Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1313317
10 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 29 NOVEMBER 2020 Raphael Vassallo OPINION There goes a thinking man… THERE are probably a good many reasons why I shouldn't write any form of tribute to Prof. Oliver Friggieri. For start- ers, I can't exactly claim to have known the man: even if… in a funny, roundabout kind of way… I sometimes felt I did: if even just a little. Looking back, I realise that this has much to do with the many, many times our paths had crossed over the years. Quite literally, I might add: Prof. Friggieri was a constant pres- ence at University throughout the years I frequented it, back in the 1990s. Besides, my father and he were colleagues in the Faculty of Arts for (quite liter- ally) as long as I can remember. Their offices were, in fact, just a couple of doors apart down the same corridor… So we certainly 'knew' each other well enough to acknowl- edge our mutual existence with a nod – maybe even a smile, sometimes – whenever we passed each other by on the stairs of the Old Humanities. Or at least: on those occasions when he wasn't so deeply lost in thought, that he probably wouldn't even have noticed be- ing attacked by a sabre-toothed tiger… still less, being nodded-at by a random (albeit vaguely fa- miliar) student on campus… Ah, but that, too, is enough to form at least an opinion of sorts. Actually, it accounts for both my first impression of Oli- ver Friggieri, all those years ago; and also, my last thoughts on reading of his passing this week. 'There goes a thinking man'. (For so they all are, they who mumble to themselves while walking. They are, all of them, 'thinking men' …) Not, of course, that this need- ed any confirmation: there was (and still is) his prodigious output – as a poet, novelist, short-story-writer, and not least as an academic – to bespeak it on his behalf. But this, too, I felt I only ev- er knew from a distance. Like everyone else my age, I had to read at least one of his books – a collection of short stories called 'Stejjer Ghal Qabel Jidlam' – at school; and while that is cer- tainly not enough to judge an author's entire career upon… truth be told, some of the men- tal images I took away from that experience – well over 30 years ago – still linger with me to this very day. Like Barabba, for instance: the village undertaker who devel- oped such a morbid obsession with his own death, that he slept with his own coffin underneath his bed… That single image haunted me for years, you know. Barab- ba himself would even pay me the occasional visit in my sleep: rising out of his coffin, like a homegrown version of Nosfer- atu… Which almost makes me won- der: could Oliver Friggieri pos- sibly have been influenced by Bela Lugosi, star of the 1931 movie version, who famously became so obsessed with the role that he, too, slept in his coffin (and eventually even got buried in his Dracula cape)? It is, of course, one of those things that is impossible to ever know, now. But even just asking the question makes me realise that – years before discovering Edgar Allen Poe, Dario Argen- to, or even Resident Evil – my first true taste of the macabre (and, subsequently, horror) was actually that Maltese school- book I so reluctantly had to read way back in, I think, Form Two (without, at the time, knowing anything about its author at all). By any standard, that is the mark of good literature: though I regret to have to also add that (apart from using his Maltese dictionary a LOT over the years) I never really got round to read- ing any of his other works: ex- cept maybe a few random po- ems here and there. But the point I'm trying to make is that: none of the above places me in any position to say very much about Oliver Friggie- ri at all… still less, to add to the voluminous eulogies by people who knew him much better. Yet strangely, that is precisely what I feel compelled to do right now… if nothing else, because… … try as I might, I can't re- member the last time so much genuine national respect (not to say 'grief') was accorded to someone whose accomplish- ments were, ultimately, aca- demic in nature. And it's not just because of the State-organised funeral, ei- ther… though that was, in itself, a rather nice touch. No, I reckon it's more to do with the fact that – and here I might be speaking only for my- self; and even then, only from a professional perspective – the passing of someone like Oliver Friggieri also brings with it a genuine sense of loss…which goes far beyond any personal feelings of bereavement (which, in any case, I myself have no jus- tifiable reason to feel). But that sense of loss? I do feel that, in a small way. And this is also what struck me most about the many, many obituaries and tributes that came pouring in, from all angles, over the past few days. Clearly, I'm not the only one. There are, after all, only so many academic authorities, on so many subjects, in the world: and when the subject just hap- pens to be your own country's language and literature; and when – not to suggest that there aren't any other experts out there, or anything – the sin- gle-handed contribution of that one academic has been so over- whelmingly huge… …to be perfectly frank, the loss feels almost irreplaceable (re- gardless whether Oliver Friggie- ri himself, in his final years, was in any condition to contribute any further or not). And yes: I'll admit this may reflect more of a concern with up-coming generations, than with the one that is slowly eclipsing…. but then again, it's just as true of my own genera- tion, too (and we all know it). To put it simply: Oliver Friggie- ri was undeniably the product of a more rigorous, disciplined academic process than anything we are used to today. And boy, did it show… If nothing else, it shows in that dictionary he compiled: which means that even I - who have read next to nothing of his en- tire output – can easily see it, right now, with own two eyes. My own copy is staring back at me from the bookcase even as I write (somewhat reproachful- ly, I might add: which is hardly surprising, seeing as I broke its spine several years ago… and never really apologised.) Now: I don't want to be too unkind to lexicographical ef- forts preceding Prof Friggieri's magnum opus – especially given all the years of amusement they have afforded, to generations of naughty schoolboys who on- ly ever used them to look up 'rude words' (of which, in any case, we all knew the meaning anyway) – but with Friggieri's dictionary, you not only got the precise meaning of the word in question ('rude' or otherwise): you also got its etymology – in the original Arabic script, where applicable – as well as an indication of the precise di- alect from where it emerged… how the meaning evolved over time… cross-references to other alternative interpretations (on the frequent occasions where claims have been disputed, and counter-disputed, etc.)… dis- tinctions between archaic in- stances, and current usage… In brief, you got academe: and with it, a tiny glimpse, through a little chink in the wall, of a much vaster reality than you had ever previously imagined. So even that naughty school- boy, giggling and guffawing away to discover that (for in- stance) a certain Maltese ana- tomical term (currently much in use, to describe people you don't particularly like very much) is actually an ancient Arabic term for… erm… 'bird's nest'…