Where everybody knows your name...

In my posts, you may have noticed an unusual number of references to various pubs. This, I think, is one of the more interesting differences between British and American culture. In America, a bar is seen as a somewhat nefarious place - a place for college students to get drunk, for alcoholics to waste their lives and for shady characters to conduct business which is better left undescribed.

Pubs in the UK are of an entirely different character; first of all, their clientele is not limited to the demographics common in American bars. I'm not sure I'd say that they're a communal gathering place, as my mother put it to me, but it's close to that. Everyone frequents pubs - Bus drivers, Shop Keepers, University Professors, everyone. The other point worth noting is that they're EVERYWHERE. I've been here less than a week and I can already name at least five Oxford pubs right off the top of my head - The King's Arms, the Turf, the Duke of Monmouth, the Crooked Pot, and the Eagle and Child.

The latter of these is quickly becoming a favorite of mine. It's a bit of a hike, but the food's good (that's the other difference: English pubs don't just provide drinks), the wine's Italian and it's just around the corner from the Ashmolean Museum, whose collection, for my money, is of lower quantity, but higher quality than the Metropolitan Museum of New York. It's also less than a hundred yards (sorry, meters) from Oxford's Classics Department, which I've not yet had the opportunity to explore. The atmosphere is also nice and quiet, with just the look one would expect from an English pub. Not to sound like a tourist, but there's also this little factor:



It's nice, while waiting for your meal, to contemplate the conversation that must have occurred within ear-shot of where you're sitting. The fact that two of the greatest authors in British history not only visited this place but frequented it lends it a certain mystique. It's magical to envision what it must have been like to hear Tolkien describe the Anglican roots of Middle-Earth or to hear the theological connotations behind Lewis' works (I confess, I've never read Lewis, so I'm speaking out of ignorance here), or to hear about some new language Tolkien was developing. Several years ago, I had the opportunity to meet a Cornell Professor named Robert Farrell, who studied at Oxford during Tolkien's time and knew him, so that we could discuss the man and his life. From this experience, and my time at the Eagle and Child (which Tolkien, Lewis, et al. nicknamed "the Bird and Baby") I can say that there's a certain indescribable quality that you perceive when you get close to Tolkien and his works. It's quintessentially English, a mixture of Gaelic myth, love of language, great literature, a less-hurried approach to life and an ancient, sleepy town which is paradoxically - or perhaps appropriately - the home of the greatest institution of learning in the world. It is the flavor of scholarship, and I love it.