A.N. Wilson

Escape into happiness

issue 11 November 2006

The central and the longest part of this all too brief memoir concerns a boarding school in Scotland, the Benedictine Abbey of Fort Augustus.

The day-to-day atmosphere of the school was philistine, though the Abbey was not … Most of the boys were Scottish thugs or colonial expatriates, and some of the masters seemed to me certifiably mad … I became a crippling snob in self-defence, and this caused a regrettable narrowing of sympathies which only London eventually erased. I learnt one new thing there — hate … I am often struck by the blandness of other people, with their vacant, trusting countenances. They were not tormented by ‘Dolly’ MacKenzie and his fellow prefects.

This is a painful book to read, but it is also a glorious one, since it is ultimately an escape story. It leads in a very decided direction, namely the discovery that aesthetic passion, especially for architecture, can shape a human life, and bring satisfaction, even a degree of happiness.

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