I'm Sorry, But Hogwarts Doesn't Exist

6 September 2008

Today we visited Oxford--and while it wasn't necessarily a bad day, it wasn't my best in England. We rose early, which, in and of itself, isn't a bad thing, except that for the last two or three days, I've been nursing a head cold. It's nothing too serious--thankfully, it's nowhere near the ear ache that sidelined Annie a couple of days ago--but I'm still profoundly uncomfortable. Right now, it's feels like there's a pregnant elephant most contentedly settled somewhere in my sinuses. I've been taking DayQuil, and I am making progress against my illness, but still it's simply awful. And waking up earlier than I am accustomed doesn't help in any way.

Well. We traveled from the Arran House to Paddington Station, via Euston Square and the Circle Line. Professor Rudalevige had hoped to reach Oxford on the nine-twenty-one, but in surprising fashion, we learned that the nine-twenty-one to Oxford had been cancelled. One minute, it was listed as "On Time"; and the next--well, there was still the nine-fifty. We lounged around the station for about a half-hour, waiting for our departure to Oxford. The Professor along with several others helped themselves to a cup of coffee (and possibly a newspaper). I kept to a danish--or at least, I thought it resembled a danish--that I purchased at the Sainsbury's Local, which happened to locate inside the station. It had raisins, some sort of fruity filling, possibly apple; and a pleasant flaky crust. It was pretty good, but more importantly, it cost me perhaps sixty pence.

At last, around nine-forty, we boarded the train for Oxford, arriving there a little over an hour later. Perhaps it was groggy condition--by now, I suspect my morning dose of DayQuil was beginning to take effect--or the fact that I was incredibly hungry, but I didn't appreciate Oxford as much as I thought I would. The city was lovely, dotted with all manners of ornately decorated churches and college buildings, quaint public houses, antique booksellers, and luxury clothing stores. But it hardly lived up to its lofty description in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure:

Grey-stoned and dun-roofed, it stood within hail of the Wessex border, and almost with the tip of one small toe within it, at the northernmost point of the crinkled line along which the leisurely Thames strokes the fields of that ancient kingdom. The buildings now lay quiet in the sunset, a vane here and there on their many spires and domes giving sparkle to a picture of sober secondary and tertiary hues.

Oxford was a fair city, but it was no "Christminster." It had its charms--the Martyrs' Monument on Broad Street, "The Eagle and the Child" not a stone's throw away, or the gentle Cherwell meandering its way through Christ Church Meadow--but nothing that captured my affections so completely that it made me want to settle there.

Additionally, Oxford appeared to be almost too old for me, if that's possible. I realise that till now, I've been rather ambivalent about the changes in English culture, society, and architecture that have transpired since the days of Charles Dickens: some, I have liked; most, I utterly despised. However, as we walked through Oxford, I could not help but sensing that the dusts of a thousand years of learning and history were too thick, the precincts of the many colleges, too rarefied, for the town to be truly inhabitated by modern men and women. Unlike many places in London where the scales favour the modern and the new, Oxford seemed to be too heavily skewed toward the past. It was more like living history museum, where people go about the streets and attend classes simply to give tourists an idea of what the city was like in its heyday. I fear that I am being too harsh, but for me like Hardy's Jude Fawley, Oxford was something of a disappointment.

After we toured the colleges of Oxford University for a while, Professor Rudalevige freed us to go foraging for lunch or, if food wasn't a priority at the moment, to explore the city. Shannyn, for her part, joined the queue leading into Christ Church College, which, for the benefit of the unlearned, has stood in for Hogwarts in the Harry Potter films. I had to laugh as we were approaching the steps of Christ Church, because Shannyn was so obviously excited. "Oh my God," she said, "it's actually Hogwarts. It's really Hogwarts."

"Um, I hate to break it to you," I said, a broad, even shit-eating, grin on my lips, "but Hogwarts is a fictional place. It doesn't exist."

"Shut up, heretic."

"I'm not a heretic. I've never read the books. Therefore, I'm a non-believer, a pagan, a heathen!!" Fortunately, I avoided a stiff right hand to the back of my head, because my ensuing lecture on the differences between heresy, apostasy, and paganism managed to diffuse things. I probably deserved to get smacked, since I understand that everyone has something that provokes feelings of elation and happiness and that's just the way things are, but I'm not going to complain.

Leaving Christ Church College behind me, I joined a troop of people from our group who had decided that they wanted to get lunch before they did anything else. Trudging back to Broad Street, we ate at "The Eagle and the Child," which happened to be the pub where C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein met frequently to discuss literature, share a meal, or have a pleasant pit of good English ale. I ordered Bangers and Mash, announcing as I first saw the mountain of mashed potatoes covered in onion gravy and Cumberland sausage: "I love English cuisine." (More proof that I should steer well clear of most over-the-counter products.) The conversation wasn't great, but it wasn't too lethargic. Everyone here, more or less, is nursing some form of illness because in addition to a recent drastic change in weather for the colder and the damper, we've been on the go from the moment we arrived at Heathrow, so I can accept it if nobody lived up to the reputation of its past patrons. I finished my visit to "The Eagle and the Child" by having Greg take a very touristy photograph of me in front.

We paused by Christ Church College and then deciding that three pounds was too steep a fee for wandering around a couple of rooms, we headed toward the River Cherwell. In the days prior to our trip to Oxford, Professor Rudalevige had mentioned that while we were in the city, we might try punting. Six of us--Ben, Greg, Rob, Sara Verhalen, Annie Gibala, and I--did. It was costly: fifteen pounds to rent a boat for an hour. And it was hard work: Greg must have lost five pounds from sweating so hard. And I'll probably never do it again. But like I've said beforehand, it's the experience that counts ultimately, and I don't begrudge the money I spent. There's always next week.

Anyway, we finished the day by walking through a sudden, torrential downpour on our way from the River Cherwell to the rail station. When we reached the station, we were all drenched from head to toe; it was so bad that Greg actually forsook his shirt and raincoat halfway to the station, walking the rest of the way totally shirtless. The train ride lasted an hour, and before long, we were back at the Arran House. A bunch of us made an enormous feast of grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup, before sallying forth for a feverish night of drinking and dancing at the clubs. I had a great time, and then I came back to the Arran House, and like every other night in England, I threw on my pajamas and climbed into bed.