The world recently lost an inspiring teacher and all-round excellent person: Prof. Raymond Furness of the University of St. Andrews.
He was the first German tutor I met at St. Andrews, at a reception for overseas students. I saw “German” on his name tag and said, “Oh!” but when he turned my way I came over all skittish and bolted across the room. Luckily our paths crossed again and he asked me in his usual booming voice what I was studying — he was of course very happy to hear (faintly) that it was German. He asked me about myself and I mentioned my Shetland sheepdog; in every significant conversation we had over the next 6 years, he would ask, “How is your little dog, Tuppence?”
He was our tutor for first-year literature and I’ll never forget the day when, about 10 minutes into class, he realized none of us had actually read the assigned book. He paused and looked at each of us in turn. “Yes, you’re naughty children, aren’t you?” he said, “Well, no need to waste my time with you, I’m going to the pub.” And he put his coat on and walked over to The Central, leaving us to exchange sheepish glances.
If you passed a room where he was teaching, you knew it because some over-the-top comment like “I MEAN LADIES! WOULD YOU REALLY WANT TO SHARE YOUR HUSBAND WITH A DEAD MAN??!?” would be distinctly audible through the door.
His German Expressionism class was a highlight for most honours students, who really got what they came for on the days when he read aloud from Georg Kaiser’s Gas or Arnolt Bronnen’s Vatermord.
In my third year, at a dinner for students in another tutor’s Nietzsche module, someone called him a misogynist so I popped by during his office hours soon afterwards to say, “Hi, Professor Furness, are you a misogynist?” He said he loved women and to prove it, he invited me in for several glasses of sherry and picked my brain for gossip, which was exactly what I had been hoping for.
Ray Furness was in tune with everything that was chthonic, decadent, fatalistic, grandiose, disjointed, or existentially troubling in German arts and letters. You could rely on him to know everything about every famous German or Austrian who had ever gone mad or shot himself in the head. But he was a very nice person. If there’s a heaven, I’m sure he is there playing ping-pong with Max Schreck…or something like that.
Oh, I think I remember him from your graduation. A really charming man who was clearly proud of you. As were your parents.