The novel can be read as an amusing comedy, or as an acidulous critique of the contrary, even destructive, forces at large in the museum world.. The Man Who Lost His Language

John Hale was one of the golden boys of 20th-century England. He enjoyed a carefree childhood in the Kent countryside in the Twenties, and loved his time at public school – years devoted to bird-watching, exploring French and Spanish literature, and immersing himself in the history of art. Because of the war he postponed his entry to Oxford, and at 18 became a radio operator in the Merchant Navy.

He was ridiculously handsome in his officer’s uniform, but managed to relish the chaste routine of life at sea, as well as the opposite pleasures of shore leave in Brooklyn, Sydney or Cape Town.
When peace came he threw himself into student life, making a name for himself as a glamorous actor. He looked so good that he was offered the male lead in The Blue Lagoon alongside Jean Simmons. But he chose history over histrionics, and became a mirthful Oxford don instead.As an academic he was a paragon of effortless excellence. It was as if he had been born knowing all about Italian art, and he was a natural writer too.

He turned out monographs and textbooks, and charmed a large public with grand lectures and urbane appearances on radio and TV. Above all he had a talent for enjoying himself – smoking, drinking, talking, laughing and joking. He was good, it seems, at absolutely everything, not least the arcane Oxfordian art of stammering self-deprecation.In 1964 he became a foundation professor of history at Warwick, moving to London University in 1970 and becoming a formidable chair of the Trustees of the National Gallery. He was knighted in 1984, and retired four years later, immediately setting to work on his monumental masterpiece, The Civilization of Europe in the Renaissance. He said it was a hard book to write, but the manuscript, complete with hundreds of illustrations, was delivered exactly on time, in June 1992. He may have been nearly 70, but he was still a golden boy.Exactly a month later, Professor Sir John Hale was lying flat on his back in his study, with an infantile smile on his face, and whispering a phrase that sounded like “the walls” or “the wars” or at any rate “da woahs”.