Mo

"We are shaped and fashioned by what we read." Goethe

In Mountolive, Durrell describes a commercial world in which the boundary between the necessary, the beautiful, the useless and the supernatural practically does not exist: “Here there were clairvoyants too, and card readers, or those who deftly pour ink into the palm of your hand and, for half a piastre, gaze into a crystal to tell you what secret mysteries you conceal within your soul. Here the itinerant merchants offer every conceivable kind of merchandise, wildly differing in purpose: from carpets from Shiraz and Baluchistan, soft as down, to Marseilles tarot cards, incense from the Hejaz, green beads against the evil eye, combs, seeds, little mirrors for birdcages, spices, amulets and paper fans... the list is endless; and each of them, of course, carries in his personal bag, like some medieval cleric selling papal indulgences...” What a magnificent inventory of the Mediterranean. Shiraz and Baluchistan provide the carpets, the Hejaz the incense, Marseilles the tarot cards, and somewhere among them appear the green beads against the evil eye, the seeds, the spices, the combs and that wonderfully specific “little mirrors for birdcages.” Geography in Durrell does not sit upon a map. It is carried on one’s back, folded, scented, rattling, sold for a few piastres and passed from hand to hand. And that is precisely why his final comparison is so good. The medieval seller of indulgences and the Alexandrian itinerant merchant belong to different religions, centuries and worlds, but they understand the same ancient principle of commerce: the most valuable commodity is not always the object. Sometimes it is the promise that comes with it. The indulgence promises a reduction of the punishment for sin. The green bead promises protection from the evil eye. The amulet promises invisible protection. The tarot offers the future, the crystal a secret, and the fortune-teller who pours ink into your palm offers, for half a piastre, something even more tempting: an explanation of yourself. Beside them lie the carpet, the comb, the seeds and the fan, perfectly innocent objects that do exactly what they were made to do. And this mixture is wonderful. Because Durrell’s market does not divide the human being into rational and superstitious. The same person can buy spices for dinner, seeds for the garden, a comb for their hair and a green bead against the evil eye, without feeling any need to resolve the contradiction. Civilisations, in fact, rarely live as neatly as we later arrange them in textbooks. Alexandria especially. The city founded by Alexander, ruled by the Ptolemies, speaking Greek and Egyptian, becoming Roman, Christian, Arab, Ottoman and cosmopolitan once again, gathered over the centuries not only peoples, but their ways of explaining the inexplicable. That is why, in Durrell, the crystal, the tarot, the incense and the bead do not seem like exotic decoration. They are a small archaeology of human beliefs, still alive upon the market stall. There is one small detail in this passage that particularly delights me. Half a piastre. That is how much it costs to be told “what secret mysteries you conceal within your soul.” Durrell seems deliberately to put a price on the priceless. The carpet has a price. The incense has a price. The comb has a price. Even the secret of your own soul, it turns out, can be offered for sale in the marketplace for half a piastre. But there is one commodity missing from this endless list. Doubt. That, one must bring oneself. Good night.

"I was happy not because of any particular book, but because I was surrounded by books." Marcel Proust

Read, read, read! Better a little dust on the furniture than in the brain.

Whatever you do, please don't stop reading. Read for joy. Read for education. Read for resistance. Read books. Read about experiences that differ from your own. Just. Keep. Reading.