A church bell tolls in the Breton village of Saint-Barthélemy. It rained last night. Today it’s cool, and the blue sky is broken up by rapidly moving clouds. The view from the window is calming. Brittany is a land of Ozark-like hills and hollows. There are plenty of trees. Not the tamed woods of England or the orderly plains of France, but real forest, in which the farms and villages are embedded like raisins in a bran muffin. There’s a constant chorus of bird song, even in the middle of the village. The farms look prosperous, well-appointed and scrupulously clean. The houses are charming and well-kept, whether they are ancient stone or newly built.
My breakfast is typically French. I speak with my hosts in French, but they are native speakers of Breton, the Celtic language of Brittany that resembles Welsh, and which only the older generation speaks. When they mention France, their phrasing implies that it’s a foreign country. I have just arrived from France. Both were born a few miles from here. But there is no shortage of French things — the boulangerie with its fresh baguettes, the brasserie, the café. Tomorrow I’ll be deep in that forest.
It’s an idylic atmosphere in which to contemplate the death of a friend.
William H. Patterson, Jr. 1951–2014
William H. Patterson (“Patterbill”) was my friend for a large portion of my life. In the last few decades, we did not often see each other in the flesh, but we kept a steady correspondence and collaborated in projects at a distance. As I was leaving for France, I got the news that Bill had died of a sudden heart attack. He usually kept personal matters to himself, even to the point of secretiveness, so I can’t say if there was any prelude or premonition of the attack. He was not, I knew, in very good health.
Bill’s accomplishments as a writer and scholar I will leave to others to relate in detail. There will soon, no doubt, be numerous reference works tabulating his work and influence. His two-volume life of Robert Heinlein will easily stand among the major works of American literary biography. I’m proud that I contributed to its research and copy-editing. But right now I’m more concerned with the man himself, or more exactly, with the sudden absence of the man himself. I can’t see a good side to that. I am poorer, deprived of an ally, deprived of conversations that won’t happen and insights that will never be made.
Bill was not always lovable. He could be taciturn, stubborn, acerbic and cranky. But in Missouri, where he was born, and the Canadian North, where I was born, these are not usually counted as faults. He was carved from a rough magic. Rather than a smooth glad-handler, he was a man of unimpeachable integrity, driven by honour, and he was unfailingly kind, generous and encouraging to his friends. And he was very, very, very smart. I have not until now experienced the parade of departures that comes with age. This is the first one, and it’s hitting me hard.
I would like to put across to you Bill’s true character, but how to do this? I can only do it indirectly, by using a conceit that I think would amuse him. Do you, perchance, remember the film that was made of Umberto Eco’s historical-philosophical-mystery novel The Name of the Rose? It flopped at the box office, but it was an excellent film, with fine performances by an international cast. One doesn’t usually think of Sean Connery as a great dramatic actor, but he has his moments. In this film, he was brilliant. He played the character of William of Baskerville with sensitivity and understanding. Connery knew what made the character tick.
Sean Connery (right) as William of Baskerville in “The Name of the Rose”
I can’t watch The Name of the Rose without thinking of Patterbill. Connery’s William of Baskerville and nature’s William Patterson are strikingly similar. Whether you knew Bill Patterson or not, I suggest that you dig up that movie and watch it. That’s what I intend to do when I get back home. I’ll watch it with a crême brulé and a snifter of cognac.
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