London, March 2004 (page 8 of 8)
Culture, Part Two: Museums and Literary
From low culture to high culture. We did visit a few museums in London, as well as some more unique literary landmarks. As I mentioned before, when we crossed the Millennium Bridge, we were just in front of the Tate Modern. Before we left, everyone told us that we HAD to visit the Tate Modern. It’s just SO GOOD. Well, I have to say that in some ways they were right. The scone with clotted cream and preserves was one of the best things I ate in England. After our snack, Edie and I decided that we might as well see an exhibit or two while we were there. The Tate is unique in that it organized art by theme instead of by artist. It has a good collection of modern art, but I felt it was underwhelming. The building was impressive (a converted factory), but not more impressive than Dia: Beacon. The art was good, but not better than the Guggenheim. I love modern art, but the Tate isn’t better than New York’s best. It was fun, but not uniquely
London, and therefore probably something I won’t be rushing back to.
Something that I do love and will rush back to every time I’m in London is the British Museum. One of my fondest memories from my previous visit was seeing the Rosetta Stone. I’ve always been fascinated by the near eastern cultures, and the Rosetta Stone is the highlight of the near eastern collection. It was under glass this time, an understandable change from my earlier visit, but no less astounding. Regarding the rest of the museum, we disregarded every tourbook’s advice (which amounts to: pick one or two things, and concentrate on them). We ran through the museum hitting the Greek and Roman collections, pre-Roman British artifacts, mummies, post-Roman British artifacts, and anything else that looked interesting. Our visit was not deep, but was very wide.
A more welcome change to the museum since my last visit was the new atrium in the center of the museum. A huge glass ceiling enclosed the center of the museum; I don’t remember what was there before, but it certainly wasn’t there when I previously visited. It was astounding. In the center of the atrium was the British Museum’s reading room, a huge dome whose edges were filled with books. Hard to describe, but awe inspiring. The pictures don’t do it justice.
One museum that I didn’t visit last time but put on my own must-see list for this trip was the British Library. I love looking at old books, which might explain why I find the Rosetta Stone so powerful. If you have any interest at all in printed material, I cannot recommend a trip to the British Library highly enough. The gallery started with Biblical manuscripts. Sure, they have a Gutenberg Bible, but who doesn’t? The really neat stuff was the Codex Sinaiticus AND the Codex Alexandrinus, two
of the oldest extant Greek Biblical manuscripts. They displayed a first folio, hand written Beatles lyrics, a typewritten Virginia Woolf manuscript, a scrawled page from Joyce’s original Finnegan’s Wake manuscript, and much, much more. If you have any interest in literary artifacts, the British Library is a must visit. It was one of the highlights of the trip.
Visiting the museum and seeing the Virginia Woolf manuscript gave me an idea. The caption of the manuscript mentioned that Virginia Woolf was born in a home on Hyde Park Gate. Since she is one of our favorite authors (and is especially loved by Edie), I thought it would be nice to see where she lived on our last day in London. We had bought a biography in the library gift shop that confirmed the information and gave a street number: 22 Kensington Place.
One of the nice ways that London integrates its history into the current day is to display blue plaques on buildings that once housed historic figures. For example, the building next to our hotel had a plaque commemorating Winston Churchill. They’re all over the city, and most are for people that I have never heard of. Edie and I were certain that we would be getting to see Virginia Woolf’s plaque. (I know, you can see where this is going. Bear with me.) We walked down two adjacent streets, both of which were Hyde Park Gate, before finding number 22. The building was
covered with scaffolding, and there was a blue plaque! Unfortunately, it was for Leslie Stephen. Leslie Stephen! Who is this Leslie Stephen character that she’s more famous than Virginia Woolf!?!
In our outrage and indignation, we did not pause long enough to realize that Leslie Stephen was Virginia Woolf’s father. Undeterred, we went back to the biography for a second look. 29 Fitzroy Square was our second destination, and it was there that we found success. Under a non-blue plaque giving dates of residence for George Bernard Shaw was Virginia Woolf’s blue plaque. We walked around Fitzroy square and headed off to Geale’s for the best fish and chips of the week. A fitting end to our trip.
As always, questions, comments, criticism accepted: mpd@mattereaterlad.com
