The pinnacle

Posted by admin on Apr 12, 2006 in Academy | 0 comments

Thirty-one years after he joined the faculty of what was Trinity Western College as the head of the English department, Dr. John Anonby is retiring. He is somewhat of a legend to the many English alumni who have sat in his classes over the years. Dr. Anonby’s gentle persona and deep passion for literature, along with his penchant for puns and mountain climbing has made him a professor to remember.

To listen to Dr. Anonby describe his love for literature is to listen to an eloquent description of the man himself. “Literature is open-ended and multidimensional; there is a freedom in it,” he says, leaning back in his chair in RNT. “Literature contains a synthesis of culture in a way that no other discipline does.”

Dr. Anonby’s office walls are evidence of a life lived by this philosophy. His own stunning photography of Kenya, Norway, New Zealand, Australia, Hawaii. and B.C. hang in neat rows. His books share space with snapshots of family and views from his beloved mountains. This spring Dr. Anonby will be taking the volumes and the photos home with him, though he is certainly not slowing down at all. His interests are as varied as the photos on the wall.

“I’m switching gears,” he says with quiet enthusiasm. His to-do list includes finishing an introduction for a soon-to-be published book on Kenyan author Ngugi, and a wish to publish his music, which has been performed in Canada and overseas. He won’t be sticking close to home, either. “We are going back to Kenya,” he says, “and we intend to keep climbing.”

Students of Dr. Anonby’s literature classes are familiar with his love of climbing. I remember a Romantic literature class in which Dr. Anonby perfectly illustrated Shelley’s “Mont Blanc” with crisp slides of his hikes. He has climbed peaks on all continents but Antartica, though he says that his favourite climb is still the Kootenay Rockies, where he grew up. Dr. Anonby has described his love of climbing as “an attempt to find the paradise that was lost. I believe mountains are the remnants most closely resembling God’s original creation.”

Fittingly, Anonby’s doctoral dissertation was on Milton’s Paradise Lost and the idea of Christian society. He still counts Milton among his favourites, but is quick to include Renaissance literature, and Romantic poetry and prose.

Such orthodoxy has hardly hemmed him in, however. In 1984 Dr. Anonby packed up his family and work to travel to Kenya where he studied the now-famous writer Ngugi wa Thiog-o of the Kikuyu tribe. “Africa profoundly changed us,” Dr. Anonby said. “There, relationships with people are more important than agendas.”

Kenya became a passionate focus in the Anonbys’ lives over the next several years. Dr. Anonby stayed an extra year to sit as the academic dean at Pan Africa Christian College, returning in 1989 for two more years of service. He filled many roles during these two sabbaticals in Africa: teaching during the week, preaching in tent meetings and village churches on the weekends, and playing the organ and piano in Nairobi Pentecostal Church on Sundays. He and his wife Elisabeth are returning at a pivotal time, as PACC is on the verge of being recognized as a degree-granting institution. “We are looking forward to going back, to teaching and preaching again,” he says. “Africa never forgets.”

The stories Dr. Anonby tells, whether of his college graduation at a Saskatoon Bible school or his “peak experience” of climbing Mount Kilimanjaro, betray an inexhaustible curiosity in the richness of the world. His students know that he brings a similar wonder to the sometimes-arid world of academics.

“The best students respond to the literature,” he explains. “They let it carry them. There’s a difference between an acceptable scholarly paper and one that has a touch of imagination.”

That touch of imagination and enthusiastic synthesis of life is evident in everything Dr. Anonby approaches. From challenging students to feel Milton’s genius to bringing mountaintop sunsets into the classroom, Dr. Anonby has made our university richer.

To use a Kenyan, Kiswahili phrase, “Kwaheri ya Kuonana.” Good-bye with blessings, until we meet again.