Tonight:
9°c
I live with books. As a child a book was my reward for not screaming in protest at having my hair cut, a book was what I wanted for Christmas and my birthday, and a book was my transport to wilder shores than those of the Isle of Wight. In the army, books saved my sanity far more than cigarettes and alcohol; as a student they were my seducers, my mentors tuning the engineering of my mind, and as a traveller they have been perfect companions on my magic carpets. Books have shut out noise and nuisance, hunger and fatigue, have kept me awake and put me to sleep, have been my companions at breakfast and in bed, on trains and planes and ferries.
Once mine, books stay with me. A long row of Beatrix Potter is as much at hand as the longer rows of lexicons of art, The Wind in the Willows jostles the Bible and a dictionary of the Christian Church, Virgil and Chaucer (set books at school) share shelves with T S Eliot and Palgrave they document my life. Though every room in my house serves more as library than any other purpose, I boast to myself that I know where every book is to be found, that in pitch darkness I can put my finger on everything from the Apocrypha to a study of the drawings of Taddeo Zuccaro, from a fat biography of Ataturk to a slim volume on the Z, a rare Czechoslovak motor car between the wars.
I can boast no longer. Between Kenneth Clark on Landscape and the reminiscences of Friedländer, there is a gap. Friedländer on landscape is not where it should be. The sense of enlightenment on first reading this extraordinary book was almost physical and I took it with me as a talisman when I joined the army; I have dipped into it occasionally ever since, but when I last did so, cannot have returned it to its shelf.
In every room there are stacks of books not yet returned to shelves but my Friedländer is in none of them. I have lent it to no one a wise man never lets his books out of his sight. As my daily woman (once a week) is forbidden ever to move a book, no matter where it is, she is not to blame. Winck (my Alsatian) has lost her interest in books and has not eaten one for years (she favoured old Royal Academy catalogues). The very tall American art historian who always took books from low shelves and put them back on higher ones has for years been compelled to stay with other hosts. Who then, but me, can be responsible for Friedländer's being the most obstinately lost of sheep?
It is not as bad as losing a dog (could anything in my life be as bad as that?) but the loss niggles and gnaws in my subconscious mind and suddenly sends me hither and yon on wild goose chases. It induces, if not quite madness, melancholy and misgiving. How many more books shall I discover to be lost? Looking for Friedländer, shall I find only more gaps on my shelves?
