What We Can Know

Thomas sails back home from the Bodleian, though the voyage is rough on the Irish Sea. He arrives late at Port Marlborough, which is full of people hoping to cross the Atlantic Ocean into war-torn America. As he returns to the South Downs campus, Thomas finds himself missing his colleague and former partner, Rose Church, with whom he lived for over a year. Thomas wishes to collaborate with Rose again but feels that the end of their romantic relationship strained their dynamic, although they remain close friends.

Thomas and Rose met when they were assigned to co-teach a course entitled “The Politics and Literature of the Inundation,” which covered the cultural consequences of the nuclear war that preceded the Derangement. They began the course by inviting earth sciences and politics specialists to talk about the Inundation’s background. This bored the students, so during their next seminar, Thomas and Rose gave a multimedia lecture on the Inundation’s history, treating the students as if they were children.

In the lecture, they talk about how Russia attempted to attack the United States with an intercontinental missile, but, because it exploded over the Atlantic Ocean, it caused devastating tsunamis that flooded Europe, West Africa, and the Eastern Seaboard. The flooding was exacerbated by increased rainfall, drowning several cities and collapsing the global economy. Nigeria emerged as a global power and the new base for the post-Inundation Internet. Amid the wars in Europe and the United States, world literature entered a renaissance.

Once again, the lecture had little impact on the students. Thomas and Rose resigned themselves to their defeat by drinking and becoming lovers.

The Blundy party was stunned silent by the reading of Francis’s new poem. Vivien thanked Francis for the gift. Harriet was moved to tears, prompting applause from the party. Harry refilled Francis’s glass, allowing Francis to propose a toast to Vivien. Harry followed this with another toast to Francis and the poem.

On their way home later, Harriet would explain to Chris that the poem moved her with its warmth, wisdom, and urgency toward death. Chris, on the other hand, would feel overwhelmed by the poem, as he often did with all high art. He would focus on Francis’s use of the word “proscenium,” reminding him of a theater building project he was working on.

Graham’s attention also wavered during Francis’s reading, preoccupied by his marriage and his affair. Once the reading ended, Graham felt the urge to offer a compliment, but he had missed too much of the poem to say anything substantial. He was relieved by Harriet’s applause.

Tony, a literary botanist, was surprised by Francis’s use of wildflowers, which he previously demonstrated indifference toward, in his poem. Tony tried to reconcile his knowledge of Francis with the persona his poem presented. This caused his contempt for Francis to grow, believing him to be either insincere or cynical toward nature.

Jane, embarrassed by her loud reaction to the salad bowl’s destruction, thought of her and Francis’s strict Anglican upbringing. Francis found it easy to shrug off religion, Jane less so. This drove her resentment toward her brother, who showed little evidence of Jane’s influence or importance in his life. She considered the salad bowl one of her best creations, something akin to his poem. After its destruction, she felt that they were once again imbalanced. Jane’s resentment caused her to lose focus on the poem. She chose not to drink when Harry proposed a toast to Francis.

John was distracted by the memory of a snake he recently treated for severe spinal injury. He had been resolved to euthanize it, but when the snake’s elderly owners express their faith in his veterinary skills, John dedicated himself to saving the snake’s life. The snake survived, but a month later, they agreed with John to release it into the wild. His peers at the dinner laughed at his anecdote about performing snake surgery, and it bothered him. For the remainder of the reading, his thoughts remained on the concern he shared with the elderly couple.

During the reading, Mary was struck by the insight that the novel was inferior to poetry. She thought of her own simplistic prose and experienced self-loathing in the shadow of Francis’s lyrical skill. The poem emboldened her to not only improve her craft but also to pursue change and freedom in her life.

Harry wanted to step away from writing Francis’s biography because he feared that Francis would be too controlling. Once the form of the poem became clear, Harry recognized it as a corona. Five days after the dinner, Harry wrote Francis an effusive letter about it, and the letter is the most detailed evidence of the poem’s content, referencing a couple who navigate a fragile natural world as they go for a swim in a river gorge. The couple marries in a church and then grows old together despite the world’s imminent end. That same day, Harry began an unfinished email draft with no indication of its addressee: “In love? We must be mad. But I don’t think we” (70).

Thomas laments the perennial crisis of the humanities, which is less a crisis of knowledge than one of thought. Advances in science have made it possible to know everything in the digital world, but only a fraction of scholars are concerned with how to use these advances to benefit human civilization.

Thomas recalls how the 90-30 program was founded with the intention of probing the reckless idealism that preceded the Inundation and the Derangement. He hoped that this would inspire students to embody the same idealism and break away from institutional structures. The 90-30 program became so popular that other universities introduced their own takes on the same period.

Thomas intended to write a book about the period, imagining himself as Blundy’s contemporary and carrying a record of the era to the present moment. The challenge was to fill in the historical records’ gaps. Thomas was encouraged by a colleague to use the marriage of literature and history to suggest possible facts about the inner lives of his subjects. He was soon discouraged by Rose, who made him feel guilty about inventing history.

The day after her birthday dinner, Vivien wrote about the reading in her journal. She suggested that she was content to live life with Francis, but she noted the inconsistency between the poem’s voice and Francis’s true character. None of the activities he wrote about were things that he enjoyed in real life, such as walking in nature. Similarly, Francis despised religion but wrote about marrying in church.

By contrast, Vivien’s first husband, Percy, regularly went on long walks with her. Percy was a reputable violin maker. Four years into their marriage, he began to experience memory lapses that constituted the earliest symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. As Percy started to experience more severe symptoms, Vivien took leave from teaching to look after him. In an email to her sister, Rachel, Vivien noted that she loved him too much to put him in a care facility. When Rachel started visiting to help look after Percy, Vivien would go for walks, during which she would be struck with relief and a sense of freedom.

Before he experienced Alzheimer’s, Percy apprenticed Rachel’s son, Peter, enlisting his help in the construction of new violins. Though Rachel limited Peter’s visits later on, Peter remained close to Percy, as evidenced by their transcribed conversations Vivien recorded in her journal.

Thomas interjects that Rose is the only other person he knows who has closely studied Vivien’s journals. She often challenges his tendency to make educated guesses about details that were never explicitly recorded, such as the meal Vivien prepared for her birthday dinner.

One afternoon, while Rachel and Peter were looking after Percy, Vivien went to see Francis Blundy give a poetry reading at the Sheldonian Theatre. The reading featured a conversation with Professor Harold Kitchener. Vivien was not initially a fan of Blundy’s work but became interested in his style and several of his poems. Following Kitchener’s introduction, Blundy began his reading with “In the Saddle,” a poem popular among teenage schoolgirls.

The experience of the event reminded Vivien of the life she left behind to look after Percy. She resolved to attend the reception afterward so that she could speak to Francis. Historical records imply that they spent the night together, after which they mutually expressed the desire to see each other again. Over the next month, Vivien became increasingly impatient with Percy, at one point locking him in the house so she could visit a care facility, but its poor condition firmed her resolve to continue looking after Percy herself.

Thomas notes that little is actually known about the “Cotswold tryst,” an event in which Vivien brought Percy to a temporary care facility, met with Francis, and spent five days with him in the Cotswolds. Afterward, Francis wrote a celebrated series of love poems while Vivien’s home life worsened.