It comes as a shock when you find out that someone you thought of as a humorless and overly concerned with his image at University has become someone with something of a reputation. Now Andrew O’Hagan, the apparently acclaimed Scots novelist, and I studied English together at Strathclyde University, and by studied I mean he did well and I didn’t.
I guess I was one of those people who takes their time to find out what he wants to make of his life, which is part of the reasoning behind this blog. Andrew on the other hand always seemed to know what he was doing and where he was going. Sour grapes it certainly is to a certain extent, since I’ve been little more than a global dilettante, but then again..
What I remember of Andrew was that he was one of those people who are perplexed by wit and resent it to a certain extent. Sure he was smart, but when it came to the parry and ripostes of banter he was a paraplegic. I remember even then he was talking about his interest in people who disappear off the face of the earth, It was apparently the subject of his first novel. I should get around to reading that. I need to find out if my dislike of this man, which was visceral when I encountered him but who I otherwise ignored, is someone that I judged too harshly. I was a lot more judgmental in those days and the feelings that I dredge up on seeing his name once more are the feelings of a younger and altogether sharper and more judgmental person than I am today. That could lead on to a long piece about the nature of experience but I’ll leave the idea of what the experiences framed by the different people we were then actually are to another day.
I also remember in the pub he seem perplexed that I could talk to the mature female students and make them laugh. They never seemed to have much time for him as I recall. His brow darkened still further I think when he watched me with them. For my part I tended to notice that his shoe leather and bag were exactly the same color. His bag was one of those writer’s bags, you know the ones with the bronze clasps that professors carry, and his shoes were those light brown hush puppy type things. I wonder even now whether he tries that hard to present himself in the clothes of the learned and the intelligentsia. I thought it shallow at the time. I see his photo on a webpage though and I suspect that little has changed. There are the author photos were they come across as easy going and approachable. There are the author photos were they come across as the kind of person who puts his hand on his chin moments before shutter clicks seemingly asking themselves if they will look intelligent enough. Sadly Andrew falls into the latter category, which leads me to suspect that time has not worked its magic on his personality to the extent where I would actually like him now.
But then again you never know.
I doubt he’s thought about me in the intervening years as much as I’ve thought about him, which is maybe fleetingly once a year. For me Andrew O’ Hagan pretty much encapsulated everything I didn’t like about University. I found him self-centered, image conscious, humorless and with no room for doubt in his opinions. On the other hand it seems to have worked well for him. Maybe I should just wish him well and get back to figuring out what I really want to do with my life? Perhaps he was on the right side of things and I was not. Who can know such things? But I will still wonder…
