{"id":5499,"date":"2014-04-26T16:45:14","date_gmt":"2014-04-26T20:45:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=5499"},"modified":"2018-08-24T15:59:50","modified_gmt":"2018-08-24T19:59:50","slug":"saturday-april-25-2014-saint-barthelelmy-morbihan-bretagne-france","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/?p=5499","title":{"rendered":"Saturday, April 26, 2014 \u2014 Saint-Barth\u00e9lelmy, Morbihan, Bretagne, France"},"content":{"rendered":"

A church bell tolls in the Bre\u00adton vil\u00adlage of Saint-Barth\u00e9le\u00admy. It rained last night. Today it\u2019s cool, and the blue sky is bro\u00adken up by rapid\u00adly mov\u00ading clouds. The view from the win\u00addow is calm\u00ading. Brit\u00adtany is a land of Ozark-like hills and hol\u00adlows. There are plen\u00adty of trees. Not the tamed woods of Eng\u00adland or the order\u00adly plains of France, but real for\u00adest, in which the farms and vil\u00adlages are embed\u00added like raisins in a bran muf\u00adfin. There\u2019s a con\u00adstant cho\u00adrus of bird song, even in the mid\u00addle of the vil\u00adlage. The farms look pros\u00adper\u00adous, well-appoint\u00aded and scrupu\u00adlous\u00adly clean. The hous\u00ades are charm\u00ading and well-kept, whether they are ancient stone or new\u00adly built. <\/span><\/p>\n

My break\u00adfast is typ\u00adi\u00adcal\u00adly French. I speak with my hosts in French, but they are native speak\u00aders of Bre\u00adton, the Celtic lan\u00adguage of Brit\u00adtany that resem\u00adbles Welsh, and which only the old\u00ader gen\u00ader\u00ada\u00adtion speaks. When they men\u00adtion France, their phras\u00ading implies that it\u2019s a for\u00adeign coun\u00adtry. I have just arrived from<\/em> France. Both were born a few miles from here. But there is no short\u00adage of French things \u2014 the boulan\u00adgerie with its fresh baguettes, the brasserie, the caf\u00e9. Tomor\u00adrow I\u2019ll be deep in that forest.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s an idylic atmos\u00adphere in which to con\u00adtem\u00adplate the death of a friend. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"William<\/a>

William H. Pat\u00adter\u00adson, Jr. 1951\u20132014<\/p><\/div>\n

William H. Pat\u00adter\u00adson (\u201cPat\u00adter\u00adbill\u201d) was my friend for a large por\u00adtion of my life. In the last few decades, we did not often see each oth\u00ader in the flesh, but we kept a steady cor\u00adre\u00adspon\u00addence and col\u00adlab\u00ado\u00adrat\u00aded in projects at a dis\u00adtance. As I was leav\u00ading for France, I got the news that Bill had died of a sud\u00adden heart attack. He usu\u00adal\u00adly kept per\u00adson\u00adal mat\u00adters to him\u00adself, even to the point of secre\u00adtive\u00adness, so I can\u2019t say if there was any pre\u00adlude or pre\u00admo\u00adni\u00adtion of the attack. He was not, I knew, in very good health.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bil\u00adl\u2019s accom\u00adplish\u00adments as a writer and schol\u00adar I will leave to oth\u00aders to relate in detail. There will soon, no doubt, be numer\u00adous ref\u00ader\u00adence works tab\u00adu\u00adlat\u00ading his work and influ\u00adence. His two-vol\u00adume life of Robert Hein\u00adlein will eas\u00adi\u00adly stand among the major works of Amer\u00adi\u00adcan lit\u00ader\u00adary biog\u00adra\u00adphy. I\u2019m proud that I con\u00adtributed to its research and copy-edit\u00ading. But right now I\u2019m more con\u00adcerned with the man him\u00adself, or more exact\u00adly, with the sud\u00adden absence of the man him\u00adself. I can\u2019t see a good side to that. I am poor\u00ader, deprived of an ally, deprived of con\u00adver\u00adsa\u00adtions that won\u2019t hap\u00adpen and insights that will nev\u00ader be made. <\/span><\/p>\n

Bill was not always lov\u00adable. He could be tac\u00adi\u00adturn, stub\u00adborn, acer\u00adbic and cranky. But in Mis\u00adsouri, where he was born, and the Cana\u00addi\u00adan North, where I was born, these are not usu\u00adal\u00adly count\u00aded as faults. He was carved from a rough mag\u00adic. Rather than a smooth glad-han\u00addler, he was a man of unim\u00adpeach\u00adable integri\u00adty, dri\u00adven by hon\u00adour, and he was unfail\u00ading\u00adly kind, gen\u00ader\u00adous and encour\u00adag\u00ading to his friends. And he was very, very, very smart. I have not until now expe\u00adri\u00adenced the parade of depar\u00adtures that comes with age. This is the first one, and it\u2019s hit\u00adting me hard.<\/span><\/p>\n

I would like to put across to you Bil\u00adl\u2019s true char\u00adac\u00adter, but how to do this? I can only do it indi\u00adrect\u00adly, by using a con\u00adceit that I think would amuse him. Do you, per\u00adchance, remem\u00adber the film that was made of Umber\u00adto Eco\u2019s his\u00adtor\u00adi\u00adcal-philo\u00adsoph\u00adi\u00adcal-mys\u00adtery nov\u00adel The Name of the Rose<\/em>? It flopped at the box office, but it was an excel\u00adlent film, with fine per\u00adfor\u00admances by an inter\u00adna\u00adtion\u00adal cast. One does\u00adn\u2019t usu\u00adal\u00adly think of Sean Con\u00adnery as a great dra\u00admat\u00adic actor, but he has his moments. In this film, he was bril\u00adliant. He played the char\u00adac\u00adter of William of Baskerville with sen\u00adsi\u00adtiv\u00adi\u00adty and under\u00adstand\u00ading. Con\u00adnery knew what made the char\u00adac\u00adter tick.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Sean<\/a>

Sean Con\u00adnery (right) as William of Baskerville in \u201cThe Name of the Rose\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

I can\u2019t watch The Name of the Rose<\/em> with\u00adout think\u00ading of Pat\u00adter\u00adbill. Con\u00adnery\u2019s William of Baskerville and nature\u2019s William Pat\u00adter\u00adson are strik\u00ading\u00adly sim\u00adi\u00adlar. Whether you knew Bill Pat\u00adter\u00adson or not, I sug\u00adgest that you dig up that movie and watch it. That\u2019s what I intend to do when I get back home. I\u2019ll watch it with a cr\u00eame brul\u00e9<\/em> and a snifter of cognac. <\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A church bell tolls in the Bre\u00adton vil\u00adlage of Saint-Barth\u00e9le\u00admy. It rained last night. Today it\u2019s cool, and the blue sky is bro\u00adken up by rapid\u00adly mov\u00ading clouds. The view from the win\u00addow is calm\u00ading. Brit\u00adtany is a land of Ozark-like hills and hol\u00adlows. There \u2026<\/p>\n

Read more \u00bb<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,940,948,944],"tags":[1469,1454,1445,1442,1471,1470,1456,1468],"class_list":["post-5499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-a-blog","category-am-blog-2014","category-d-viewing","category-dm-viewing-2014","tag-bill-patterson","tag-breton-language","tag-brittany","tag-morbihan","tag-name-of-the-rose","tag-patterbill","tag-saint-barthelemy","tag-william-h-patterson"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5499"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5499\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9849,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5499\/revisions\/9849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.philpaine.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}