179. On Not Answering The Telephone. William Plomer Essay Reintroduced By P S Remesh Chandran

179

On Not Answering The Telephone. William Plomer Essay Reintroduced

P. S. Remesh Chandran

Editor, Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum

Article Title Image 1 By Şinasi Müldür. Graphics: Adobe SP.

William Plomer has written a fine article on not answering the telephone, in which he discusses the impact on his mind of telephone, typewriter and car. He used them reluctantly and was eager to avoid them as much as possible. When he often said he was not available on the telephone, people said it was inconvenient, unbelievable and foolish and called him mad. Plomer does not think that phone is essential because he can eat, breathe, sleep and play without it. 

Telephones create unnecessary anxiety, suspense and delay.
 

It creates unnecessary anxiety, suspense and delay and is a pest and time-waster. Public Telephone Booths are unventilated and smoky and people curse you on your back for taking too much time to finish speaking. It is a nuisance since it rings while you are eating, sleeping or bathing. All telephone numbers are wrong numbers since they ring idiotically at wrong hours in a house's privacy. Whatever news is there would reach you anyway, even without a telephone. Good news has begun to seem to be travelling just as fast as ill news. Truth will out anyway. 

Telephone directories invite strangers and criminals to engage you in conversation.
 

Saying Hello to a stranger on the line is unbearable to an Englishman. Printing names on the telephone directory invites strangers and criminals to engage you in conversation. One needn't own a telephone to do so, i.e. to engage you in conversation, since telephone calls can be made from anywhere. Once a well-known actor said that if he was left alone to live on a desert island and allowed to take just one luxury, he would take the telephone with him, for he would be happy that it would never ring in the desert and he would not have to answer it. In spite of its usefulness, dislike of telephone is a universal thing. Closing his article, William Plomer humorously says that his business with the use of words is about to stop as he is wanted on the telephone.

Typewriters ring at the end of each line and heavy traffic and innumerable rules make cars boring.

Plomer dislikes not only telephones, but typewriters and cars also. Typewriters ring at the end of each line. He is not mechanical-minded and does not like cleaning, oiling and mending them. Though he can type well, he enjoys the act of forming letters and words with a pen. Plomer learned to drive at the age of Seventeen in South Africa. He often drove very fast and soon the speedometer of his car was broken. Rock, mud and sand did not prevent him from driving carefully. He never injured or killed anyone anyway. But heavy traffic and the innumerable rules and regulations to be followed while driving made him bored. 

Whenever he touches machines, they tend to break down, catch fire or blow up.

Though he condemns telephones, typewriters and cars, Plomer says that he is not an escapist, crank or a simple-lifer who is trying to put the clock of modernity back. He just wishes not to be dominated by machines and avoids them wherever possible. He hates machines and the machines him. When he touches them, they tend to break down, catch fire or blow up. 

THE LIFE AND WORKS OF WILLIAM PLOMER.

The literary editor who recognized the James Bond series by Ian Fleming.

William Charles Franklyn Plomer 1903-1973 was a Transvaal-born South African novelist, poet, short story writer and literary editor who later left South Africa to live in Japan and then in England. He used the pseudonym Robert Pagan occasionally. In England Plomer worked as literary editor for the famous publishers Faber & Faber and Jonathan Cape. He was the first one to recognize the sales potential of Ian Fleming’s James Bond novels and the first editor of this series, and Goldfinger is dedicated to him. Plomer was an active contributor to BBC also. 

Awards, honours and knighthood.

Plomer was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in1951, president of the Poetry Society in 1958, awarded honorary D. Litt. by the University of Durham in 1959, won the Queen's Gold Medal for Poetry in 1963, and awarded the order Commander of the British Empire (CBE), the third highest in the order, in 1968. 

Novels, poems, short stories and autobiography written by William Plomer.

Turbott Wolfe, The Invaders, The Case Is Altered and Museum Pieces are the novels written by William Plomer. The Family Tree, The Fivefold Screen, Visiting The Caves, In A Bombed House, Taste And Remember and A Choice Of Ballads are his poetry collections. His short stories are compiled in I Speak Of Africa, Paper Houses, The Child Of Queen Victoria and Four Countries. Double Lives is his autobiography. His other works including essays were collected and published as Electric Delights in 1978 which included the essay, On Not Answering the Telephone.

Article Title Image 2 By ID 526663. Graphics: Adobe SP.

 
Written in: December 1995 

First published on: 07 December 2019 
 

Tags:
 
Answering Telephone, Driving, Escapist, Machine Domination, Mechanical Minded, Phone Directory, Saying Hallo, Telephone Booths, Telephone Ringing, Telephone Typewriter Car, William Plomer,

About the Author P. S. Remesh Chandran:

Author Profile Of P S Remesh Chandran By Sahyadri Archives.

Editor of Sahyadri Books & Bloom Books, Trivandrum. Author of several books in English and in Malayalam. And also author of Swan: The Intelligent Picture Book. Born and brought up in the beautiful village of Nanniyode in the Sahya Mountain Valley in Trivandrum, in Kerala. Father British Council trained English teacher and Mother University educated. Matriculation with distinction and Pre Degree Studies in Science with National Merit Scholarship. Discontinued Diploma studies in Electronics and entered politics. Unmarried and single.

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Post: P. S. Remesh Chandran, Editor, Sahyadri Books, Trivandrum, Padmalayam, Nanniyode, Pacha Post, Trivandrum- 695562, Kerala State, South India.