A decade ago, I brought home the 4 books that comprise The Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell. I’ve tried to start the first book several times, yet they remain on the shelf, unread.
Maybe — someday — I’ll be ready to read them.
Yesterday, I texted my brother to ask a question. We don’t really talk, but we text. We had a long conversation, about as long as you can have via text message without losing your mind, which ended with this exchange. ME: Our mother is literally rolling over in her grave. HIM: She’s been doing that for years. I laughed — was that meant to be funny? — but there was no one to share the laugh with, and I wondered, for the first time in a long time, what my brother was thinking, if he’d been joking, or was he serious, did I misunderstand?, was he waiting for a response, or no. Was he having a laugh too?
Maybe — someday — I’ll be ready to ask him.
Later in the day, I set aside the memoir I’m working on (speaking of decades) and read this article about The Alexandria Quartet. These words stepped out to greet me: If the books are about love, they are also about hate. About empire, power, Palestine, nationalism, money, deceit, assassination, alliances, spying, religion, friendship, betrayal … Now we know how literally we should have taken the statement: “Love is every sort of conspiracy.”
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With that in mind, back to work …
i’m going to write about my family and title it, “If you would have called me instead of texting, I wouldn’t have written this book.”
(maybe you should start on the last book?? or, at least, the second…larry may have needed some time to get the ball rolling.)
You win! That’s the best damned laugh I’ve had all week.
And P.S. Next time I say I’m writing a memoir, just effing shoot me.
Love that!
“I felt I was saving Nessim with every kiss I gave you.”
I don’t know what these books are about, but love that sentence and all it implies. Lives are built of lesser things.
These books, from the minute I heard about them, have seemed like the perfect exotic escape. Yet ….. there they sit, collecting too much dust.
I would like to read a bit of your memoir. Is that possible?
It’s tight to the vest for now, but maybe one day. Thanks for asking. Even my husband hasn’t had a peek, and he’s my first reader….
Sometimes, just sometimes, reading about the book is just as good as reading the book. I mean, the unread books on my shelf are like sexy sirens, calling my name, but after I read them, I know better.
Anna, that might just be my profound statement of the week. Thank you.
“Love is every sort of conspiracy.”
Amen.
“She’s been doing that for years.” That had to be a joke. Had to. Right? I would have laughed, too.
These are such beautiful books, I still feel the scent of them. But alas! I did not finish either. I feel seriously guilty about that. Lost the trail, must start again. I know we will be rewarded.
Yes, these are in my long long trail of started-but-didn’t-get-very-far books. *sigh*
I admit, I’ve never heard of Lawrence Durrell. Can I still blame my mother for that? Why not, right? I mean, it’s not like she can argue with me. So, I looked him up and found this quote. In the words of Lyra, love.
“Perhaps our only sickness is to desire a truth which we cannot bear rather than to rest content with the fictions we manufacture out of each other.”
I wonder what my mother would think of all this text messaging business. And Facebook and Twitter. When she passed she still had a phone from 1970 with the loud ringer and long twisty cord.
I miss the twisty cord. It gave you something to fiddle with while you waited to see whether HE would answer the phone, remember who you were, and correctly assume you were calling in the hopes that he might take the hint and ask you out.
And by ‘you’ I mean, um, me.