When I first came across GBS, which was in middle or high school years in the old country, of course I had no idea about this quote. It was a joke about the spelling and pronunciation issues in the English language that first made me aware of a George Bernard Shaw.
For many of us who grew up with a language other than English, and with the native script simultaneously phonetic as well, English was--and continues to be--a pain in the ass. Or, a "royal" pain in the "arse," for those who prefer the Queen's English!
Thus, it delighted me to no end when I read that a certain GBS had made fun of the English language, by showing how "ghoti" should be pronounced as "fish." (Much later in life, I would learn that the GBS-ghoti story is a myth!)
Then came GBS in the high school curriculum: An excerpt from his Pygmalion.
Once there was a collection of GBS in real life in the Readers Digest. Here is how I remember two of them:
At a dinner party, GBS is seated next to a famous stage actress. She tells him that if the two should have a baby together, it might be a powerful combination of her beauty and his brains. Without missing a beat, GBS responds that it will be a disaster because the baby will have his beauty and her brains!Another one:
GBS sent Winston Churchill two tickets to the opening night of his play, along with a note that one ticket was for Churchill and the second for any friend--if Churchill had a friend.And then came GBS the Socialist. Back in my commie days, I got to read about the Fabian Society, which had attracted the likes of GBS and Nehru.
Churchill replied to that with a note that he would attend the second day of the play, if there would ever be a second day.
GBS the socialist apparently adored Stalin!
Beneath Shaw’s infatuation with Stalin, moreover, was a force that is still with us: a desire to see in Russia all the qualities that the Western democracies lack.I can easily relate to what the author writes as the context that lies under GBS' infatuation with Stalin:
But underlying all of this, there was an even stronger impulse: the fantasy of Russia itself. Long before the Bolshevik Revolution gave the dream a very particular political content, Shaw was primed to expect a global spiritual resurrection that would begin in Russia. This hope was not as fanciful as it may now seem: In the late 19th century, when Shaw’s political and artistic consciousness was being formed, Russian music, drama and literature were at the leading edge of modern Western culture. As he later wrote to Maxim Gorky, “I myself am as strongly susceptible as anyone to the fascination of the Russian character as expressed by its art and personally by its artists.”I didn't know about GBS's Russian literature fixation, but I can relate to it.
By not understanding the tremendous richness of Russia's cultural past, and by equating Russia only with Communism--and putin--we do ourselves a huge disservice. This tunnel vision is also a reason for why we are at a loss when it comes to understanding the Russian longing for the glory days of the old, which Svetlana Alexievich writes about.
Shaw's infatuation with Stalin is a lesson for all of us, especially in the donald "puppet" trump era:
Shaw’s infatuation with Russia became a full-on love affair with a Soviet autocrat, whereas the Trump bromance with President Putin appears unconsummated. But they share a fatal attraction that both preceded and survived the Soviet Union: the allure of a faraway place where the great leader is obeyed because he embodies a people’s soul.All I can say is that the trump administration and the republican congress are certainly a conspiracy against the laity!
