Michael Henderson

Philip Roth has died at the age of 85. Here Michael Henderson pays tribute to the American author: It became a cliché to call him the finest living American novelist, but that is what he was. Philip Roth stands without embarrassment alongside the major figures of American fiction, going back to Mark Twain, and while few literary reputations are set in stone it is a fair bet that his novels will be read generations from now by book-lovers who want to understand something of Jewish American life in the second half of the 20th century. It is certainly true that only Jewish America could have produced a writer like Roth.

Paul Johnson once wrote that the ability to say ‘really’ in 12 different ways was the birthright of every true Englishman, or woman. Really rather awkward. Really dreadful. Really good effort. Really went to town. I know him really well. Did she really mean that? I mean, really! One word, many meanings. ‘Ghastly’ is another thoroughly English word, in tone and application. Its meaning is implicit, rather than explicit. It’s a word shared by people of similar (that is to say, well-brought-up) backgrounds, which makes it all the more surprising that Tatler magazine, which likes to present itself as a guide for metropolitan smarties, has declared ghastly to be ‘unfashionable’.

Down a lane in Keighley, in the old West Riding of Yorkshire, they brew the greatest ale in the world. Timothy Taylor, the brewery is called, or Timmy Taylor’s, should you feel sufficiently familiar. And if you are not familiar with the ales brewed by these modest Yorkies, you’re clearly not an ale-drinker. And if you’re not an ale-drinker then you’re not properly English. Modest Yorkies, you may say: that’s a new one. Well, they are. If you excel as they do, you don’t need to blow your own trumpet. Paul Tortelier, the great French cellist, was once asked to nominate his favourite composer. ‘Bach,’ he replied. ‘And if any musician tells you different, he is lying.

It has been a strange week in Munich; a week of deceptively cool mornings, afternoons hot enough to fry eggs and thunderstorms at twilight that have turned streets into streams. A week of reflection, too, capped last Sunday by a service of remembrance in the cathedral, attended by Chancellor Merkel, to honour the nine young lives taken in the shooting at the shopping centre which sent a tremor through Freistaat Bayern, and through the nation. One more tremor. It has been the summer of terror in Bavaria. Würzburg, Ansbach, Munich. But the Münchners have taken it well, in as much as one ever takes these things well. Along Maximilianstrasse, where the rich play; by the banks of the River Isar; in the lush acres of the Englischer Garten, life has gone on.

England’s cricketers won a remarkable Test match inside three days in the bearpit of Johannesburg, a victory that put them 2-0 up in the four-match series, with only the final Test to play. It is a remarkable achievement by Alastair Cook’s team because, before a ball had been bowled, most judges expected South Africa, the No. 1 ranked team in the world, to claim another triumph by right. In particular it was a wonderful tribute to the public schools which sharpened the skills of the star players. Stuart Broad, who took six prime wickets for only 17 runs on that tumultuous third day, reducing South Africa’s second innings to rubble, was educated at Oakham. Joe Root, who scored a superb century to set up the bowlers, was a sixth-former at Worksop College.

This time last year, England’s cricketers were 2-0 up against Australia, two thirds of the way towards their third consecutive series victory in sport’s longest-established international contest. Not quite top of the world, they were nevertheless a good team in the prime of life. The winter before, they had beaten India on their dusty pitches, quite an achievement. What a falling-off there has been. Since the turn of the year, England have lost Graeme Swann, Jonathan Trott and Kevin Pietersen, three senior players, to retirement, mental fragility and banishment. They have also lost seven of their last nine Test matches, the latest against India at Lord’s by 95 runs after they had won an important toss.

Prague, ‘Golden Prague’, is rich in music, architecture, glassware, pilsner and natural beauty. It is one of those places where laughter — innocent laughter, not laughter in the dark — seems a natural response. It is a playful city, and the people are playful, gentle, ironic. Above all, it is a writer’s city. The Czechs, be they Bohemians or Moravians, have literature in their blood. Tomas Masaryk, the first president of Czechoslovakia, was a philosopher. Vaclav Havel, first president of the Czech Republic, was a playwright. And the most famous Czech of all, Franz Kafka, whose name has entered the language, was a novelist; a Prague novelist. ‘The spirit of Prague’, Ivan Klima has called it.

It lies rigged and fully masted in the harbour, the Ship of Fools, and soon it will be crewed by some of our favourite smarties. Is that Shami Chakrabarti charging down the gangway? It surely is. Those sharp elbows can be identified at a hundred paces. And is she being followed by Hanif Kureishi and Jeanette Winterson, eyes bulging like bulldog's whatsits? Yes, they're on parade too. Oh look, they've brought a chaplain, the Rev Giles Fraser. All shipshape and Bristol-fashion. Now they can cast off. If a person may be judged by the quality of his enemies then Michael Gove currently rests only slightly lower than the angels.

‘If you want to send a message,’ said Sam Goldwyn, one of the men who invented Hollywood, ‘try Western Union.’ It is such a well-known remark one might have thought every film-maker of the past 50 years would have acted upon it. Not Ken Loach. After half a century of fighting the good fight on behalf of the poor, down-trodden working class, the grumpy Oxford graduate releases his latest film this week. Don’t all rush at once. Jimmy’s Hall, it will surprise nobody who has followed Loach’s work over the years to learn, pits an Irish socialist recently returned from America against the local priest.

For Henry James it was ‘the repository of consolations’. Wordsworth, an earlier visitor, called it ‘the eldest child of liberty’. Ruskin, a self-professed ‘foster child of Venice’, dedicated his life to study of its buildings. Wagner and Browning died there, and Stravinsky left instructions to be buried there, in the island cemetery of San Michele, near the resting place of his friend and mentor Sergei Diaghilev. La Serenissima, which held the East in fee, is a city like no other. The Republic of Venice may have been ground under Bonaparte’s jackboot in 1797 but its independence of mind and spirit lives in the hearts and minds of all who have fallen under the spell of Saint Mark’s winged lion.