![\"\"](\"http:\/\/macblog.mcmaster.ca\/fryeblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/4\/2011\/07\/clownnose.jpg\")
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Frye and Barry Callaghan on the back cover of Callaghan’s memoir, <\/em>Barrelhouse Kings.<\/p>\n Today is Frye’s 99th birthday, which means we’re in the run-up to what will undoubtedly be an eventful centenary.<\/p>\n Looking back at our posts for Frye’s 98th birthday on\u00a0July 14, 2010<\/a>, we’re reminded what a busy and eventful time it was.<\/p>\n First of all, it occurred during a rising storm of protest after the University of Toronto announced the closing of the Centre for Comparative Literature, which was founded by Frye. The closure was eventually cancelled, in large part through the efforts of highly dedicated people, like our own Jonathan Allan. Our first post of the day, therefore, was a letter from Bob Denham to U of T President David Naylor<\/a>,\u00a0offering support for the Centre.<\/p>\n Next up was a\u00a0compilation of birthday entries from Frye’s personal diaries<\/a>, as well as many more letters to his fiance, Helen Kemp, covering the period 1932 to 1950; and, finally, selections from his notebooks at the other end of his life.<\/p>\n There then followed a post about the legacy and continuing importance of the Centre for Comparative Literature from Jonthan Allan<\/a>.<\/p>\n <\/a>Then came an update from Dawn Arnold of the Frye Festival<\/a> on the competition for funding of a community project. Moncton’s proposal was to raise a statue of Northrop Frye<\/a> to sit in front of the Moncton Public Library, an institution Frye worked for in his youth. The bid did not succeed, but it was very close. I remain hopeful that, with the centenary approaching, the good people of Moncton will somehow get their wish.<\/p>\n That was followed by a birthday greeting from reader Tamara Kamermans<\/a>, in the form of a novelty video of the Beatles playing “Birthday.”<\/p>\n Finally, a post to round out an eventful day<\/a>: an announcement that the website was now on Facebook<\/a>, and a further announcement of a new addition to our journal, a paper by Ken Paradis<\/a>.<\/p>\n This is a good time to remind readers that we have a dedicated category, Call for Papers<\/a>, which includes solicitations related to the centenary. We also have a separate category, Frye Centenary<\/a>, which we expect will fill with more content as the year progresses.<\/p>\n There’s obviously a story attached to the wonderful photo above, and you can read it after the jump. As it was Alice Munro’s 80th birthday the other day, it’s nice that she appears in it too, along with a number of other Canadian luminaries.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n From Barry Callaghan<\/a>‘s <\/em>Barrelhouse Kings<\/strong><\/p>\n The supper to launch [Morley Callaghan’s]\u00a0A Wild Old Man on the Road<\/a> \u2013\u2013 <\/em>a story about two writers, a meditation on the nature of celebrity, youth and age, fathers and sons, betrayal and love\u2014 was given at George Guernon\u2019s Le Bistingo by General Publishing, his new house headed by my old friend and first publisher, Nelson Doucet. There were some seventy people there . . . the one writer in the country that Morley [Barry\u2019s father] truly admired and felt affection for \u2014\u00a0Alice Munro<\/a> \u2014 and the premier, David Peterson, and Zachary flew in from Saratoga, and\u00a0Peter Gzowski<\/a> and\u00a0Greg Gatenby<\/a>,\u00a0Robert Fulford<\/a> and Northrop Frye all had a chair. In charge of chairs, I had mischievously put the actress\u00a0Gale Garnett<\/a> beside Frye on a banquette. The great scholar, whose public manner was often \u201cshy reluctance\u201d (masking an enthusiasm for the scatological), eyed her ample cleavage. People kept interrupting with \u201cGood evening, Doctor Frye\u201d and \u201cVery pleased, Doctor Frye,\u201d until Gale\u2014a forthright literate woman of gumption, beauty and wit, a trouper in the finest sense (schooled as a girl by\u00a0John Huston<\/a>, a star in\u00a0Hair<\/a><\/em>, a companion to\u00a0Pierre Trudeau<\/a>, a journalist for\u00a0The Village Voice<\/a><\/em>, novelist and a mature actress in fine movies, including\u00a0Mr. and Mrs. Bridge<\/a><\/em>), said, \u201cDoesn\u2019t anyone ever talk to you like a human being?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cNot often,\u201d Frye said.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve a cure for that,\u201d she said, taking two red sponge balls out of her purse. She squeezed one, it opened, and she clamped it on his nose. She damped the other on her own nose and the two sat side-by-side beaming, clowns on a banquette.<\/p>\n A film producer from Amsterdam cried, \u201cNorrie, how are you?\u201d Frye stood up and clasped his hands, saying, \u201cFine, fine.\u201d Gale handed out a half-dozen clown\u2019s noses and soon Greg Gatenby and Francesca Valente, director of the\u00a0Istituto Italiano<\/a>, and Premier Peterson were posing with Frye for snapshots, all clowning, happily wearing red noses.<\/p>\n Frye, sporting a red nose, was strange, but Frye partying among us was more than strange. In graduate school, I had avoided him; I\u2019d thought I smelled the manse on him, the Presbyterian manse.<\/p>\n Then, in the early sixties, when\u00a0Edmund Wilson<\/a> wrote that many of Morley\u2019s \u201ccompatriots seemed incapable of believing that a writer whose work may be mentioned without absurdity in association with\u00a0Chekhov<\/a>\u2019s and\u00a0Turgenev<\/a>\u2019s can possibly be functioning in Toronto\u201d\u2014 the last to come forward and affirm Wilson\u2019s judgment, as far as Morley was concerned, was Northrop Frye. In his roman a clef,\u00a0A Fine and Private Place<\/a><\/em>, he savaged Frye, in the figure of Dr. Morton Hyland.<\/p>\n A few years had passed and I published\u00a0The Hogg Poems<\/a><\/em>. To my astonishment, Frye wrote me enthusiastically about the work and when my second book of poems,\u00a0As Close as We Came<\/em>, appeared in 1982, he offered a fine prose response for use on the book jacket. When we met, he told me how much he admired\u00a0The Black Queen Stories<\/em> and then said, \u201cHow is Morley, he\u2019s been having quite a burst, fucking wonderful?\u201d I nearly fell out of my tree. But when I told Morley that I had been with Frye, he surprised me, too, saying, \u201cHow\u2019s he holding up, his wife has Alzheimer\u2019s, it must be awfully hard on him, all the things he has to say, and no mind or memory in her to hear it. Awfully lonely.\u201d<\/p>\n On a Sunday at noon, Claire and I hosted a brunch at 69 Sullivan:\u00a0Alberto Moravia<\/a>, Northrop Frye, Morley, the French writer\u00a0Alain Elkann<\/a>, Greg Gatenby and Francesca Valente. This was the first time Morley and Frye had found themselves together since the publication of\u00a0A Fine and Private Place<\/em>. It was astonishing. Frye was shy but not in retreat, self-deprecating but only so that he could be in quiet command of his space. Morley \u2014 who could be feisty \u2014 as he talked, kept sweeping his arm toward Frye, like a courtier, as if he wanted to make sure that Moravia, a fellow novelist, would take the unassuming critic seriously, and when it came time to sit down, Morley actually drew Frye\u2019s chair back, gallantly, as if he were the host (of course, one has always to be suspicious of gallantry: is it an admission of superiority or a gesture of disdain, or the blend of both?). It was hilarious and touching and grew more so as the three great men began to quietly explain the world to each other, offering little insights, playful and provocative observations\u2014 three heavyweights flicking ideas like nimble featherweights, tap tap, jab jab, until Morley got around to\u00a0Sophia Loren<\/a> and \u2014 as Morley explained that the mystery of her beautiful face was that everything in it was wrong \u2014 Frye made a loud sensual umming sound. \u201cThe eyes are too far apart, the nose is too big, the mouth too big,\u201d Morley said, \u201cyet she is beautiful, she is her own perfection,\u201d and Moravia, who had a perky light in his old eyes, said, \u201cSi, Si, so much for\u00a0Botticelli<\/a>. . . .\u201d and they laughed loudly as if they had just exchanged an insight on behalf of a beauty that was sensual in all its surprising irregularities, irregularities that had their own harmony . . . and Morley started in on one of his favorite notions: \u201cI\u2019ve been watching all those nature films on television, down deep in the Amazon, all that insect and animal stuff . . . and I\u2019ve been fascinated to see the way a bug can\u2019t be anything other than the bug he was meant to be, living only to realize the beauty of its own form, the form \u2014 whatever it is \u2014 emerging out of itself, completing itself, whether it\u2019s a butterfly or Sophia Loren.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd this is why,\u201d Moravia said, \u201cMichelangelo\u2019s last\u00a0Piet\u00e1<\/a><\/em> is so great, it is like watching a butterfly emerge out of the stone,\u201d and Frye said, \u201cBut this is all I ever meant by archetypes. There are forms, they are in us, they emerge . . . we become who we are.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAnd with all our everyday exercise of the will,\u201d Morley said, \u201cwe become who we were meant to be, freely.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course,\u201d Frye said.<\/p>\n \u201cWell, now. . .\u201d and they paused for dessert.<\/p>\n Within a year, Frye\u2019s wife died.<\/p>\n On several occasions, Claire and I were invited to Branko Gorjup\u2019s and Francesca Valente\u2019s flat to have supper with the lonely old scholar. I picked him up at his house, the rooms all in darkness as he got into his coat or looked for an umbrella. It seemed he was going to live out his life as a solitary man. But then he astonished everyone. He got married, and was quoted in the papers as saying that he\u2019d known Elizabeth since college days when they had dated, but then they had each married, and so it was not until both their spouses were dead that they could get together again, to marry. He had taken her to a hotel in the small town of St. Mary\u2019s where they had had their last college date and he had proposed.<\/p>\n When I saw him next I said, \u201cYou old coot.\u201d<\/p>\n He smiled shyly, tucking his head into his shoulder as he often did and said quietly, \u201cFucking right.\u201d<\/p>\n It was clear: as a wise-acre student I couldn\u2019t have been more wrong: my man from the manse had a quiet liking for four-letter words\u2014and women.<\/p>\n Branko and Francesca held a small post-wedding supper for the couple. What, I wondered, could Claire and I give to elderly newlyweds. I asked Morley. \u201cA truss,\u201d he said, and went off giggling into his kitchen. \u201cHelpful,\u201d I cried, \u201calways helpful, that\u2019s what I like about you.\u201d<\/p>\n He came back carrying a cup of watery instant coffee and said, \u201cGive him what Jack McClelland gave me on my 80th birthday.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cA year\u2019s subscription to\u00a0Playboy<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cJesus, you\u2019re kidding.\u201d \u201cHow could I kid about that?\u201d<\/p>\n In an antique store I found an inlaid and laminated wood kaleidoscope. \u201cFor the visionary critic,\u201d I said triumphantly, and then couldn\u2019t believe my good luck as I picked up a scale-model toy refrigerator from the fifties . . . the motor on the back being a roll of scotch tape, and inside, the eggs were tiny erasers, the steak filets were tiny red marking stickers . . .<\/p>\n Before supper, the gifts were opened. Frye allowed himself a cursory look through the kaleidoscope and reached for the refrigerator. He opened the little door. His face lit up as he spilled the contents into his lap. He took the motor off, put it back. He rubbed an egg-eraser on his wrist as Elizabeth peered through the kaleidoscope, crying, \u201cOh, look at this. Look.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHaw,\u201d he said, pressing a little red sticker to the nail of his forefinger. \u201cLooks like sirloin to me.\u201d We toasted the couple with champagne and Branko called us to table. Frye, on the sofa, did not move, engrossed in trying to get all the pieces back into the refrigerator. In the entrance to the dining room we stood watching him. He knew we were watching him, waiting. Francesca, in this gap of silence, said, \u201cWe should make another very important toast.\u201d She explained that the\u00a0University of Bologna<\/a>, the oldest university in Europe, about to celebrate nine hundred years, was going to mark that celebration in the spring by giving an honorary degree to Frye. \u201cThis is something very special,\u201d she said, lifting her glass. Frye lifted his head, smiled, and all the eraser eggs fell out of the refrigerator into his lap.<\/p>\n Frye went to Bologna with his new wife. I had coffee and biscuits with them there the day after he received his honorary degree. He and his bride were very happy and he chattered to her the whole time. They went off like honey-mooners to Venice. Within the year, she, too, was stricken with Alzheimer\u2019s.<\/p>\n We were asked to rise for a toast at Le Bistingo \u2014 Frye and Gale were wearing the red noses again \u2014 and we raised a glass to Morley: \u201cTo the wild old man,\u201d Nelson Doucet, his new publisher, said, \u201cwho is still on the road.\u201d (When Morley had finished the manuscript for this novel, I found myself conducting a three-way bidding war for the book: Lester & Orpen Dennys, General Publishing and Macmillan, who were trying to buy him back. Morley signed for almost five times more advance money than he had received in Canada before, and I loved the idea that such bidding was rooted in a matter of drinks and biscuits in the Park Plaza Hotel.) Alice Munro took off a long silk scarf and looped it loosely around Morley\u2019s neck and kissed him firmly on the cheek. Commissioned by Doucet, my son Michael had painted the book-jacket\u2019s image of a wild old man on a pink sweatshirt. Morley gave the sweatshirt to Munro who put it on to applause. It was a playful folderol scene . . . Frye wearing his red clown\u2019s nose, Morley wreathed in a long ladies scarf, Munro, breast emblazoned by a wild old man going down the road, and Morley, holding his cane like a hockey player holds a stick when he\u2019s about to cross-check another skater into the boards, stood up as a young writer cried, \u201cWhat do you make of all this, Morley?\u201d \u201cNothing.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCome on, you never make nothing out of anything.\u201d \u201cThere are many, many many eyes,\u201d he said, \u201clike all the eyes on Egyptian tombs and many many people in this world and a thousand ways of looking at things, at life, and everyone should look at life and try and see it for themselves, as their own.\u201d He was about to sit down but then he kept on, liking what he had to say, and so did I because I\u2019d heard him say it before: \u201cA man who has no view, who sees no relationships or no value to relationships, that means he has no way of identifying the fact that he\u2019s ever been in this world. He didn\u2019t make anything out of it. What a terrible thing, to have been dumped on your rusty-dusty in this world for seventy or eighty years and then to come out of this world and somebody sitting outside the Pearly Gates says, \u2018My boy, what do you make of this, the world?\u2019 and you say, \u2018Nothing.\u2019<\/p>\n \u201cSo what do you make of this?\u201d \u201cI told you, nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n To great laughter, he gestured toward Munro and recited like a schoolboy:<\/p>\n