not exist, "Every night I was
praying to absence. I was praying to God who did not exist ...".
She tells God, indeed shouts at Him, about His non-existence;
and longs in vain to be rid of His absence. But there is at
least a promise of reconciliation when she writes, so beautifully,
of how her words ... 'were falling down, countlessly, noiselessly,
unconsciously into the night, into the moonlit undisturbed sheet
of light, extended and motionless like water; they were falling
into a Presence'. |
| In the development, and the expression, of this spirituality,
even from her earliest days, it is evident that music plays
a central role. And some of the most memorable passages in the
book are about her responses to music - the Brahms symphony
that was familiar to her almost from birth; Bach and Beethoven
played by a hungry orchestra in the frozen streets during the
war; the Beethoven sonatas that she 'carried in her soul'; the
Albinoni Adagio; and above all the overwhelming impression made
by Mozart's Requiem Mass. Concerning all of these, and particularly
Mozart, she writes in what is unmistakably the language of religious
experience, the language appropriate to encounter with the divine.
|
| Regarding human relationships Yolanthe is for the most part
reticent, and we must respect her reticence. She gives only
a brief summary of her career as research student, teacher and
translator in post-war Poland, and of her subsequent move to
England. But on a personal note, I may add that I first met
her in the early 1970s when we were colleagues in the Philosophy
Department at Reading University. As a philosopher she worked
in many fields, but her main interest was in aesthetics; and
some of her original ideas about the subject are outlined in
the final pages of her book. (A full length study exists in
manuscript and will I hope eventually be published.) As a teacher
also she was original - I recall the strains of music from her
room, something not often heard in philosophy departments -
and she introduced her students to a wider culture than most
of them would otherwise have known. Sadly, further illness soon
forced her into early retirement. She and I have met many times
since then to talk, and to share music and silence; but when
she entrusted me with the typescript of her Musical Offering,
even I was surprised by the richness of what it contained. I
had no doubt that here was a unique record of experience that
had to be preserved and made more widely known. And I am very
happy that it is now finding its way into print. |
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