"The bookcase glows, backlit in crimson light—tall and broad, its shelves empty—" This singular sentence is all that survives of the fourth draft of something I have been trying to write for a month. Thirty or more pages of my notebook are filled with attempts to articulate the impression I had on leaving the Casa Fernando Pessoa, where said bookcase glows, backlit in crimson light—tall and broad, its shelves empty—the contents on display behind archival glass. The image of the bookcase followed me from Lisbon to a village outside Santarém, where the days burn hot and the breeze doesn't rise till almost nightfall; followed me to the Silver Coast, where, looking out over the flat turquoise mirror of a lagoon, my mind's eye saw the empty shelves, every bit as dominating in memory as they are on exhibition. Why is it that on a hot summer day, looking at the water and wondering how cold it is, and would I maybe like to swim, I should carry the image of a long gone writer's empty bookcase—or the image of the missing books lined up in four long rows, two on either side of the room where the bookcase lives now—denuded—it and the multilingual library safely behind archival glass. Softly lit. More like objects of devotion now than mere books and bookcase.
I love reading your essays. They are so beautiful.