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The art of medicine
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Literature for nostalgics
I love books. I love them so much I even love reading about books. And reading about reading. And reading about other readers. I can’t decide what book club to join. I feel I might miss out on others. I have no time for them anyway, what good is talking about reading when you could use your time to DO more reading. And read about people meeting at book clubs to discuss their reading. The Dumas club perhaps, now that is a book club worth going to. Worth reading about too, even better perhaps (yes, I do have a weak spot for Perez-Reverte). Maybe I should start a book club, my own book club. Wait a minute, I am my own book club already. And I am sadly closed to new members however… At my club I sometimes read very exclusive writers, you know. Writers that have never been read by any other readers at any other book club in the charted world. Writers like myself, for example. Or like my fiancée, whose text messages are sometimes filled with such inexplicable sadness. Is literature a function of the technological world? Is fiction an app? I will look for an answer in the books…And if I find it out, I will write it down somewhere, in an obscure note at the bottom of a page in a book about the soil composition in Bolivia and the extinction of the Eocene elephants. So make sure you read the fine print at the bottom of such texts if you want the key to knowledge. Or you could just google it… The speed of thought today defies reflection. Action, terrorizing action pushes thoughts through, unsanctioned by the judge of beauty who was once the master of our soul. We process rather than slowly digest, swallow whole rather than taste, shout rather than sing, demolish and rebuild rather than consolidate and beautify. The world has awoken me to madness and I want to go back to sleep, back to the slow movement of waves, the slumber of the deep. And dream of life, not one but many, different and bizarre, as many as there are mouths to speak or eyes to see and minds to think them. So give myself back to my books, let me slide away from what is real and discover what was real or will be real, let us all just pause and…no, not think, but rather stop thinking. And just read about thinking, read about ourselves reading about ourselves reading about ourselves reading…
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I still chose to navigate the shallow waters of the coast and keep close to the shore, but I tentatively sink a toe or two in the foam of the waves from time to time. One day I will make the leap, or unfold the sails, or issue an aaarghhh to me maties and head for the open see of paper, ink and nostalgia. And leave this all behind... If I could only leave the couch behind as well...
Wealthy Romans ate their meals on couches and were waited upon by slaves with food and wine and threw their scraps on mosaic floors patterned with fish skeletons and debauchery while nimble girls danced and young men played lyre and pipe. I therefore can't see why a dry couch should dampen papyrus or dull a sharp stylus dipped in the turgid ink of squid and nostalgia.