She was known to me only through her
writing and immaculate research, which I discovered belatedly. And only after my belaboured efforts, based
partly on her work, were complete and gone to the printers, did I discover her
words about portraying – or betraying - history.
“At
the root of what I was doing was the problem:–
Should history rely only on accurate, scientific scholarship, or does
the historian also require a writer’s skill to re-animate the past? I was
certain the latter was true.”
Phyllis Lewsen’s dilemma was whether
to add to her huge task of collating the papers of J X Merriman – by writing
a biography of the man. Did her literary effort ‘pollute’ the record?
I had already experienced, before
reading her views on the matter, her dilemma – on a worse scale: If I added fictional characters to observe
her same slice of history through different eyes – would that pollute the
record? And when I was persuaded that
my ‘Greek Chorus’ was bloodless, and required humanising – would full-blooded
fictive characters stain the record?
Fortunately, Phyllis Lewsen’s work,
much of it published ironically by the Van Riebeeck Society which J X Merriman
founded, is priceless, for it offers a clear, undistorted window on South
Africa. It provides a strictly factual portrayal of white politicians in their
‘struggle for independence’- and power – a century ago.
Thus, the record stands. The rest is
animation… a difference that might be likened to the difference between a Greek
acropolis and a Greek tragedy – or a Greek statue and a Greek comedy - one
might say.
“Phyllis Lewsen? Our paths crossed for
about 50 years,” Helen Suzman told me in the 1990s, soon after the historian’s
death. “We were political opponents once, but became great friends.”
Helen, the Progressive, brilliant and
witty loner, was challenged at the heart of her Houghton constituency by
Phyllis’s husband, Jack, the leading contender of the Liberal Party. Helen kept
her parliamentary seat. Lewsen kept his
election deposit – the only Liberal candidate to do so in 1957. The latter says much about white South
African voters.
Phyllis Lewsen’s research interests
focused mainly on the life and times of John X. Merriman - a paradoxical
libertarian and brilliant parliamentarian who was opposed both to caucusing and
to a rigid political party system. Her
biography of him – published after the four-volume collation of his documents –
was “one of the crowning achievements of a long and distinguished career,”
according to her publishers, A D Donker andYale University Press. Indeed, her biography gave point to a lifetime of invaluable study
and editing.
Here are brief details about the author
of J X Merriman’s biography: She was born on a farm in the western
Transvaal and was educated at Potchefstroom
Girls High School and the University of the Witwatersrand, where she
took her first, temporary, teaching post in 1942, in the English department.
She moved to the History department after two years, occupying many temporary
posts while raising a family, and became a member of the permanent staff in
1965, as lecturer. Two years later she was elevated to the rank of Senior
Lecturer, and in 1974 to that of Associate
Professor and Reader in Cape Parliamentary History. In 1975 she won the coveted Pringle Award of the
English Academy, for the best published review of the year. In 1981 she was
awarded the rare distinction of the D.Litt. of her university
(for this biographical study, together with her edition of Selections
from the Correspondence
of John X. Merriman) and, on her
retirement, the post of Honorary Research Fellow.
