of the modern world is especially
loved by President Mubarak and his wife. Or so Mahmoud told me. So it might be unwise even to speculate on its transformation
into a seaside sky of letters, glittering in the bomb blast of a New Year night.
Is it even polite to contemplate such destruction? No, it is not. Not even in light-headed revenge for having been so sick.
Or I should shroud my contemplation in code. But I do not have a code. Maurice used to have one. He liked to mix letters and
numbers for the schoolboy thoughts and hopes that in schooldays needed disguise. And he continued doing so well into his Oxford
days, maybe beyond.
Just before my old friend died last year he tried to explain his code to me. There were a few bits of script left but he was
weak by then and we did not make any progress. I read him his account of the Red Tents and he smiled at the memory of Cleopatra’s
mermaids. That bit had survived because I had written it down from his dictation. But he could no more understand his juvenile
school jottings than can scholars understand so many scratches on old walls, pots and plates.
This place where Cleopatra once sat would be wonderful as a sky full of glass. No. Stop it. I regret the thought but can no
more stop myselfthinking it than stop myself vomiting. This would be a new destruction. ‘Destruction’ is always the word that accompanies
‘Alexandrian Library’ in books. The first library here has long been famous for its death even though no one can agree precisely
how that death began – or ended. Some blame Cleopatra’s first visit from a careless Julius Caesar, the spread of flames from
ship to shore. Others blame the Christians or the Arabs or other vandals. Last night I readily agreed with Mahmoud that excessive
nostalgia is an Alexandrian curse, that it is absurd for visitors constantly to compare his city with what once it had been
and what it has lost. But this new library is an incitement.
The first library of the Ptolemies was an extraordinary creation of the human mind, the definer of learning itself. Here was
the first collection that aimed to hold all books from everywhere. Other kings had built collections to show that they and
their kingdoms were great. Alexandria celebrated the greatness of everything its rulers could borrow, steal or buy. No one
knows what the first library looked like or how large it was. But we do know what was done here.
Yes, I know. I should stop complaining. I need to feel more positive before I write much more. I am merely sick and discontent.
What does this library have that no other library has? Nothing very much. There are 500,000 remaindered books from France,
some records of how the French made fools of themselves in the Suez crisis. The French, it seems, have been generous in their
gifts. There are a few Islamic collections, all of them carefully filleted so as not to incite or offend. Or so it is said.
I do not know if that is true. A library can certainly be a dangerous thing. When Mr Mubarak keeps Egypt calm and bland, many
seem grateful to him. I too should be more grateful. It is warm here. It is clean. It does not make me sick. I am going to
start this Cleopatra day with something modest, with her indexes and lists. It may seem wrong to have come so far and to be
spending hours at a desk beside electronic catalogues. But since this is the birthplace of the index and the book catalogue,
it is not perhaps so very wrong.
The Greeks of Egypt loved names. They loved lists of names. Their names had meanings as ours once had meanings. Cleopatra
meant ‘famed for her father’. There were Cleopatras who had lived and those whom the living had imagined. Fiction on one side,
fact on another: that is common enough in a library. Separating those two groups of Cleopatras was one of the first purposes
of a librarian.
Fiction was defined through lists of names, the names of characters, as we call
loved by President Mubarak and his wife. Or so Mahmoud told me. So it might be unwise even to speculate on its transformation
into a seaside sky of letters, glittering in the bomb blast of a New Year night.
Is it even polite to contemplate such destruction? No, it is not. Not even in light-headed revenge for having been so sick.
Or I should shroud my contemplation in code. But I do not have a code. Maurice used to have one. He liked to mix letters and
numbers for the schoolboy thoughts and hopes that in schooldays needed disguise. And he continued doing so well into his Oxford
days, maybe beyond.
Just before my old friend died last year he tried to explain his code to me. There were a few bits of script left but he was
weak by then and we did not make any progress. I read him his account of the Red Tents and he smiled at the memory of Cleopatra’s
mermaids. That bit had survived because I had written it down from his dictation. But he could no more understand his juvenile
school jottings than can scholars understand so many scratches on old walls, pots and plates.
This place where Cleopatra once sat would be wonderful as a sky full of glass. No. Stop it. I regret the thought but can no
more stop myselfthinking it than stop myself vomiting. This would be a new destruction. ‘Destruction’ is always the word that accompanies
‘Alexandrian Library’ in books. The first library here has long been famous for its death even though no one can agree precisely
how that death began – or ended. Some blame Cleopatra’s first visit from a careless Julius Caesar, the spread of flames from
ship to shore. Others blame the Christians or the Arabs or other vandals. Last night I readily agreed with Mahmoud that excessive
nostalgia is an Alexandrian curse, that it is absurd for visitors constantly to compare his city with what once it had been
and what it has lost. But this new library is an incitement.
The first library of the Ptolemies was an extraordinary creation of the human mind, the definer of learning itself. Here was
the first collection that aimed to hold all books from everywhere. Other kings had built collections to show that they and
their kingdoms were great. Alexandria celebrated the greatness of everything its rulers could borrow, steal or buy. No one
knows what the first library looked like or how large it was. But we do know what was done here.
Yes, I know. I should stop complaining. I need to feel more positive before I write much more. I am merely sick and discontent.
What does this library have that no other library has? Nothing very much. There are 500,000 remaindered books from France,
some records of how the French made fools of themselves in the Suez crisis. The French, it seems, have been generous in their
gifts. There are a few Islamic collections, all of them carefully filleted so as not to incite or offend. Or so it is said.
I do not know if that is true. A library can certainly be a dangerous thing. When Mr Mubarak keeps Egypt calm and bland, many
seem grateful to him. I too should be more grateful. It is warm here. It is clean. It does not make me sick. I am going to
start this Cleopatra day with something modest, with her indexes and lists. It may seem wrong to have come so far and to be
spending hours at a desk beside electronic catalogues. But since this is the birthplace of the index and the book catalogue,
it is not perhaps so very wrong.
The Greeks of Egypt loved names. They loved lists of names. Their names had meanings as ours once had meanings. Cleopatra
meant ‘famed for her father’. There were Cleopatras who had lived and those whom the living had imagined. Fiction on one side,
fact on another: that is common enough in a library. Separating those two groups of Cleopatras was one of the first purposes
of a librarian.
Fiction was defined through lists of names, the names of characters, as we call
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