For my friend Mahendra Rathod. *** The cliché ‘there’s a time for everything’ is sometimes borne out in curious ways. And nothing can be more curious than the business of buying books. For years, sometimes decades perhaps, one may regard a particular book or author in a bookshop staring one in the face - often to the point of annoyance - without the slightest tremor of interest. And then, bang! One day for no apparent reason or stimulus you drop book / author into the basket. Jorge Luis Borges was, I knew, a great writer. Much had been written about him, and his ‘library’ quote - the only thing I was familiar with - was now a commonplace, even finding its way to bookshop carry bags as a statement of chic. But I was never sufficiently moved, much less tempted to read him. He just wasn’t in my range of bibliophilic vision. For as long as I have known him - a decade nearly - my friend Mahendra Rathod, a great and passionate Borges fan, never lost lost an opportunity to sing the great man’s praises (justly no doubt), and each time, while I conceded the exalted status, I never once thought of trying that drink. Truth to tell, I rather felt like a gullible member of an audience on whom a card was being forced by a parlour conjuror (if at this point Mahendra wants to take an axe to me I won’t hold it against him). Some years ago, more drastically, when a fair (and tough) one asked me if I had read Marquez I had airily (and rashly) dismissed the question saying I didn’t read the Latin Americans. The phenomenon at play here, in both instances, is that brand of pig-headedness unique to bibliophiles: an unreasoning resistance for which there is no rational explanation. I suffer from this in very large measure, so I know it only too well. A possible explanation might lie in one’s own severely constricted interests, a beam of laser-like coherence that admits of no deviation whatsoever, but that’s just a thought. Well, what do you know? This morning I found a nice tight copy, hardbound too, of Borges’s “Ficciones” (in English mercifully, although the title was as given), and quite without a second thought dropped it into my shopping basket. And as I did so I cast a long-distance metaphorical sideways glance at my friend, tongue languidly ambling into cheek. Of course, it’s still a far cry from actually reading the book, but I suppose some kind of hurdle has been unobtrusively removed to the stands. But if there was aberration there, I quickly sprang back to type with Paul Gallico’s heart breaking masterpiece of Dunkirk, “The Snow Goose” - over which I expended half a dozen handkerchiefs this evening. Weighty Borges could wait. *** JJ. 14/12/14
Posted on: Sun, 14 Dec 2014 15:55:25 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015