IN THE PAST, I’ve always had a fractious relationship with chance,
coincidence. But I wasn’t foolish enough to dismiss such things out of hand.
For instance, when I was growing up I became obsessed with mythology (I think
this had something to do with the film The
Clash of the Titans, a big blockbuster released around the time I was six
or seven years old). My parents, always keen to encourage me to read, learn,
broaden my horizons, bought me a large, glossy, illustrated book on Greek
Mythology for my next birthday. And I always remember, when I unwrapped the
present that day, and started to flick through the pages of the book,
marvelling over the beautiful full-colour illustrations of Medusa and Pegasus,
a powerful, intoxicating new book smell assailing my senses, a smell I find
hard to describe (was it the ink? the thick shiny paper the book was printed
on? some chemical solution?). And I don’t know if it was the excitement of
receiving the one present I wanted most that birthday, that the book was
everything I hoped it would be, the stories inside so compelling, bringing all
those myths and legends to life, that made that smell so mesmerising or not,
that my senses were stirred to such a degree, I associated it with almost
magical qualities.
Fast forward fifteen, maybe even twenty
years, and I’m looking around one of the book stalls down Spitalfields Market,
and I spy a large hardcover book on Greek Mythology, not the same book as the
one I owned as a boy, but of the same dimensions. Curious, I picked it up and
opened the pages, and in an instant, I was assailed by that exact same new book
smell, even though this book was printed in the 1970’s. And I could never quite
get my head around how that could possibly be the case. Books are strange like
that, I know, possessed of beguiling properties. But even if I rationalise
things, what were the chances of me picking up a book on mythology that had
been printed with the same ink, on the same shiny paper, with the same chemical
solution that produced (and retained) that heady, olfactory delight in me?
None. Zero. But it happened, and I had to respect the fact.
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