The globe turns on its axis, the lover and the criminal return to the scene of the crime. I want to quote such and similar winged phrases, seeing that the prose writer Vilis Lācītis, who debuted in literature in 2010 with a novel Stroika with a view of London, in his sixth book returns, so to speak, to the beginning, offering a new work Oxford. Overlooking the university. True, this time the author is not just some Vilis Lācītis, but Vilis Lācītis MSc (Oxon), and if you don’t know what “Oxon” is, that just confirms that you need to read this book.
Noah’s ark passengers
Stroika with a view of London is one of those works that at one time pleasantly refreshed the landscape of Latvian literature, bringing into the prevailing rather poignant intonation of prose a good deal of wicked and apt humor, disarming frankness in its lack of modesty, and quite simply a springy, brisk domestic narrative. The path of dreams and troubles of a Latvian migrant worker in the foggy Albion, in which there is no shortage of colorful characters, anecdotal stories, even two whole criminal intrigues, excited many – readers, critics alike – and eventually also a nomination for the Latvian Literature of the Year Award for the brightest debut out of the blue everything does not fall.
Legally, that following Stroikas came out a series of other prose works with a similarly stilted intonation, but Stroikas success was not surpassed by any of them. So now, it seems, there is a return to tried and tested values, because in front of us is an Oxford chant with a cover decorated with a brick wall pattern. (Bricks will play both a metaphorical and a literal role in this story.) Would our hero have decided to enter a university whose name alone makes one’s forehead water with awe? Who knows, who knows… But first, “craftsman” (that’s how the English is translated handyman, that is, a performer of various practical works, and please remember that this word is pronounced with a diphthong, not the vowel “o”) Vilis Lācītis, who, by some coincidence, is called the same as the author of the book, goes to the mysterious, academic and truly British strangeness surrounded by Oxford, trying to clear his head from the already thoroughly familiar London and continue to practice in the position that suits him best. However, “what is best for it” is not the many and various practical tasks, which really pour out as if from a cornucopia, but a brave plunge into every adventure that the messenger’s fate gives to the messenger – from the offer to work as a research “guinea pig” for Oxford students. subjecting himself to various experiments necessary to prove or – on the contrary – to disprove scientific hypotheses, until working in the most expensive restaurant in the small but insanely expensive Oxford, whose name Noble rot to the Latvian reader’s ears it sounds quite unusual (but in English it is a completely normal term used in winemaking). Among other things, in the city that is so pleasing to the eye and imagination of tourists, along with the “handiman”, there is also a galaxy of characters that have stepped out of the pages of Carroll’s Alice, which in their motley resembles the audience of passengers of Noah’s ark – starting from a self-sufficient family that has mastered the art of living only on benefits, to the imposing the chef of the restaurant, a couple of famous, useless writing course instructors, colleagues with names like Eros and Lenins Gonzalez and several gorgeous women – where would we be without them.
Mallard’s blood
Along with interacting with this gallery of Wonderland characters and of course ensuring his daily existence, Vilis explores the secret of Oxford’s magical appeal and generously shares his findings with readers. It turns out that there are four Oxfords in total: imagined in tourist dreams, academic, fantasy literature (such as KS Lewis In the Chronicles of Narnia un Filipa Pulmana In the Dark Matter Trilogy; among others, both Lewis and Lord of the Rings creator J. RR Tolkien was everyday a high-ranking Oxford professor) common and, finally, the real one, which has this in common with each of the above versions, but more already different.
Let’s not deny that this educational institution with a history of almost a thousand years, a rich and often quite specific range of traditions and an aura of exclusivity that can only be rivaled by the environment of the British aristocracy is fascinating. Did you know that once every hundred years, the university holds a secret ceremony in which the blood of mallards plays an important role – well, at least it used to? Or that every evening at nine o’clock at Christchurch College the institution bell rings exactly one hundred times? Did you know what plans Hitler had for Oxford and which college has a modern toilet in its stained glass window? VL passionately tells all this and much more, also regarding the peculiar student fraternities and associations: he will have to get involved in the activities of one directly – and this incident forms one of the central episodes of the novel, in which the author can sense from Stroikas the ever-loved crime plot direction, this time, fortunately, without corpses embedded in concrete.
Ever since Stroikas the messenger’s active discussions around and regarding theological issues have not disappeared anywhere, only this time they are verbalized not by hordes of sectarian Lithuanian guest workers, but by Richard, who he met by chance at an art exhibition, and who also becomes a catalyst for all VL’s future adventures in Oxford. The apt, even at times bitter observations, looking at his compatriots through the prism of the strangeness of the British land – not only in emigration, but also in Latvia, comparing, analyzing, smiling and sometimes secretly and fondly yearning – have not been lost. For example, Lācītis concludes that Latvians are not a nation of potato eaters, because potatoes are consumed by quite a lot of nations, starting with the English, but especially the Irish.
According to the author, Latvians are much more obsessed with such a product as sour cream – a nutrient completely incomprehensible to foreigners, the use of which in a series of dishes significantly distinguishes “cream Latvians”, that is, immigrants who are not used to the new environment, from “non-cream” Latvians – those who adapted in the home country. All the reader has to do is define his relationship with the cream, and hey, the diagnosis is ready.
The brick wall on the cover of the book covers only part of the image – on the other side, you can see a hopeful blue sky. Apparently, some good ones still manage to break through the stone-hard alien isolation of the mysterious campus and achieve their goals, whatever they may be. At the end of the novel, the narrator also achieves a dream, but one must think (and hope) regarding its realization in another book.